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Court refuses broad request for private Facebook photos as irrelevant discovery fishing expedition.
In a personal injury action, the defendant brought a motion seeking production of approximately 1,100 photographs located on the private portion of the plaintiff’s Facebook account, arguing they were relevant to the plaintiff’s alleged loss of enjoyment of life and damages.
The court held that the stricter relevance test governs documentary discovery and rejected reliance on a mere “semblance of relevance.” After reviewing a sample of the photographs and considering evidence that none depicted significant physical activity inconsistent with the plaintiff’s claims, the court concluded the request was overly broad and amounted to a fishing expedition.
The photographs were not relevant to any issue in the action and production was refused.
Costs were awarded to the plaintiffs.
