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Another Example of How Facebook Can Kill Your Lawsuit

banana peel

In today’s cautionary tale, a woman, Nancy Nicolauo, was bitten by a tick, and later began suffering symptoms such as numbness, fatigue and lower back pain. Things got worse, and she eventually had problems walking and was confined to a wheelchair.

Given the tick bite, Lyme disease was suspected, but the results came back as negative. She went to a passel of doctors, and was eventually diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Nine years after the symptoms started, she got tested again for Lyme disease, and this time the results came back positive. Nicolaou decided to sue for medical malpractice, claiming her medical issue had been improperly diagnosed, causing her to suffer for all those years.

Now comes the key issue. Nicolaou received the results from the Lyme discease test in 2010, and filed her suit in 2012. She claimed she was within the two year statute of limitations (SOL) for a medical malpractice claim because she did not “discover” the misdiagnosis until she received the test results in 2010. But when a claim is based on discovery, the SOL runs from the date that the plaintiff “knew or should have known” of the negligence.

However, counsel for defendants had done a little snooping into Nicolaou’s Facebook postings. As argued by defense counsel, “As underscored by the trial court, on Feb. 14, 2010, Mrs. Nicolaou posted, ‘I had been telling everyone for years i thought it was lyme…,’ to which one of her Facebook friends responded, ‘[Y]ou DID say you had Lyme so many times!'”

Thus, as evidenced by her own Facebook postings, Nicolaou had suspected “for years” that she was suffering from Lyme disease. Therefore, she “knew or SHOULD HAVE KNOWN” that the doctors had misdiagnosed her condition years earlier. The court did not agree that the clock did not start ticking on the SOL until she had actual confirmation from the lab test. She was under a reasonable duty to investigate her suspicions.

The trial court dismissed her claims on a motion for summary judgment, and that decision was upheld by the appellate court.

Posting on Facebook is a little like playing poker with all your cards face up on the table. It can be done, but the other side knows exactly what you have.

Facebook Postings Can Kill Your Personal Injury Case

Private investigator stakeout photo documentation

Yet another cautionary tale about how the things you post on Facebook can come back to haunt you.

On Friday I received a call from a prospective client, wanting to sue her employer. The caller had filed a workers compensation claim, and she was convinced that her employer was having her followed. I explained to her that, assuming she is not just imagining that she is being followed, such conduct is not unusual. Many a workers compensation claim, personal injury claim, and disability claim has been defeated by videos showing the plaintiff engaging in activities he or she claimed were prevented by their injuries.

The caller was shocked by such an invasion of privacy, and asked if it is legal. In response to that question, allow me to introduce the case of Xiong v. Knight Trans, out of the 10th Circuit.

A woman by the name of Pahoua Xiong suffered a back injury when her vehicle collided with a Knight Transportation truck. Xiong successfully sued for her injuries, with a jury finding that she was 40% liable for the injury, and Knight was liable for the remaining 60%. She was awarded $499,200.

Knight then moved for a new trial, on two grounds. First, Knight argued that there was insufficient evidence to support the damages awarded, and second because there was new evidence, found after the trial, proving that Xiong had committed a fraud on the court.

What was this new evidence? Well, given the opening paragraph of this article, you probably figured out that it was something Xiong posted on Facebook. Indeed, after the trial, a member of Knight’s legal team happened across pictures of Xiong on Facebook, showing her partying with friends and family, seemingly pain free, despite her claims that she was in such severe pain that she was taking five or six Percocet every day.

Based on the photos, Knight conducted more discovery on social media, and then hired a private investigator to follow Xiong and record her as she went about her days.

In Federal court, to successfully argue for a new trial based on the post-trial discovery of evidence, the party must show a number of factors, the most important for this discussion being that the party was diligent prior to trial in seeking out the evidence. So Knight showed the evidence obtained on Facebook and what the private investigator uncovered, but the trial court denied the motion for new trial, holding that the evidence could have been discovered earlier with more diligence.

Knight appealed, but the 10th Circuit came to the same conclusion. That appellate court concluded that the same steps that were taken after the trial, that revealed the evidence, could have been taken before the trial. Although Knight apparently did search social media prior to the trial, its efforts failed to turn up the photos of Xiong due to a misspelling of her name. As to what the private investigator uncovered, he could have been hired just as easily prior to the trial.

So, in answer to the caller’s question about whether it is legal to have someone followed in the hope of refuting their injury claims, according to the 10th Circuit, doing so is necessary part of the investigation in order to show due diligence.

The Girl in the Red Bikini — A Facebook Tale

girl in red bikini
High School Sued for Defamation for a Posting on Facebook

I present now a fascinating case that serves to illustrate a couple of points about Internet defamation. We’ll call this one the Girl in the Red Bikini.

Enter the Fayette County School District in Georgia. School District administrators decided it would be a good idea to warn their high school students about the dangers of posting photographs on social sites such as Facebook. They came up with a presentation with the theme, “once it’s there, it’s there to stay.” A perfectly valid message to teach the high schoolers.

But then they did something strange. They decided that to really drive home the point, the presentation needed embarrassing photos posted by current students. They snooped around on their students’ Facebook pages to find what they considered illustrative examples of the poor choices being made by their students.

One photo they decided was a good illustration was a photo of student Chelsea Chaney. Ms. Chaney had dared to post a picture of her standing beside a cardboard cut-out of the artist formerly know as Snoop Dogg (he now goes by Snoop Lion in case you missed the memo). Snoop (or, rather, his cardboard cut-out) is holding a can of something. I really can’t identify it from the photo. It could be a beer but it could just as easily be an energy drink. Worse, though, in the minds of the Fayette County School District, Ms, Chaney was wearing a bikini. Put those facts together, and you have what is obviously a very embarrassing photo that never should have been posted, apparently because it shows public drunkeness and promiscuity, at least in the warped minds of the District.

In reality, the photo was entirely innocent and implied nothing. (Obviously Ms. Chaney was not happy that the photo was posted so I won’t republish it, but it is already published here.) But imagine the shock of Chaney, seeing her photo come up on the screen at a school assembly, used as an example of poor choices. She didn’t think that was very cool, and is now suing the school district.

So what are the takeaways from this case (aside from not going to school in Fayette County)? The school district was idiotic to create this presentation, but it does serve to illustrate that the photos you post can have very unforeseen consequences, even if they aren’t inappropriate. Also, this is yet another example of the Barbara Streisand Effect. Chaney was justifiably embarrassed and angry that the photo was posted, but whereas before only her schoolmates saw it, now she has made it a topic of discussion all over the Internet. That may be a price she is willing to pay in order to combat this behavior, but just be aware that any action can fan the very flames you were hoping to extinguish.

Judge Orders Man to Apologize to Ex-Wife on Facebook

CensorshipClients sometimes ask me to seek a letter of apology as part of a defamation settlement. I have managed to do so on a number of occasions, but I usually recommend a letter of retraction as opposed to a letter of apology, because the latter is often a deal breaker.

In our society, a true apology is a big deal (as opposed to an “I apologize if you were offended” type of apology). Many defendants would rather pay money than to apologize, which is somehow viewed as weak. After all, a real apology seeks forgiveness from the other side, so it sticks in the craw of most defamers that they are basically asking the victim to pass judgment on them.

With this mind set in mind, one can fully appreciate the frustration of Mark Byron. He and his wife were divorcing and fighting over the custody of their son. When the judge issued an order limiting his custody, he went to his Facebook page to vent, posting:

“… if you are an evil, vindictive woman who wants to ruin your husband’s life and take your son’s father away from him completely — all you need to do is say that you’re scared of your husband or domestic partner… , “

But there was a problem. The judge had also ordered Byron not to do “anything to cause his wife to suffer physical and/or mental abuse, harassment, annoyance, or bodily injury.” His wife was blocked from his Facebook page, but she got wind of the posting anyway and her attorney charged into court seeking a contempt order, asserting that the posting violated the protective order.

The judge agreed that it violated the order, and gave Byron a choice. The normal result for violation of a court order is a fine and/or some time in jail. The judge told Byron he could go to jail for 60 days for the violation of the order OR he could post an apology on Facebook. Byron decided he’d eat a little crow and post the apology rather than to sit in jail for two months. Here is what he posted:

I would like to apologize to my wife, Elizabeth Byron, for the comments regarding her and our son … which were posted on my Facebook wall on or about November 23, 2011. I hereby acknowledge that two judicial officials in the Hamilton County Domestic Relations Court have heard evidence and determined that I committed an act of domestic violence against Elizabeth on January 17, 2011. While that determination is currently being appealed, it has not been overturned by the appellate court. As a result of that determination, I was granted supervised parenting time with (my son) on a twice weekly basis. The reason I saw (my son) only one time during the four month period which ended about the time of my Facebook posting was because I chose to see him on only that single occasion during that period. I hereby apologize to Elizabeth for casting her in an unfavorable light by suggesting that she withheld (my son) from me or that she in any manner prevented me from seeing (my son) during that period. That decision was mine and mine alone. I further apologize to all my Facebook Friends for attempting to mislead them into thinking that Elizabeth was in any manner preventing me from spending time with (my son), which caused several of my Facebook Friends to respond with angry, venomous, and inflammatory comments of their own.

This case is being reported as a judge who trammeled on the free speech rights of a party, but I really don’t see it that way. Would it have been better for the judge to jail Byron with no offer of an alternative? There was another case where a judge told a shoplifter he could go to jail or stand in front of the store wearing an apology sign for a day. People also got up in arms about that verdict, but I think so long as it is offered as an alternative to normal jail time. For the record, to judges everywhere, if you are about to send me to jail, please offer me some crazy punishment as an alternative. On the other hand, if the judge had simply ordered the apology, I would have a problem with that result.

Where I think the judge got it wrong was his determination that Byron had violated the order. The judge had ordered him not to do anything to cause his wife “to suffer physical and/or mental abuse, harassment, annoyance, or bodily injury.” His Facebook posting was an absolutely true statement, and it only became “about” his wife if the reader was familiar enough with the circumstances to connect the dots. The comments were not even addressed to his wife, since she was blocked. To order someone not to say anything that might “annoy” someone else, and then hold them in contempt for doing so, is not appropriate in this country.

Aaron Morris

Morris & Stone, LLP
Orchard Technology Park
11 Orchard Road, Suite 106
Lake Forest, CA 92630
(714) 954-0700

Email Aaron Morris

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