Ramai Pandang Remeh, Ini Sebab Kenapa Penunggang Motorsikal Perlu Pakai Jaket Hujan Dengan Betul
Sumber : Ohbulan
New York Personal Injury Lawyer
Forman was about as far from prescription medical product liability as one can get and still involve personal injury. The plaintiff fell off a horse, was badly injured, and sued the owner of the horse. Forman, 2018 WL 828101, at *1. Plaintiff, who claimed to have become “reclusive” following the accident, was a heavy social media user:
At her deposition, plaintiff stated that she previously had a Facebook account on which she posted “a lot” of photographs showing her pre-accident active lifestyle but that she deactivated the account about six months after the accident and could not recall whether any post-accident photographs were posted.
Id. She also claimed to “ha[ve] difficulty using a computer and composing coherent messages” after her accident. Id. Thus, the relevance of plaintiff’s social media activities was as plain as the nose on that horse’s face. After plaintiff testified to these facts, social media information confirming or refuting them, at minimum, bears on credibility, and goes to damages, as well – right?
Well…. Not as the Appellate Division saw the issue (note: only plaintiff appealed, so the issues being considered are somewhat narrow). It limited disclosure only “to photographs posted on Facebook that plaintiff intended to introduce at trial” and “eliminate[ed] the authorization permitting defendant to obtain data relating to post-accident messages.” Forman, 2018 WL 828101, at *2. Why? The Appellate Division held that unless the defendant could find something in plaintiff’s public social media suggesting a specific basis for additional discovery, the defendant had no right to any discovery from the plaintiff’s private social media:
[T]he Appellate Division . . . employ[ed] a heightened threshold for production of social media records that depends on what the account holder has chosen to share on the public portion of the account. . . . Several courts applying this rule appear to have conditioned discovery of material on the “private” portion of a [social media] account on whether the party seeking disclosure demonstrated there was material in the “public” portion that tended to contradict the injured party’s allegations in some respect.
