The claimants had made investments through their solicitors, the defendants. The investments failed. The defendants were said to have made a foul and threatening posting on facebook about the claimant after failure in earlier proceedings. The defendant now sought to prevent the use of the posting in evidence, saying that his facebook account was restricted to friends, and was therefore confidential.
Held: The application failed. The document was necessary for a fair disposal of the case, and was not confidential: ‘anyone who uses Facebook does so at his or her peril. There is no guarantee that any comments posted to be viewed by friends will only be seen by those friends. Furthermore it is difficult to see how information can remain confidential if a Facebook user shares it with all his friends and yet no control is placed on the further dissemination of that information by those friends. No evidence was adduced as to how many friends the defendant had and what his relationship was with each of them. It was certainly not suggested that those friends were in anyway restricted as to how they used any information given to them by the defendant. For the avoidance of doubt, I do not consider that any of the friends viewing that information would necessarily have concluded that the information was confidential and could not be disclosed.’
Horner J
[2013] NIQB 48
Bailii
Northern Ireland
Citing:
Cited – Compagnie Financiere du Pacifique v Peruvian Guano Co CA 1882
Brett LJ defined the test to identify which documents are relevant for disclosure in court proceedings: ‘It seems to me that every document relates to the matters in question in the action, which not only would be evidence upon any issue, but also . .
Cited – O’Rourke v Darbishire HL 1920
Sir Joseph Whitworth had died in 1887. In 1884 he had made a will appointing three executors and leaving his residuary estate to charity. By a codicil made in 1885 he altered his will to leave his ultimate residue to his executors for their own . .
Cited – Science Research Council v Nasse; BL Cars Ltd (formerly Leyland Cars) v Voias HL 1-Nov-1979
Recent statutes had given redress to anyone suffering unlawful discrimination on account of race sex or trade union activities. An employee sought discovery of documents from his employer which might reveal such discrimination.
Held: The court . .
Cited – Attorney-General v Guardian Newspapers Ltd (No 2) (‘Spycatcher’) HL 13-Oct-1988
Loss of Confidentiality Protection – public domain
A retired secret service employee sought to publish his memoirs from Australia. The British government sought to restrain publication there, and the defendants sought to report those proceedings, which would involve publication of the allegations . .
Cited – Campbell v Mirror Group Newspapers Ltd (MGN) (No 1) HL 6-May-2004
The claimant appealed against the denial of her claim that the defendant had infringed her right to respect for her private life. She was a model who had proclaimed publicly that she did not take drugs, but the defendant had published a story . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Media
Updated: 14 November 2021; Ref: scu.511141