MySpace, Facebook private posts discoverable in law suit?

A defense lawyer in a emotional distress claim brougt against a school district wanted access to all of the plaintiff’s postings at MySpace and FaceBook. However, a judge ruled that the plaintiff’s right to privavcy trumped the defenses right to information which or may not be relevant to defense of the suit.

Henry Gottlieb of the New Jersey Journal reports:

…Defense lawyer George Campion of Weiner Lesniak in Parsippany, N.J., began seeking more after seeing the two-page public portion of the plaintiff’s MySpace and Facebook sites.

He argues there is reason to believe that messages on the private portions of the sites will help defense psychiatric experts get at the truth of whether T.V. really suffered emotional distress, and perhaps raise credibility issues. He asked Brock for an order that would allow him to see those private texts.

The issue for the judge was whether the privacy features of MySpace and Facebook make communications there different from e-mails routed through Internet providers — e-mails often routinely discoverable in civil matters…….Rather than decide whether privacy rights automatically trump such discovery requests, [the judge] ruled that the defense had not undertaken enough discovery to show it needed the Web site messages to defend the school board adequately.

Whether for socializing, marketing or as part of their legal work, more and more lawyers are going to get familiar with FaceBook and MySpace – like it or not.

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