Skip to main content

Broad Request For Unfettered Access to All Social Media Accounts of Employee Not Allowed


Marsteller v. Butterfield 8 Stamford LLC - United States District Court, District of Connecticut


Facts:  Lauren Marsteller ("Marsteller") filed suit against Butterfield 8 Stamford LLC, Public House Investments LLC, John Gazzola, Douglas Newhook, and Ryan Slavin ("Defendants") and alleged unlawful sexual harassment and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Connecticut law, violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and Connecticut Wage and Hour Act, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and common law privacy claims.  This suit brought by Marsteller arose out of claims that Newhook and Slavin (employees of the other defendants) sexually harassed her, watched her change clothes on a company security camera, and showed the video to other employees of defendants.

In the course of litigation, Defendants sought access to Marsteller's social media accounts or in the alternative, copies of certain social media communications.  Marsteller declined to provide this information and Defendants subsequently filed a Motion to Compel disclosure of her social media communications.

Holding:  (Note, the Court also considered a request for access to Marsteller's medical records.  However, this brief only looks at the Court's consideration of the motion to compel disclosure of Marsteller's social media communications.)  Generally speaking, in federal court, parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case.  A party that resists discovery has the burden of showing why the discovery request should be denied.

Defendants argued that access to Marsteller's social media accounts should be allowed as Marsteller's social media communications encompassing materials responsive to Defendant's discovery requests were relevant to the emotion distress allegations.   Marsteller objected on the grounds that she never "posted anything relevant to her employment or the allegations in her Complaint."  A district court in New York had previously held that "Plaintiff's routine status updates and/or communications on social networking sites are not, as a general matter, relevant to her claim for emotional distress damages, nor are such communications likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence regarding the same."  

In this case, the Court held that requiring Marsteller to provide her social media passwords would constitute a "wholesale invasion of her privacy" and would be far outside the bounds of proportionality.  However, Defendants' request for copies of social media materials responsive to the requests for production were held to be reasonable and likely to lead to admissible evidence.  As a result, the Court held that requiring Marsteller to provide copies of any social media materials responsive to the two requests for production was reasonable.

Judgment:  The District Court held that while the Defendants' request for the Claimant's social media passwords was a fishing expedition and a wholesale invasion of her privacy, the request for copies of any social media materials responsive to two requests for production was lawful.

The Takeaway:  Very interesting ruling from the Court here and ultimately, I believe this is the correct ruling on Defendants' Motion to Compel.  The Defendants' attempt to get the keys to the castle (a/k/a get the social media passwords to all of the Claimant's social media accounts) was simply a bridge too far.  However, a more narrowly tailored request for copies of social media materials of the Claimant that were responsive to Defendants' two requests for production was narrowly tailored and therefore lawful.  When you look at the rules that govern discovery requests in federal court, I think the Court correctly relied upon the New York case to reach its ultimate conclusion to both deny and part of Defendants' Motion to Compel.

Majority Opinion Judge:  Magistrate Judge Merriam

Date:  November 27, 2017

Opinion:  http://hr.cch.com/eld/MarstellerButterfield112717.pdf

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum,...
Post a Comment
Read more

NLRB: Former Employee Cannot Be Barred From Work Premises After Filing Wage Suit

MEI-GSR Holdings, LLC - NLRB Facts :  MEI-GSR Holdings, LLC d/b/a Grand Sierra Resort & Casino ("GSR") operated a facility that included a hotel, casino, restaurant, clubs, bars, and a pool which were all open to the general public.  Tiffany Sargent ("Sargent") was briefly employed by GSR as a "beverage supervisor" in December of 2012.  After her employment ended, Sargent continued to socialize at one of the clubs.  GSR had a long standing practice of allowing former employees to patronize its facility and did not prohibit Sargent from doing so.  In June of 2013, Sargent and another employee filed a class and collective action against GSR for alleged unpaid wages, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and Nevada law.  In July of 2014, GSR denied Sargent access to an event at one of the clubs.  GSR followed up with a letter and stated that with the on-going litigation (from the wage suit), it decided to bar Sargent from the premises. ...
1 comment
Read more

San Diego Rolls Back Vaccine Mandate For City Workers

Last Tuesday, the San Diego City Council voted to do away with the vaccine mandate for city employees. The city’s vaccine mandate that was in place required city workers to get the coronavirus vaccine or risk termination.  Perhaps to this surprise of no one, the city’s policy came under fire with 14 employees being terminated and over 100 other employees resigning.  With the coronavirus subsiding, including in Southern California, the San Diego City Council took action. Now, bear in mind, the repeal of the vaccine mandate does not take place immediately. With that being said, the mandate will be repealed March 8th.  I suppose the question now is, what other cities or regions follow San Diego’s lead? For additional information:   https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2023-01-24/san-diego-repeals-controversial-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-citing-drop-in-cases-hospitalizations
Post a Comment
Read more