Anderson v. City of Fort Pierce
Anderson v. City of Fort Pierce
2015 WL 11251963 (S.D. Fla. 2015)
February 12, 2015

Lynch, Frank J., Jr.,  United States Magistrate Judge

Video
Social Media
Failure to Produce
Download PDF
To Cite List
Summary
The court found that the Plaintiff's independently made examination notes were irrelevant and denied the Defendant's Motion to Compel. The court also found that the Defendant was entitled to the Plaintiff's social media information, but the time frame parameter of the requests was too vague and overbroad. The parties were instructed to confer and reach an agreement on the specific date to use for what social media pictures are discoverable, and the Plaintiff to produce all responsive discovery by a certain date.
Kristin Anderson, Plaintiff,
v.
City of Fort Pierce, Defendant
CASE NO. 14-14095-CIV-MARTINEZ/LYNCH
Signed February 12, 2015

Counsel

Karen Coolman Amlong, William Robert Amlong, Alison Leigh Churly, Amlong & Amlong, PA, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Plaintiff.
Douglas T. Noah, Gail C. Bradford, Patricia Maria Rego Chapman, Dean, Ringers, Morgan & Lawton, PA, Orlando, FL, G. Clay Morris, Dean, Ringers, Morgan & Lawton, P.A., Orlanod, FL, for Defendant.
Lynch, Frank J., Jr., United States Magistrate Judge

ORDER ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO COMPEL (DE 84)

*1 THIS CAUSE comes before this Court upon the above Motion. At issue are the Defendant's Second Set of Interrogatories and the Defendant's Third Request for Production. Having reviewed the Motion, Response, and Reply, this Court finds as follows:
1. Two subject matter areas of discovery are at issue. The first subject area concerns the psychological IME performed by Dr. Silversmith on October 20, 2014. The Defendant seeks “any recordings, in any form”, and all documentary memorializations made by the Plaintiff during the course of and related to that examination. This very same IME was subject of a prior discovery ruling. By Order found at DE 35, this Court told the Plaintiff that she may not record that examination. She could make neither a video nor audio recording of it. The tenor of the Defendant's present discovery requests and Motion to Compel implies that the Plaintiff violated that Order by recording the IME.
2. The briefing of the dispute clarifies that the Plaintiff did not actually “record” the IME in the common understanding of that word. In conformance with that prior Order (DE 35), the Plaintiff made no video or audio recording of the IME. What the briefing reveals is that the Plaintiff instead took eight pages of notes about the examination, some of which were notes made during the examination. This is the “recording” subject of the instant Motion. Had the Defendant complied with Local Rule 7.1(a)(3)'s requirement for a pre-filing conference, the Defendant may have known about the true nature of the Plaintiff's “recording” from the start.
3. The narrow question before this Court, therefore, is whether the Defendant is entitled to the Plaintiff's handwritten notes. This Court observes that the wording of the subject discovery requests may be broad enough to encompass handwritten notes. Therefore the Plaintiff's clarification that no recording was made of the IME does not moot the Motion. Moreover in its Reply the Defendant pursues the disclosure of the notes. The Defendant concedes that part of those notes count as work product, and thus are protected, because the Plaintiff made them while in consultation with her attorney. “However, any notes taken during the actual examination that serve as a handwritten recording of what occurred in the examination and/or memorialize the examination”, the Defendant contends, “are relevant and are not protected by the attorney-client privilege [or] by the work-product privilege.”
4. This Court denies the Defendant's Motion to Compel because it finds the Plaintiff's independently made examination notes irrelevant. For the reason why these notes are not relevant, this Court refers back to its prior Order (DE 35) on that IME. The reason for preventing the Plaintiff from making a video or audio recording of that examination is the same reason why her personal notes are irrelevant. It is the IME doctor's report that is relevant. Whatever incidental notes were generated during the course of that IME, whether taken by the doctor or the Plaintiff, is not relevant. The focus should be on the doctor's formally rendered report, which is the product of his examination of the Plaintiff.
*2 5. This Court turns next to the other subject matter area in dispute. The Defendant seeks all photographs or videos that the Plaintiff posted and/or depicts the Plaintiff “that have been uploaded to any social media account” of hers. The Defendant also seeks “the username and web address for every social medial account” of hers. The parties dispute the relevance of the Plaintiff's social media information. As for the time frame at issue, the Defendant seeks any such social media photographs or videos that have been uploaded “since the date of the incidents alleged in the complaint.” The Defendant propounded these requests on October 28, 2014; the Plaintiff filed her Complaint on March 5, 2014.
6. Before determining the relevance of the Plaintiff's social media pictures, this Court first reviews the nature of her lawsuit. She is alleging sex discrimination and harassment as well as retaliation during her employment in the city police department. One effect of this discrimination and retaliation was to “impair[ ] her mental health to the point that she had no choice but to resign.” She alleges that she resigned “pursuant to her psychologist's advice” “rather than wait to be fired in [one supervisor's] retaliatory wrath or made sick again by [another supervisor's] non-stop hectoring.” As a consequence of the Defendant's alleged wrongdoings, the Plaintiff claims damages that include “emotional pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, and other non-pecuniary losses”, and she seeks compensation for those damages. The Defendant argues that the Plaintiff thereby places her “quality of life” at issue and that her social media pictures are relevant thereto.
7. This Court reviews recent case law regarding the discoverability of a litigant's social media information. SeeDavenport v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co., 2012 WL 555759 (M.D. Fla. 2012) and Palma v. Metro PCS Wireless, Inc., 18 F.Supp.3d 1346 (M.D. Fla. 2014). See also, Potts v. Dollar Tree Stores, Inc., 2013 WL 1176504 (M.D. Tenn. 2013), Higgins v. Koch Dev. Corp., 2013 WL 3366278 (S.D. Ind. 2013), Holder v. AT&T Servs., Inc., 2013 WL 5817575 (M.D. Tenn. 2013), Smith v. Hillshire Brands, 2014 WL 2804188 (D. Kan. 2014), and Newill v. Campbell Transp. Co., Inc., 2015 WL 267879 (W.D. Penn. 2015). See also, Nucci v. Target Corp., 2015 WL 71726 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015). This survey of case law shows that social media content is generally discoverable. The mere fact that the Plaintiff activated a social media site's privacy settings to restrict who may access and view her postings does not provide blanket exemption from discovery in this civil litigation. As this Court also explained in that prior discovery Order (DE 35), this litigation is active and ongoing, and the Plaintiff must honor her discovery obligations even if the requested discovery concerns private information.
8. In other words discovery's broad range of relevancy encompasses the social media pictures that the Defendant now seeks. The above-surveyed case law further shows that there is a limit to the breadth of relevance and that unwarranted “fishing expeditions” should be avoided. This Court sees no such problem here. First, the Plaintiff has put her mental health and quality of life at issue, and the Defendant seeks the social media pictures for that reason. Broadly speaking, this is sufficient grounds. Second, the only way for the Defendant to known whether they are truly relevant is to see and review them.
9. There are, of course, privacy concerns of a more practical nature. This Court trusts that the Defendant and its counsel will handle the Plaintiff's social media discovery in an appropriate, considerate, and professional manner. This Court therefore declines in camera review.
*3 10. It also is worth emphasizing that this ruling is limited to the discovery context and its broad definition of what is relevant and what is likely to lead to admissible evidence. Whether the produced discovery will be admissible as evidence has yet to be determined. What evidentiary weight the produced discovery will have and what meaningful insight it will bear on the Plaintiff's mental health and quality of life claims have yet to be determined.
11. Thus this Court finds “relevant” for discovery purposes the Plaintiff's social media pictures. To this extent this Court compels its production, and there is no need for further argument on this point.
12. While this Court agrees with the Defendant regarding the subject matter of the requests, this Court agrees with the Plaintiff that the time frame parameter is too vague and overbroad. The time frame that the Defendant imposes is “since the date of the incidents alleged in the complaint.” This is too indefinite to be a useable guidepost. This case lacks a clear injury date. Rather this case concerns alleged wrongdoings that occurred over a span of time. Consequently the requests' time frame as currently worded does not indicate either expressly or impliedly a clear point in time. The absence of a clear point in time is problematic: it leaves unclear, and unverifiable, what the Plaintiff should produce. Indeed this Court is unable to discern on its own what specific date to apply.
13. To this extent—with regard to the requests' time frame—the Motion to Compel is denied. As to the resolution of this particular shortcoming, this Court will defer it to the parties. This Court trusts that the parties will be able to agree to a specific date. Social media pictures posted on or after that specific date shall be produced; pictures posted before that date are not covered and the Plaintiff has no obligation to produce them. This Court trusts that the parties will be reasonable in selecting that specific date, with the Plaintiff giving due consideration to the broad scope of relevance for discovery purposes, with the Defendant giving due consideration to the limits on discovery and to avoid it turning into an unwarranted fishing expedition, and with both parties adhering to the general spirit of the above case law.
14. Should the parties not be able to agree to a specific date and should the parties need to seek judicial relief, this Court will consider carefully the reason for the failure to reach an agreement. This Court will consider awarding sanctions against both the offending party and its counsel should it find the offending party to have been unreasonable in its position.
It is therefore,
ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the Motion to Compel (DE 84) is DENIED in part and GRANTED in part. With respect to Request Nos. 1 & 2 of the Defendant's Third Request to Produce, the Motion to Compel is DENIED.
With regard to the remaining requests and interrogatories—Request Nos. 3 & 4 of the Defendant's Third Request to Produce and Interrogatory No. 1 of the Defendant's Second Set of Interrogatories—the Motion is GRANTED as to their subject matter. The subject of those requests—pictures of the Plaintiff posted to her social media accounts, generally speaking, as well as the disclosure of usernames and web addresses for her social media accounts—is discoverable. The Motion is DENIED, however, to the extent those requests are vague and overbroad as to the time frame. It is further,
*4 ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that consistent with the above instructions, the parties shall confer and reach an agreement on the specific date to use for what social media pictures are discoverable. The parties shall complete that step by WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2015. There is no need to file anything with the Court if the parties reach an agreement. Assuming the success of that endeavor, the Plaintiff shall produce all responsive discovery by FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2015.
DONE AND ORDERED in Chambers at Fort Pierce, Florida, this day of 12th February, 2015.