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.

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

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