Facebook account reactivation ordered even if moving party did not show prima facia likelihood of significant evidence – Chapman v. Hiland Operating, LLC, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74248

In this case Defendants filed a Motion to Compel Plaintiff to Respond to Defendant’s Discovery Requests. Defendant had requested Plaintiff to produce information from her Facebook account.

Plaintiffs resisted the motion, arguing that

“her Facebook account is unlikely to include relevant information, because, as she stated in her deposition, she rarely used the account, and when she did it was primarily to communicate with her nieces and nephews”. She further testified that she had deactivated her Facebook account “on the advice of her attorney”.

Although the court was skeptical that Plaintiff’s Facebook account would contain relevant, noncumulative information it granted the defense’s motion to compel and ordered the plaintiff and her counsel to make “a reasonable, good faith attempt to reactivate” the Facebook account.

The full text is available at http://docs.justia…

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