Schuster v. Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Company of Canada
An Ontario Court judge recently rejected Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Co.’s bid to see a woman’s Facebook profile in a case where the woman was suing to recover for injuries suffered in a car crash. The judge stated that the plaintiff’s privacy would be respected unless the defendant could prove a legal entitlement to the ruling. The judge gave the defendant an opportunity to cross-examine the plaintiff to try to prove a legal entitlement, but refused to do anything further. This decision represents a slightly stronger stance towards privacy than the Leduc v. Roman case discussed in an earlier post.
All parties in a litigation have an obligation to disclose all relevant documents to the other side. The plaintiff did not disclose any information from Facebook and the defendant argued the plaintiff must have violated her obligation to disclose. The judge held that one could not assume that the plaintiff had relevant information on Facebook just because people normally put information on Facebook.
The judge noted that the plaintiff had restrictive privacy settings and that she did not intend to share her information with the public at large. The judge allowed the defendant to cross-examine the plaintiff to ensure that all relevant information on Facebook had been disclosed.
