[Economist] E-Discovery is Out of Control
The Economist has an interesting story on the burden limitless-information requests has on the American legal system. What you say online is fair game, but so is what you read.
DAWN BEYE’S teenage daughter suffers from anorexia nervosa and had to be treated in hospital at a cost of about $1,000 a day. Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the Beyes’ insurance company, covered one month of the bills but then balked, demanding evidence that the affliction was “biologically based” rather than psychological. So Ms Beye got together with parents of other anorexic and bulimic teenagers and sued. Horizon immediately asked to see practically everything the teenagers had said on their Facebook and MySpace profiles, in instant-messaging threads, text messages, e-mails, blog posts and whatever else the girls might have done online.
The Beyes’ lawyer, David Mazie at Mazie, Slater, Katz & Freeman, objected on the grounds that Horizon’s demands violated the girls’ privacy. He lost.
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