Can someone read your Facebook messages just because you are involved in a Florida estate lawsuit? Can they search through your Ipad pictures? Would my mom be able to gain access to my person emails? How does the probate court in Florida decide whether searching through your private digital communications is necessary? What happens if a probate judge orders your laptop to be searched? If you are involved in trust and estate litigation, and someone is trying to conduct discovery of your digital assets, you will want to read this.
E-Discovery
- Through e-discovery, during a probate litigation lawsuit, people may be able to access your private social media and online accounts.
- However, probate litigators West Palm Beach know that, in Florida, everyone has aright to privacy, as stated in the Florida Constitution.
- In will contests and trust lawsuits in Florida, people are frequently trying to get documents and information through discoveries and subpoenas.
- However, it is important to keep in mind that, in the the Florida probate courts, the right to privacy is very important and valuable.
- In fact, Florida appeals courts have upheld a person’s right to not only privacy but alsonondisclosure of documents and rights to financial privacy.
- What does this mean?
- It means that not necessarily everyone can know how much you are worth.
- Are any communications in your Facebook messages, or device that will be searched,privileged?
- In other words, are any of the communications in your cell phone with a spouse, lawyer, accountant or other privileged party?
- Is the request that is being made during a discovery overly broad or does it just ask for what is necessary?
- In Antico v. Sindt Trucking, the court order only allowed for an expert to view cell phone communications on the day of the car accident- the center of the wrongful death lawsuit. If the expert would have been allowed to inspect the phone on different days, instead of just on the relevant day, the court may have deemed the order to be overly broad.
- Generally speaking, probate lawyers West Palm Beach will talk about discovery as “casting a wide net” and, while that’s certainly true, discovery can’t be overly broad, burdensome, or excessively costly.
- If an inspection of your cell phone is ordered, who’s going to conduct it?
- Is it going to be some random expert or an expert that you hire?
- If you find yourself involved in estate litigation where your cell phone is ordered to be inspected, you may want to consider hiring your own expert to conduct the inspection.
- Why would you want a random expert that you did not have any choice over looking at your confidential and personal information?
- If I hire my own expert, who’s going to pay for the inspection?
- Who will pay for my attorney to oversee the process of discovery of my social media accounts or cell phone?
Antico v. Sindt Trucking
- This was an October 13, 2014, First District Court of Appeal, case.
- Here, the personal representative of Ms. Antico’s estate objects to “an order entered by the trial court allowing Respondent’s expert to conduct a limited inspection of the cell phone that Ms. Antico allegedly was using when an automobile accident caused her death.”
- Was allowing an expert to search Ms. Antico’s cell phone a violation of the decedent’s privacy rights?
- The expert was only able to inspect the cell phone records for a nine hour period on the day of the accident with the purpose of showing that the decedent has been ” been texting in the minutes preceding the accident.”
- The expert was allowed to inspect “all data” on the cell phone.
- This makes sense because she could have been texting, searching the internet, downloading music, etc. while driving.
- Therefore, the First DCA concluded that the order did not violate Ms. Antico’s right to privacy and was not overly broad.
- Click here to read the entire case.
Want to know more about Florida probate litigation? Consider these free resources:
- Read the Florida Courts webpage on the probate process:http://www.flcourts.org/resources-and-services/family-courts/family-law-self-help-information/probate.stml
- Read the Florida Probate Code:http://www.floridabar.org/tfb/TFBLegalRes.nsf/
- Read the Florida Probate Rules:https://www.floridabar.org/tfb/TFBLegalRes.nsf/
- Here are the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar if you are interested in hiring a Florida probate litigation lawyer and want to know more about our ethical rules and our rules of conduct:http://www.floridabar.org/divexe/rrtfb.nsf/WContents?OpenView
- Here are the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure:http://www.floridabar.org/tfb/TFBLegalRes.nsf/
- Watch free Florida Trust, Probate & Guardianship videos, which include important topics of Florida estate, guardianship, attorneys fees, & trust law.
- There is no cost, no sign up, no one will ask you for your email address to see these dozens of free Florida probate videos:http://www.pankauskilawfirm.
com/Firm-Overview/FAQS.shtml