Court Orders Production of Plaintiff's User Names and Passwords for Social Network Accounts

McMillen v. Hummingbird Speedway, Inc., No. 113-2010 CD (C.P. Jefferson, Sept. 9, 2010)

In this personal injury case, defendant Hummingbird Speedway, Inc. sought access to plaintiff’s social network accounts and requested production of his user names, log-in names, and passwords. Plaintiff objected, arguing that the information was confidential. Upon defendants’ Motion to Compel, the court found the requested information was not confidential or subject to the protection of any evidentiary privilege and ordered its production to defendants’ attorneys within 15 days and that plaintiff should not take steps to delete or alter the existing information on his social network accounts.

Plaintiff was allegedly injured after being rear-ended during a cool-down lap following a stock care race in the summer of 2007. In the course of the ensuing litigation, defendant Hummingbird Speedway, Inc. requested production of plaintiff’s user names, log-in names, and passwords for any social network accounts. Plaintiff objected arguing that the information was confidential. After viewing the public portion of plaintiff’s account, which included comments about a fishing trip and attending the Daytona 500 in Florida, defendants filed a Motion to Compel.

Reasoning that plaintiff was “essentially asking the Court to recognize a privilege for [social network] communications,” the court first established the broad scope of discovery in Pennsylvania and the limited application of evidentiary privileges, noting that “even in the arena of testimony, where the evidence will be publically divulged, the courts sanction the application of privilege, ‘only to the very limited extent that [it] has a public good transcending the normally predominant principle of utilizing all rational means for ascertaining the truth.”

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Source: ediscoverylaw.com