As people continue to use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to convey messages to friends, it is evident that they rarely consider the possible impacts of the content they share. The information posted on social media accounts has occasionally been applied as evidence in courts leading to biased judgments exposing defendants and plaintiffs to legal problems (Steinberg, 2016). The cases involving Silva v. Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc. and that of Albert Sublet IV v. State of Maryland. present a viable example of how social media has been applied to give evidence in court rulings.
Silva v. Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc. United States District Court for the District of Connecticut 2015 WL 1275840 (2015)
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This case involves Silva as the plaintiff while Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. is the defendant. The issue, in this case, is that the defendant requires the plaintiff to print all the pages that he has written and posted on social media platforms. The information in such accounts can be used to show evidence that the defendant should be compensated for time wasted posting information of facebook accounts rather than converting this time to productive activities. The issue began when Silva sued the company demanding compensation for the mental impact experienced during the working period. The holding facts, in this case, is that Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. had hired Silva as an employee and was entitled to some benefits in the company. Since he has experienced some health issues, the company is entitled to giver Silva his benefits. Based on the rules for discovery in the United States, the information posted on social media platforms can be used as evidence in the court, especially in situations where either the defendant requests capable of providing information that is relevant to the case. In situations where social media communications are not likely to be related to the case, there is a possibility that the court can deny access to such information.
Though information used in social media communication may be relevant in the case, the discovery process allows the court to give an order for one of the parties to provide the requested information if the defendant or plaintiff has a supporting argument that the data is directly related to the case. Asking for all the information presented on social media communication by Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. is too general and does not give any possible proof that the content will be relevant to make a judgment in the court. For example, the account consists of more than 1, 524 pages, and it may be tiresome to go through this information inspecting for content that is relevant. However, if the defendant asked for particular details such as content posted on social media during working hours, the court could compel the plaintiff to provide access to such information. The court ruled that it could not give the defendant an ability to access the entire social media communication message.
Albert SUBLET IV v. the STATE of Maryland.
In this case, Albert Sublet is represented as the petitioner as he was charged with three different counts. Albert was associated with first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and reckless endangerment. These charges originated from a situation where a fight occurred among Sublet, Chrishell Parker, her mother, and her sister in the year 2012. The state's theory of the case indicated that Sublet developed aggressiveness after entering the apartments belonging to Ms. Parker to pick his girlfriend while Sublet presented information that it was Ms. Parker who initiated the aggressiveness leading to such offenses. Parker was the plaintiff in this case, requiring Sublet to take responsibility for being charged over the damages and assaults he directed to Ms. Parker and her family. For the judge to make a fair ruling, all sorts of evidence had to be considered taking into consideration the laws of discovery in the State of Maryland. Following this information, Sublet's counsel sought to bring evidence collected from social media pages associated with Ms. Parker. The content presented in the four-page account could be applied to show that Parker was responsible for initiating the conflict.
The rationale of this case was for Sublet to pro ve that Parker was the initiator of the conflict through the use of Facebook pages. As a result, his counsel presented four pages of Facebook information that could make it easy for the judge to rule in his favor. The information presented in the Facebook account was associated with Parker and could be used as evidence in the case. The counsel asked parker about the presence of the content posted on different Facebook pages. She agreed that she owned the account and was aware of the information and material found on pages one to three. She denied that she posted the news on page four that could be used as evidence in the case. The reasons she gave were that she had issued her account password to different people who had previously witnessed her account hacked by unknown people. Therefore, it was justifiable that she did not have any control of materials posted on her accounts. The judge ruled the case in favor of Parker exposing Sublet to a ten-year jail for the offenses he committed.
The relevance of the Cases
The cases are relevant in the modern world where juries and courts are using evidence from the social media platforms to make judgments facing individuals. In most cases, people use social media without an insight on the effects that the messages and photos they post can be used as evidence to validate a claim by either the defendant or a plaintiff. Based on the process involved in the cases and rulings, I would advise clients that they be open for discovery in situations where they file a lawsuit or become defendants in a suit. In situations where he or she possesses a piece of information that one does not want to disclose, they should be in a position to keep it private as a way of preventing it from any form of inspection. In situations where information exists online, the client should understand that at least someone had access to the information and can be used as evidence in a court of law (Gibson, 2017). The defendants should also be in a position to learn ways they need to apply ask for discovery processes on access to social media platforms. For example, the case involving Silva v. Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc. provides an example of how information posted on social media can be used as evidence in a case. Vasquez-Santos posted images on social media platforms that contradicted the argument he presented in court. Mathew came across this information, and he used this evidence as a way of challenging the requirements by the plaintiff.
In conclusion, social media platforms have affected the functioning of the court as such networks provide a reliable source of evidence applicable in making judgments. The cases, Albert Sublet IV v. State of Maryland and Silva v. Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc., offer reliable information for people to understand how the content they share on social accounts can affect their expectations in a court ruling. In both cases, the defendants appealed the judgments of the inferior courts using content posted on social media as evidence. In effect, the plaintiffs lost their expectations because the content they posted on social media platforms contradicted their claims in the lawsuit.
References
Gibson, J. (2017). Social Media and the Electronic New World of Judges. Revista Forumul Judecatorilor, 26.
Steinberg, S. B. (2016). Advocacy: Social Media Activism's Power to Transform Law. Ky. LJ, 105, 413.
