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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

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