• Mail
SUBMIT A CASEABOUT
Law and Forensics
  • Capabilities
    • eDiscovery
      • Document Review and Production
      • eDiscovery Consulting and Strategy
      • ESI Preservation and Collection
      • ESI Processing and Hosting
      • Expert Testimony and Reporting
    • Cybersecurity
      • Cybersecurity Assessments
      • Board-Level Cybersecurity Services
      • Cybersecurity Consulting
      • Industry-Specific Cybersecurity Solutions
      • Cybersecurity Expert Witness Services
      • Cybersecurity Incident Response Services 
    • Forensic
      • Forensic Consulting
      • Forensic Expert Witness
      • Forensic Investigations
      • Forensic Analysis
      • Computer Forensics Services
      • Cloud Computing Forensics
      • Internet of Things Forensics
      • Mobile Device Forensics
      • Server Forensics
      • Social Media Forensics
    • Digital Banking
      • Blockchain Services
      • CSO and CRO Advisory Service
      • Digital Banking Expert Witness Services
      • Digital Banking Regulatory Compliance Services
      • Digital Banking Strategy Consulting Services
      • Digital Banking Training Services
    • Privacy
      • Privacy Consulting
      • Privacy-Focused Regulatory Services
      • Privacy Incident Response Planning
      • Privacy Program Development
  • Products
  • Insights
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
  • Social Media E-Discovery: How to Request and Respond

    INSIGHTS

Metropolitan Corporate Counsel | In-House Ops

Social Media E-Discovery: How to Request and Respond – Courts have provided guidance for litigators

May 3, 2017

By Daniel B. Garrie

Social Media E-Discovery: How to Request and Respond – Courts have provided guidance for litigators

Seeking information from social media accounts is becoming commonplace in litigation. Obtaining social media discovery, however, can pose significant challenges, as this information can take many forms, involve different file types, be generated by different users and be extremely voluminous. To avoid pitfalls, requesting parties should avoid blanket requests and be specific about the social media material they want and need. Likewise, responding parties should fully produce social media data responsive to a request, and fully document redacted or withheld material.

Scott v. United States Postal Service

The case of Scott v. United States Postal Service illustrates the importance of tailoring social media requests. Scott was a personal injury case. To help prove the lack of injury, the defendants moved to compel the production of “all postings related to any type of physical or athletic activities from June 6, 2014, to present on all social media websites, including, but not limited to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.” The plaintiff objected that this request was “immaterial and not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” The court found that the information sought was relevant but agreed that the request was overly broad. The court explained, “[A] request for discovery must still be tailored … . Otherwise, the Defendant would be allowed to engage in the proverbial fishing expedition … .”

The court found that the primary reason the defendants’ request was overly broad was that it lacked a connection to the relevant injuries for the case. The court distinguished Scott from prior similar cases where production was compelled by stating, “the Request for Production is overly broad to the extent that it seeks all social media postings ‘related to any type of physical or athletic activities from June 6, 2014, to present’ ” as opposed to “postings or photographs that reflect physical capabilities that are inconsistent with the injuries that Plaintiff allegedly suffered as a result of the accident.” As shown, when crafting requests, it is important to be specific in describing the information sought and to be sure to connect the requests to the relevant issues in the case.

In turn, parties should be careful to respond completely to requests for social media data. This can be difficult due to the multifaceted nature of social media content, which may contain posts, comments, threads, messages and “statuses” from various locations and contributors. In this regard, parties requesting social media data often assume they can readily receive all the information from a user’s account just as it appears in their browser. This approach is unrealistic. As one commentator has noted, “People tend to expect that elements linked or embedded into content will be included, but those elements are often hosted on completely different web platforms, or its hosting may have expired.”

The complexity of social media data, however, is no excuse for incomplete production, and failing to include relevant material can have serious consequences. D.O.H. v. Lake Central School Corp., for example, illustrates how incomplete production of social media can result in sanctions. In this case, the plaintiff was ordered to produce the following:

“[A]ny profiles, postings, or messages (including status updates, wall comments, causes joined, groups joined, activity streams, blog entries) and SNS [social networking service] applications for the relevant time period ‘that reveal, refer, or relate to any emotion, feeling, or mental state, as well as communications that reveal, refer, or relate to events that could reasonably be expected to produce a significant emotion, feeling, or mental state.’”

To read the full article, go to In-House Ops 

Newsletter

Sign Up for Updates!

Jobs

Apply for a Job

Products

Assessments
Playbooks
Tabletop.ai
Legal Cyber Academy
ForensicTools.dev



Contact Us

Sales Inquiry
​Press Inquiry
​Speaking Inquiry

Capabilities

Digital Banking Services
Forensic Services
Cybersecurity Services
eDiscovery Services
Privacy Services

RESOURCES

About Us
Events
Search

Law & Forensics © 2023. All Rights Reserved
  • Privacy Policy
  • Legal Notices
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more×

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settingsHide notification only

Subscribe to Our Newsletter!

* indicates required

 





Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Law and Forensics:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp’s privacy practices here.