Brannon Crowe claimed to be injured on a vessel owned by the defendant. The defendant sent a discovery request seeking to have Crowe download and produce content from his Facebook account, and provided instructions for doing so. In response, Crowe answered that he did not currently have a Facebook account. In his deposition, when confronted with documents from an account bearing his name, Crowe claimed that his prior account had been hacked. The United States Magistrate Judge ordered plaintiff to produce all Facebook information in camera. Those documents showed that plaintiff deactivated the account 4 days after the discovery request was served and was reactivated shortly after the court ordered production in camera. With these facts, the Magistrate Judge ordered that all of the Facebook documents be produced to the defendant and that plaintiff provide login and password information for all accounts ever held by him to allow the defendant to determine the accuracy of the response. The court also ordered that Crowe submit to a second deposition, if requested by the defendant, after production of the documents.

Crowe v. Marquette Transp. Co. Gulf-Inland, LLC

Gerard J. Dragna
gdragna@mblb.com