Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyer Warns That Pennsylvania Courts Have Held That Facebook and Social Networking Information Is Discoverable By an Opposing Party If It Is Relevant To the Litigation At Hand
In the case of McMillen v. Hummingbird Speedway, Inc., the Court of Common Pleas of Jefferson County, Pennsylvania held that information posted on Facebook, MySpace, and other social network sites are not considered confidential. In fact, the Facebook policy in Section 3 regarding “Sharing Information on Facebook” notes “some of the content you share and the actions you take can show up on your friends’ homepages and other pages they visit.”
Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent that it has been shared by others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or stored by other users. You should understand that information may be reshared or copied to other users.
When you post information on another person’s profile or comment on another user’s post, that information will be subject to the other user’s privacy settings. It is further stated that “Facebook’s operators may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other civil or criminal requests if they have a good faith belief that the law requires them to respond. They likewise reserve the right to share information with companies, lawyers, courts, or other government entities “when we have a good faith belief that it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent harm or protect ourselves or you from violating our Statement of Rights and responsibilities. The Court concluded that no person choosing MySpace or Facebook as a communications forum could reasonably expect that communications would remain confidential as both sides clearly expressed the possibility of disclosure.
The Court further held that where there is an indication that a person’s social network sites contain information relevant to their prosecution or defense of a lawsuit, therefore, and given the Koken case, admonition of the Court should allow litigants to utilize all rational means for ascertaining the truth and the law’s general dispreference for allowance of privilege access to those sites should be freely granted.
In short, in Pennsylvania you may be required to provide your username and password to defendant and opposing counsel in litigation and the Court will most likely order you to provide the information and take steps not to delete or alter existing information. This experienced Pennsylvania serious injury and Philadelphia car accident lawyer advises his clients to be careful about what they post online.
