Social Media Are Not Your Friend Pt. 1

Social media is a great tool for staying in touch with your family and friends, and for sharing photos and information.  But if you become a party to a lawsuit, it’s not such a great thing – especially if you are sharing everything you are doing and everything you know. All of your communications, photos and posts can be, and likely will be, used by the opposing party in the proceedings. 

You may think that blocking another person will prevent the use of your social medi against you. You could not be more mistaken.  Family, friends and others can view, copy and paste your posts and photos.  They can then be shared with the opposing party.

In Alabama, social media postings can been used to:

• Prove that a plaintiff’s injury claims were exaggerated in an automobile case.
• Identify a defendant who is alleged to have broken into a home or shot a victim, especially if he bragged about it and posted photos about his actions.
• Show in a worker’s compensation case that a plaintiff’s claim that he was no longer able to work was not true because he was still working.

As a judge, I had cases that were resolved before the conclusion of the trial because one side or the other submitted Facebook posts which proved or disproved the facts in a case.

In fact, in one case, after one of the parties testified about an issue, we took a short break. During the break, that party pulled out his cell phone and was on Facebook posting things that were directly opposite to what was said on the stand.  Before the break was over, the attorney for the other party had printed out a copy of the post.  After showing it to the offending party’s attorney, the parties decided to settle their case!     

In my next blog, I will talk about the dos and don’ts for using social media when you are involved in a lawsuit (or expect to be).