In Pecile v. Titan Capital Group, the Appellate Division, First Department, ruled on a number of discovery issues relating to, among other issues, plaintiffs’ social media postings.
The case made headlines a few years back (e.g., here, here, and here) due to its racy allegations that financier Russell Abrams forced his assistant, plaintiff Danielle Pecile, to get prints of honeymoon pictures of his topless wife made from a CD, as well as a counter-suit by the wife to recover the pictures (which she lost) and claims of blackmail.
The court held that since plaintiff allege that they were “tricked into viewing naked pictures” by defendant Abrams, the motion court properly directed the exchange of the CD containing those photographs, since they are “material and necessary to the prosecution of the action” under CPLR 3101. However, given the photographs’ “personal nature”, the court directed that the CD not be disseminated to anyone unconnected to the litigation.
The court further held that “defendants’ demands for authorizations to obtain plaintiffs’ entire cell phone and text message records, educational histories post-high school and complete employment files are overbroad.”
It did, however, grant limited discovery in this regard:
Since [plaintiff] Culicea’s resignation letter arguably placed her academic status in issue, defendants should be permitted an authorization directing disclosure of her law school enrollment dates, beginning with her employment at defendants’ hedge fund. Defendants’ demands for plaintiffs’ employment histories should be granted to the limited extent of providing plaintiffs’ past wage histories and names of positions held, since plaintiffs have only placed their work histories at issue in the context of their financial worth as employees.
Next, it held that plaintiffs’ social media postings were not discoverable:
Regarding defendants’ demand for access to plaintiffs’ social media sites, they have failed to offer any proper basis for the disclosure, relying only on vague and generalized assertions that the information might contradict or conflict with plaintiffs’ claims of emotional distress.
Finally, with respect to evidence of youthful offenses, the court held:
[D]efendants correctly assert that prior criminal convictions and pleas of guilty are relevant and discoverable. However, [a] youthful offender adjudication is not a judgment of conviction for a crime or any other offense. Thus, defendants cannot compel disclosure of the details of a youthful offense, since that would contravene[] the goals envisioned by the youthful offender policy. Nothing in the record suggests that the evidence sought would serve as collateral estoppel to the claim, or is relevant in some other manner that would serve as an exception to that general rule.