Facts
- An employee sued his employer under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), alleging interference and/or retaliation related to medical leave.
- During discovery, the employer obtained a download identifying 2,254 pages of the employee’s Facebook posts and messages.
- The employer served production requests seeking all 2,254 pages and, additionally, Facebook materials authored during work hours or referring to the employee’s claimed emotional distress.
- The employee produced only some Facebook materials, in redacted form, and objected that the requests were overly broad, unduly burdensome, and sought personal, unrelated content.
- The employer moved to compel production under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37.
Issues
- Whether Rule 26 and Rule 34 permit compelling production of an employee-plaintiff’s entire Facebook archive (or similarly sweeping categories) absent a focused showing of relevance and proportionality.
- Whether generalized assertions that Facebook content might bear on emotional distress or work-time conduct justify wholesale social-media discovery.
Decision
- The court denied the employer’s motion to compel.
- The court held the requests were overly broad and insufficiently tailored to the claims and defenses.
- The court concluded the employer had not made a specific, relevance-based and proportionality-based showing warranting compelled production of the full Facebook materials.
Legal Principles
- Social-media content is discoverable only to the extent it is nonprivileged, relevant to a claim or defense, and proportional to the needs of the case under Rule 26.
- Discovery requests for “all” social-media content, or broad subsets untethered to concrete relevance, are improper and may be denied as overbroad.
- A party seeking social-media discovery must tailor requests by subject matter and/or time period and explain why the targeted materials are likely to contain relevant evidence.
- Privacy concerns do not bar discovery of relevant information, but the personal nature and volume of social-media content increase the need for careful tailoring and proportionality.
- Rule 37 relief is unavailable when the underlying Rule 34 request exceeds the permissible scope of Rule 26.
Conclusion
The court refused to compel production of a plaintiff’s complete Facebook history in an FMLA action because the employer’s requests were speculative, overbroad, and disproportionate, and lacked a targeted showing connecting the requested content to the disputed issues.