Tag: social media

August 31, 2011 Privacy

Sexy MySpace photos stay out of evidence

Webb v. Jessamine County Fiscal Court, 2011 WL 3652751 (E.D. Ky. August 19, 2011)

Plaintiff filed a civil rights lawsuit against the local jail and other governmnet officials after she gave birth while incarcerated. She claimed, among other things, that the jail’s failure to get her proper medical care before and during the delivery caused her extreme humiliation, mental anguish and emotional distress.

The defendants tried an extremely bizarre and highly questionable tactic — they sought to use provocative photos purportedly copied from plaintiff’s MySpace profile, to demonatrate that it is “less probable that [plaintiff] would experience humiliation and mental anguish by being in a jail cell while delivering a baby.” Defendants claimed that the photos were “of such a nature that a reasonable person would be embarrassed if such photographs were placed in public view.”

In other words, defendants argued that because plaintiff would post photos like that of herself online, she did not have the dignity to be free from being ignored or called a child and a liar during labor.

The court granted plaintiff’s motion in limine, excluding the photos from evidence. It found that the photos were irrelevant:

Although the appearance of provocative photos online may cause some humiliation, it bears no relation at all to the extreme humiliation and mental anguish a woman forced to go through labor on her own in a jail cell would bring.

The court also found that the defendants had not properly authenticated the photos, i.e., had not provided enough supporting evidence to show that they actually were of plaintiff. The photos that the defendants offered bore “no indicia of authenticity, such as a web address or a photo of these images on the public MySpace account from which Defendants claim they originated.”

June 21, 2011 Litigation

Prosecutor’s Facebook postings did not warrant overturning conviction

State v. Usee, 2011 WL 2437271 (Minn. App. June 20, 2011)

A jury convicted defendant of attempted murder and other violent crimes. He asked the court for a Schwartz hearing (which is what they call these things in Minnesota) to evaluate whether a posting by the prosecutor on her public Facebook page improperly influenced the jury. According to affidavits that defendant submitted to the court, the prosecutor made the culturally insensitive remark that she was keeping the streets safe from Somalis.

The trial court denied the motion for a Schwartz hearing. Defendant sought review. On appeal, the court affirmed the denial of the motion.

It held that there was no evidence that the Facebook posting led to any jury misconduct. The jurors had been instructed not to research the case. (And we all know that jurors take those instructions seriously, right?) Any harm to defendant’s interests, the court found, would merely be speculative.

June 16, 2011 Evidence, Trademarks, Unfair Competition

Customer reviews on social media provide important evidence in trademark dispute

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. v. Chipotles Grill of Jonesboro, Inc., 2011 WL 2292357 (E.D. Ark. June 9, 2011)

The awesome burrito place Chipotle sued another restaurant that called itself Chipotles for trademark infringement. Plaintiff sought a preliminary injunction. The court granted the motion.

One of the most important factors in the court’s decision to grant injunctive relief was the plaintiff’s showing that it will likely succeed on the merits of the case. In a trademark infringement action, that analysis takes the form of the likelihood of confusion analysis.

Among the factors that a court should consider in determining whether there is a likelihood of confusion is whether there has been any actual confusion among members of the consuming public. In this case, the court found that the evidence plaintiff submitted of actual confusion was “substantial.”

In addition to a number of emails that customers had sent to plaintiff, the court looked to a couple of customer review sites — urbanspoon.com and Yahoo’s associatedcontent.com — each of which contained customer reviews that erroneously linked plaintiff and defendant. The court found this to constitute actual confusion, which could not be remedied even through reasonable care on the part of the consumers.

The case gives a good example of how companies (and their competitors) should be aware of how their brands appear in social media. Evidence of actual confusion is a powerful tool for a trademark plaintiff (and a potentially damning one for a trademark defendant). Smart companies will ensure they remain aware of how their marks and overall brand identity are being put forth, even off the beaten path on the web.

Evan Brown is a Chicago-based attorney practicing technology and intellectual property law. Send email to ebrown@internetcases.com, call (630) 362-7237, or follow on Twitter at @internetcases.

June 3, 2011 Privacy

Court dismisses unfair competition claim against Facebook over alleged privacy violation

This is a post by Sierra Falter.  Sierra is a third-year law student at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago focusing on intellectual property law.  You can reach her by email at sierrafalter [at] gmail dot com or follow her on Twitter (@lawsierra).  Bio: www.sierrafalter.com.

In re Facebook Privacy Litigation, 2011 WL 2039995 (N.D.Cal. May 12, 2011)

Plaintiff Facebook users sued defendant Facebook for violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”), Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 17200, et seq., alleging that Facebook intentionally and knowingly transmitted personal information about plaintiffs to third-party advertisers without plaintiffs’ consent.  Facebook moved to dismiss the UCL claim.  The court granted the motion.

Defendant argued that plaintiffs failed to state a claim because they lacked standing under the UCL, since they did not allege they lost money or property.  Defendant asserted there was no such loss because plaintiffs’ “personal information” did not constitute property under the UCL.

Instead, the plaintiffs had alleged that defendant unlawfully shared their “personally identifiable information” with third-party advertisers.  However, the court distinguished the plaintiffs’ claim from Doe 1 v. AOL, LLC, 719 F.Supp.2d 1102 (N.D. Cal. 2010).  In that case, the plaintiffs’ personal and financial information had been distributed to the public after the plaintiffs therein signed up and paid fees for AOL’s service.  The court dismissed plaintiff’s claim in this case under the holding of Doe v. AOL — since plaintiffs alleged they received defendant’s services for free, they could not state a UCL claim.

May 8, 2011 Personal Jurisdiction, Trademarks

Court throws out Facebook’s lawsuit against Teachbook.com

Case dismissed because federal court in California did not have personal jurisdiction over Illinois resident.

Facebook, Inc. v. Teachbook.com, LLC, 2011 WL 1672464 (N.D.Cal. May 3, 2011)

Last year Facebook made us wonder if it had gone off its meds when it filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Illinois-based Teachbook.com. More than one commentator thought Facebook was being overzealous in its efforts to claim exclusivity in the term “book” for social networking services.

However one contenances the action, the court has shut the cover on the first chapter. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (where Facebook is located) held that it lacked personal jursidction over the Illinois defendant. So it dismissed the case.

Applying the well-known “effects test” from Calder v. Jones, the court found that Teachbook had not expressly aimed its conduct into California:

Teachbook does not register users in California. Thus, even if Teachbook intended to compete with a California company, it intended to compete for users who were not in California. The fact that an essentially passive Internet advertisement may be accessible in the plaintiff’s home state without “something more” is not enough to support personal jurisdiction in a trademark infringement suit brought in the plaintiff’s home state.

So if the fight continues, it won’t take place in Facebook’s back yard.

April 28, 2011 Evidence

Blogging ex-wife gets alimony cut

Cardone v. Cardone, 2011 WL 1566992 (Conn.Super. April 4, 2011)

Here’s yet another case where social-media-as-evidence affected the legal relations between ex-spouses. (We’ve discussed other cases along these lines.) The court relied heavily on a blog that the ex-wife and her boyfriend maintained to order that the ex-husband’s alimony obligation be substantially reduced.

The pair divorced in 2001. Ex-husband was to pay ex-wife $250 per week in alimony unless and until either of them died or remarried. The divorce decree also made reference to a Connecticut statute which provides that a court can modify an order of alimony if the one receiving the alimony cohabits with an unrelated member of the opposite sex.

Ex-wife had a condo but rented it out to relatives. She spent months on her boyfriend’s sailboat in the Caribbean. As the court observed “their adventures [were] detailed in a lengthy and entertaining blog the couple posted on the internet, which was made an exhibit at the hearing.” (Anyone have a link? Let me know in the comments.)

Based on the blog evidence and the fact she’d rented out her condo, the court found that she was cohabiting with the guy, and that her financial situation had changed enough for the alimony to be reduced to $75 per week.

Updated 5/3/2011: To correct numbers in original post — award was reduced from $250 per week to $75 per week (not per month).

April 8, 2011 Evidence, Litigation

MySpace evidence was inadmissible hearsay

Musgrove v. Helms, 2011 WL 1225672 (Ohio App. 2 Dist. April 1, 2011)

An Ohio domestic relations court ordered an ex-wife to pay her ex-husband child support. Based on evidence that the ex-wife’s income had increased, the court increased the amount of support she had to pay. One of the pieces of evidence the court relied on was information from the ex-wife’s MySpace page where she had stated her income was “less than $30,000.” (This comported with other evidence suggesting her income was around $29,000).

The ex-wife sought review of the order increasing child support with the appellate court. On appeal, the court found the MySpace page to be inadmissible hearsay, and vacated that portion of the order.

The finding turned on a nuance of the rules of evidence pertaining to hearsay. Generally, hearsay is inadmissible as evidence, but there are exceptions. One of the exceptions is statements made by the declarant that are against her interest. The court found that although the MySpace information was used in a way adverse to the ex-wife’s interest (i.e., to increase her support obligation), as a declaration it was not adverse to her interest because it was not an assertion of fact which was by its nature contrary to her interest.

So this case is a reminder that notwithstanding any increased interest in the discoverability of social media evidence, the rules in place may serve to render the information discovered ultimately useless later in the litigation.

March 30, 2011 Litigation

Court: Mark Zuckerberg lives in California

Ceglia v. Zuckerberg, — F.Supp.2d —, 2011 WL 1108607 (W.D.N.Y. March 28, 2011)

Well, maybe that title is a bit of an oversimplification. Technically the court said that Facebook’s founder is domiciled in California. The issue came up in a breach of contract case against Zuckerberg and Facebook in federal court in New York.

Last year, one Paul Ceglia sued in New York state court, claiming he owns 84 percent of Facebook. Zuckerberg and Facebook removed the case to federal court. Defendants can do that if the court would have subject matter jurisdiction over the case. Since a breach of contract case arises under state law, there needed to be diversity jurisdiction in the case — that is, the parties must be domiciled in different states. (The amount in controversy must also be above $75,000. An 84 percent cut of a multibillion dollar company would seem to meet that criterion.)

Zuckerberg claimed that California had become his domicile since 2004. Ceglia challenged that assertion. In the ConnectU v. Facebook litigation, Zuckerberg had claimed New York as his domicile. And Zuckerberg had the burden of proving his change in domicile by clear and convincing evidence. The court found that such evidence existed, including the following biographical tidbits:

  • He currently resides in California and has done so continuously since the summer of 2004.
  • He has no other residences.
  • He does not own real property in New York, California or elsewhere.
  • In 2007, he purchased and registered a vehicle in California.
  • He does not own or lease any other vehicles.
  • Zuckerberg has paid California resident income taxes since 2004.
  • He lists his California residence on his federal income tax returns.
  • He has not filed taxes in any state other than California since 2004.
  • Since at least 2007, he has been registered to vote in California and has voted in California.
  • He possess a valid California driver’s license issued in 2006.
  • His bank and brokerage accounts list his California residence and his investment advisors are located in California.
  • Zuckerberg receives his mail at a California post office box and at his Facebook office.
  • Most significantly, however, he is the owner, founder and CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation with over 1,600 employees and a principal place of business within walking distance to his current residence in Palo Alto, California.

The court found that these facts overwhelmingly showed that as of June 2010 (when Ceglia filed the lawsuit), Zuckerberg had changed his domicile to California and intended to remain there indefinitely. Since diversity jurisdiction existed, the court ordered the case to remain in federal court.

March 12, 2011 Privacy

Court says you don’t need a person’s permission to tag them in a Facebook photo

Lalonde v. Lalonde, — S.W.3d —, 2011 WL 832465 (Ky. App., February 25, 2011)

Mother sought appellate review of the lower court’s order that awarded primary physical custody of her daughter to the child’s father. The mother argued, among other things, that the court improperly considered Facebook photos showing her drinking. This was not good because her psychologist had testified that alcohol would have an adverse effect on the medication she was taking for bipolar disorder. (Seems like there’s no shortage of cases involving drinkin’ photos on social media.)

The court rejected the mother’s assertion that the photos should not be considered as evidence. She argued that because Facebook allows anyone to post pictures and then “tag” or identify the people in the pictures, she never gave permission for the photographs to be published in this manner. The court held that “[t]here is nothing within the law that requires [one’s] permission when someone takes a picture and posts it on a Facebook page. There is nothing that requires [one’s] permission when she [is] “tagged” or identified as a person in those pictures.”

It might be easy to overstate the court’s conclusion here. Some instances of tagging might be part of something actionable. For example, the posting and tagging of photos in the right context might constitute harassment, infliction of emotional distress, or invasion of privacy. Use of another’s photo on the web without permission for commercial purposes might violate that person’s right of publicity. And of course there is the question of copyright as to the uploading of the photo in the first place — if the person appearing in the photo owns the copyright (e.g., it’s a self-portrait) there is the risk of infringement. But it’s interesting to see the court appear to validate ordinary tagging.

March 9, 2011 Privacy

Judge uses Facebook to research litigant

We’ve all heard the stories about lawyers using social media to research jurors and to gather evidence about opponents. But here’s a new twist: even judges look to Facebook to find information about the parties appearing before them.

In Purvis v. Commissioner of Social Sec., 2011 WL 741234 (D.N.J., Feb. 23, 2011), the question before federal judge Susan Davis Wigenton was whether the plaintiff had been wrongfully denied Social Security benefits. Ultimately the judge determined that the question of whether plaintiff’s asthma made her disabled needed to go back to the Social Security office for further proceedings. But the judge had some pretty severe skepticism about the merits of the plaintiff’s claim, expressed in this footnote:

Although the Court remands the ALJ’s decision for a more detailed finding, it notes that in the course of its own research, it discovered one profile picture on what is believed to be Plaintiff’s Facebook page where she appears to be smoking. Profile Pictures by Theresa Purvis, Facebook, [link omitted because it’s broken] (last visited Feb. 16, 2011). If accurately depicted, Plaintiff’s credibility is justifiably suspect.

I guess the moral of the story is to hide your smokes when someone pulls out a camera. Or maybe there’s an even bigger lesson. What do you think? Leave your comments.

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