Appellate Court Affirms Denial of Access to Facebook Account, but Finds Protective Order Improper

In McCann v. Harleysville Ins. Co. of New York [pdf], 2010 NY Slip Op 08181 (Nov. 12, 2010), the court of appeal affirmed the lower court's ruling denying the defendant's request for "an authorization for plaintiff's Facebook account."  Nonetheless, the appellate court agreed with the defendant that the trial court abused its discretion in granting the plaintiff's motion for protective order prohibiting the defendant from seeking disclosure of plaintiff's Facebook account on a future date.

In essence, the court of appeals stated the defendant's first two discovery requests were "fishing expedition[s] based on the mere hope of finding relevant information", but agreed with the defendant that the discovery should not be foreclosed in the future if the defendant can establish the relevance of the information.