Evidence
Earlier this year, the JAPCA Ethics Alert Blog reported on San Diego Bar Opinion 2011-2 (May 24, 2011) addressing a hypothetical involving a lawyer who represents former employees in an employment lawsuit and sends “friend” requests on social media websites to higher level employees of the opposing party/employer identified by the client as being disgruntled. Here’s a […]
A Sarasota man who allegedly “friended” the defendant in a case while serving on a jury could face jail time next week if found guilty of disregarding a judge’s orders, according to WTSP.com. Jacob Jock was selected to be part of a jury for a car accident case back in December. Jock was dismissed from […]
Facebook is turning to the courts to fight “clickjacking,” according to Mashable. Clickjacking occurs when users are presented with some kind of enticing material, such as a too-good-to-be-true promotion. The clickjackers add code to these links that hide the “like” button in the link itself. Once a user clicks the clickjacking link, the material is instantly […]
Twitter has to provide the U.S. Department of Justice with all account information for three users who allegedly support WikiLeaks, a federal judge ordered last Wednesday according to Mashable. U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady denied a motion to suspend previous orders that would allow the DOJ access to the Twitter account information of three people […]
A decision by Massachusetts prosecutors to subpoena the Twitter records of an Occupy Boston activist, as well as records linked to two Twitter hashtags, has free speech advocates up in arms, calling the move a violation of the First Amendment CNN reports. Suffolk County prosecutors demanded that Twitter hand over information posted on the social […]
The Arkansas Supreme Court tossed out a death row inmate’s murder conviction and said he deserves a new trial because a juror tweeted during court proceedings, Yahoo News reports. Erickson Dimas-Martinez appealed his 2010 murder conviction because a juror sent tweets despite the judge’s instruction not to post on the Internet or communicate with anyone about […]
Judges are often faced with the difficult task of juggling privacy interests with a party’s need for discovery of evidence. In the context of social media evidence, that difficulty is magnified because many litigants use social media to chronicle the intimate details of their personal lives, often behind a virtual wall of privacy features. Therefore, […]
A Connecticut judge has ordered lawyers representing a divorcing couple to exchange passwords to their clients’ Facebook and dating websites, the ABA reports. Judge Kenneth Schluger ordered the password exchange in the divorce of Stephen and Courtney Gallion. The judge cautioned in a Sept. 30 order that the exchange should be carried out by the lawyers, […]
Twitter now has the rights to “tweet,” according to Law.com. On Tuesday, Twitter dropped its trademark infringement suit in San Francisco federal court against Iowa-based Twittad, in which it claimed Twittad’s trademarked phrase “Let Your Ad Meet Tweets” was blocking its own registration of the “tweet” mark. Twittad, an online advertising company, transferred trademark rights […]
Insurers and police are using information from Facebook and Twitter to nail policyholders for filing inflated or fraudulent claims, according to the Sun Sentinel. In one instance, a woman filed a claim with her auto insurer, saying a hit-and-run driver damaged her car, but investigators discovered comments on her Facebook page indicating that her daughter […]