A Post-Riley Analysis: Smartphone and Social Media Discovery

As you know, we here at Abnormal Use love writing and blogging, so much so that our editor Jim Dedman is now contributing posts to other venues.  Recently, his piece, “A Post-Riley Analysis: Smartphone and Social Media Discovery,” was published in the October 2014 issue of the Defense Research Institute’s For The Defense magazine. In the piece, he explores the potential civil implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Riley v. California, 573 U.S. ___ (2014),  in which the Chief Justice Roberts noted the extent to which we now utilize our smartphones and the privacy interests at stake in any search of such devices. The article recognizes that those very privacy interests may alter the way in which courts analyze social media and smartphone discovery.

Here’s the first bit of the article:

Litigants now live much of their lives online or through the prism of their smartphones. Knowing this, defense lawyers often attempt to obtain as much digital discovery as possible in an effort to impeach the claims of a plaintiff, whether it is in the form of social media discovery or information extracted from a smartphone. Despite the fact that plaintiffs’ lawyers now warn their clients of such efforts, plaintiffs still live their lives online at the risk of their recovery in their lawsuits.

…

With state and federal courts now routinely ruling upon the permissible scope of such discovery requests, defense counsel must be aware of the potential backlash against these efforts in light of increasing concerns about the private nature of such information, and especially those recently expressed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

For the rest of the article, you’ll need to find a copy of this month’s issue of DRI’s For The Defense. For some of you, this issue is waiting in your inbox right now. Check out page 60.