In Robinson the litigation involved employment law issues. In discovery sent to the Plaintiff, her former employer sought discovery all of Robinson's email and text message communications with current and former Jones Lang employees and (2) all social media content involving Robinson since July 1, 2008, including photographs, videos, and blogs, as well as Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace content that reveals or relates to Robinson's. "emotion, feeling, or mental state," to "events that could be reasonably expected to produce a significant emotion, feeling, or mental state," or to allegations in Robinson's complaint.
In Robinson the court noted that social media can provide information inconsistent with a plaintiffs allegation that defendant's conduct caused emotional distress, whether by revealing alternate sources of that emotional distress or undermining plaintiff s allegations of the severity of that distress. The Robinson Court cited another court opinion, that authorized discovery of:
[A]ny profiles, postings, or messages (including status updates, wall comments, causes joined, groups joined, activity streams, blog entries) and [social media] applications for [plaintiffs] for the [relevant period] that reveal, refer, or relate to any emotion, feeling, or mental state, as well as communications that reveal, refer, or relate to events that could reasonably be expected to produce a significant emotion, feeling, or mental state.
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Third-party communications to [plaintiffs] ... if they place these [plaintiffs'] own communications in context.
The Robinson Court went on to write that generally consistent with the principles explained in Simply Storage regarding the proper scope of electronic discovery relevant to alleged emotional distress damages, the court also orders plaintiff to produce:
(I) any:
(a) email or text messages that plaintiff sent to, received from, or exchanged with any current and former employee of defendant, as well as messages forwarding such messages; or
(b) online social media communications by plaintiff, including profiles, postings, messages, status updates, wall comments, causes joined, groups joined, activity streams, applications, blog entries, photographs, or media clips, as well as third-party online social media communications that place plaintiff's own communications in context;
(2) from July 1, 2008 to the present;
(3) that reveal, refer, or relate to:
(a) any significant emotion, feeling, or mental state allegedly caused by defendant's conduct; or
(b) events or communications that could reasonably be expected to produce a significant emotion, feeling, or mental state allegedly caused by defendant's conduct.
This decision is instructive in that it does not permit a kitchen sink type of document production of social media, balances what is discoverable, and attempts to set reasonable limits.
