Social media postings, messages and records are subject to discovery in lawsuits. But like other forms of discovery, there are limits.

Courts don’t like fishing expeditions and will use state and federal laws to deny requests that are overly broad, lack specificity or fail for other reasons (e.g. the burden or expense of discovery outweighs the likely benefit).

Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, discovery requests “must describe with reasonable particularity each item or category of items to be inspected.” [Rule 34(b)]

This requirement posed a problem in a recent Los Angeles case involving Home Depot and an employee who sued the company for gender discrimination and failure to accommodate a physical disability. [Mailhoit v. Home Depot, 9/7/12]