The New York Law Journal has a short article today on an expansion of New York law regarding protective orders from over-reaching discovery (CPLR 3103(a)). Governor Cuomo signed it yesterday.
While it has long been the law that any person from whom discovery is sought may object to a discovery demand, the new amendment now includes objections regarding others who may merely be mentioned in the discovery being sought.
This can, as I’ll explain in a moment, be used to protect against many aspects of Facebook, social media and email demands.
The rationale for the law, however, didn’t have anything to do with Facebook. This is the simple (and quite logical) reasoning from the memo accompanying the bill:
Not addressed [in the current law] is a person about whom records are being subpoenaed from either a party or another nonparty. By way of example, if an accountant is subpoenaed to produce the records of clients who are not parties to the litigation, it is unclear under the present statute whether the non-party clients would have standing to object to the production of their records.
This is easy to understand if an accountant’s records are sought. Just because there may be a lawsuit regarding one aspect of your accountant’s practice, having nothing to do with you, does that mean that your private records should be disclosable? Shouldn’t you at least have standing to object?
The law was proposed by Chief Administrative Judge A. Gail Prudenti and her Advisory Committee on Civil Practice to fill a procedural gap.
But what if Facebook records are sought? These requests are getting more common as the months go by, and I’ve collected a few New York decisions on the matter.
The scenario in which it would come up is easy to foresee: Joe busts his arm in a car collision (not an accident). He writes about it on Facebook. His friends, who have their privacy settings maxed out, respond. Perhaps one of them jokes in a comment or private message, “You been drinking again?”
Are the comments and messages of the friends discoverable? The law here, of course, is not whether those comments may be admissible at trial, but merely discoverable. Can the defense lawyers go on a fishing expedition through the comments and messages of friends and their lives? These friends clearly have an expectation of privacy, as Facebook has explicitly told them so.
It seems to me that this new law can, will, and should, be used to combat over-reaching Facebook demands. Expect to see decisions on this in a year or two.
I’m curious. In my state, we must provide notice to third parties when subpoenaing most types of records concerning them. If the third party serves a timely objection, then the burden is on the subpoenaing party to seek a court order requiring production. I’m curious if the prior New York law you mention concerned records intended to document the activities/transactions of the third party or if the issue related to the standing of those mentioned incidentally in the records of another.