ISSUE I. How can a party use discovery to obtain social media information, and what discovery limitations do courts place upon this information? II. How can a party authenticate social media information in court? BRIEF ANSWER I. The best method to obtain social media information is to use production requests and allow the opposing party to provide the information. II. Parties can authenticate social media information by following the traditional framework for authentication and by using other discovery tools to prove the genuine nature of the information. DICUSSION I. Discovery Information from social media is generally discoverable and attorneys can best obtain it through traditional discovery means such as requests for production. …show more content…
A second issue in this area is how much information a court should allow a party to obtain, which is normally a question of applying traditional relevance rules. There will be specific references to Facebook in this memo, but generally any social media site will follow similar patterns. It should be noted that this is a developing area of law with limited precedent governing it. Few published decisions have set out the scope of discovery concerning social media. Agnieszka A. Mcpeak, The Facebook Digital Footprint: Paving Fair and Consistent Pathways to Civil Discovery of Social Media Data, 48 Wake Forest L. Rev. 887, 914 (2013). To date, there have been no decisions by any Federal appellate court nor have any Kansas appellate courts addressed the issue. Though, we do have decisions from the Federal District Court of Kansas. Consequently, federal district courts are largely the source of guidance on this issue. A. Methods of Obtaining the Information 1. Subpoenaing the Social Media Company While a party may attempt to subpoena a social media company for information, such a method will almost certainly fail due to protections under federal law. The Stored Communications Act (SCA) protects social media companies from releasing the data and information of its patrons because they are
Any posts on social sites can prove to be a boon for your lawyer in defending you especially if it can prove that the case was filed to harass you.
The objective of this book was to review the Discovery Process, the Federal Rules of Procedures , the tools to gather evidential information and permissible motions. After filing your pleading the courts will set an sheduling order to guide the procession of Pre-trial process. The Discovery Process is a time for exchanging evidence, documents and names of witnesses. However, if your case is strong, the opposing side will request a settlement during Discovery; in order to keep the case out of court. If the settlement isn't agreement isn't reached; discovery will resume as planned.
(Mergel, 2013). Many state courts using social media as a part of their communications strategies have already created formal social media plans. The King County, Washington courts and the Judicial Branch of Michigan both maintain guidebooks for the use of social media (King County, Washington, 2016 and Michigan Supreme Court, n.d.). These documents discuss not only social media strategy, but also issues pertaining to legal
This process involves more investigating—on both parties sides. You will be required to hand over copies of your documents, as well as answer a long list of
The next step is the Discovery Process, which is the formal fact-finding stage of litigation. There are several different types of discovery processes: interrogatories, depositions, request to produce documents, physical and mental examinations and request for admissions. Both sides would then request additional information from the other party or third parties to develop their case. In most cases if privileged information is gathered, the opposing party does not have to produce this information. In addition to information gathered, the parties may be able to determine their opponent’s theories and strengths of their courtroom presentation. Based on their discovery plan and requests.
These days, social media can play a major role in family law proceedings – especially child custody, support, and visitation cases. And while this content is often introduced in an effort to distract from a lack of “real” evidence, it can also be extremely persuasive. Below, an Anchorage, AK family law attorney from Gazewood & Weiner PC discusses the potential impact of social media on child custody cases.
The ethnical issue involve in media discovery is that attorney must not advise client to modify of delete posting or comment on social media site that would be considered relevant evidence. In additional attorney cannot use intermediary to obtain information about opposing party of witness outside the discovery procedures. Violations of these rules may lead to the attorney to sanction by the
as soon as case begins - and sometimes sooner? We will cover the paralegal’s role
Today, it is very easy to obtain information of any kind. Thanks to the convergence and development of technology. “The Internet”, which today is one of the easiest ways to obtain quick information without allot of effort. There are millions of people from around the world that use the Internet as a tool to communicate, search, and find information on about any topic imaginable. (Aynur, Nejat, 2015). In this Essay on Social Media, we will be discussing the advantages and disadvantages of easily obtainable information, the advantages and disadvantages of social media, and importantly how knowing of these things can alter how a person might use social media, as well as the credibility issues that arise from the information on
However other social media platforms such as Formspring and Twitter allow users to remain anonymous, bar the IP addresses stored on their servers. This allows users to hid behind their computers and say things that would be considered inappropriate and possibly illegal on a public stage, in the real world.
The main argument of this text is social media being an investigative object. The authors of this text clearly illustrate how social media has acted as an investigative object.
Social media is especially useful when it comes to investigations. Police officers have learned that, in using social networks to spread certain cases to the public, more information is retrieved. For instance, sending out an image of the criminal to news stations that later display it to the public often leads to feedback about the whereabouts of the criminal as seen by a citizen. Likewise, through social media accounts, we are more capable of seeing things such as who the criminal associates themselves with, as well as their whereabouts, or places they are likely to go through photo geotagging.
On a more fundamental level, most of the ethical pitfalls related to social networking can be prevented by a little forethought and exercise of common sense, without regard to ethics rules. The qualities of social networking which are so potentially problematic for lawyers are its immediacy, its accessibility, and its permanency. As a result, like all users of social media, lawyers can react to a situation instantaneously and publicly, with an online posting that will remain on the internet in some form forever. Instead of sober reflection, social media encourages a reactionary and emotional post. Instead of one-on-one communication with a colleague or friend, social media encourages a broadcast to an expansive audience. Instead of ethereal and temporary communication, social media encourages an indelible post. You can get yourself into serious trouble by tweeting an emotional reaction to a judge's adverse ruling from your iPhone as you are walking out of the courthouse, instead of
Social media can be defined as websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or participate in social networking. As a phenomenon of only the past couple of decades, it has certainly changed the way we live our everyday lives. Whether socially or professionally, it opens the door to incredible amounts of information; most of which is freely shared.
The main barrier to what social media information can be obtained by discovery is whether the information is relevant. It should first be noted that this largely only applies to the third method of using discovery to obtain social media as the other two will allow you to obtain a broader amount of information. Normally if the information you request directly relates to the matter at hand, the court will determine the information is relevant. Id. In contrast, if the request is broad and does not specifically cite a connection to the matter at hand, the court will often determine the information is not relevant and that discovery should not be allowed. Id. As an example in Mailhoit v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., the plaintiff brought a claim against her former employer Home Depot for emotional distress. 285 F.R.D. 566, 572 (C.D. Cal. 2012). The Defendants requested any social media communications between her and Home Depot employees and any reference on social media to Home Depot or the subject matter of the lawsuit. Id. The Court determined this was a valid request because it was not burdensome, it was practical, and it was “reasonable calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” Id. Request that relate directly to the matter are likely to be granted, but as requests become more generalized or less connected, you risk the court denying discovery.