Tennessee Federal Court Denies Motion To Compel Seeking Social Media Data

As you may recall, we’ve previously noted that courts are becoming a bit more skeptical of social media discovery requests.

Well, the latest example of this trend comes from a federal court in Tennessee.

In Horsnell v. Young Men’s Christian Ass’n of Middle Tennessee, No. 3:13–1130 (M.D. Tenn. Dec. 1,2014), the Plaintiff alleged violations of FMLA and other statutes as well as a retaliation claim. The court was called upon to review certain discovery requests after the defendant filed a motion to compel. Apparently, in response to a particular discovery request, the Plaintiff produced some limited social media data. Dissatisfied with the response, the defendant filed a motion to compel, and the court found as follows:

By its motion, [Defendant] seeks an order compelling Plaintiff to provide certain nonpublic information contained on Plaintiff’s Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Apparently, Plaintiff has produced certain limited information publically available on these two social networking sites.

This Court has previously found that an adverse party does not have a generalized right to rummage through information that a party has limited from public view on a social networking site. Rather, there must first be a threshold showing that the requested information is reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Otherwise, a discovering party would be allowed to engage in the proverbial fishing expedition, in the hope that there might be something of relevance in Plaintiff’s Facebook account. The undersigned finds that Defendant has failed to make a sufficient threshold showing to support an order requiring Plaintiff to produce copies of nonpublic information from his Facebook and LinkedIn sites, and to that extent Defendant’s motion to compel further response to Interrogatory No. 13 is DENIED.

(quotations and citations omitted).

And that’s it. No longer a novel issue, the breadth and appropriateness of social media discovery requests is now addressed by courts in two paragraphs.

Keep this in mind, folks.

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