How About Electronic Discovery?!

Via Legal Blog Watch, Canadian Justice at the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario, D. M. Brown, decided in Leduc v. Roman, [2009] CanLII 6838, CarswellOnt 843 (ON Sup. Ct.) that clients must produce information posted on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and other similar social media sites, even where they have blocked their accounts from public access, as a part of discovery process.

Leduc involved a personal injury case in which the plaintiff claimed damages for loss of enjoyment as a result of defendant's negligence. At some point in discovery, the defendant learned that Leduc maintained a Facebook account and sought production of Leduc's Facebook pages. The discovery master denied the motion, finding that the defendant failed to establish the relevance of the Facebook pages to the question of whether Leduc's enjoyment of life had been diminished. In addition, the master expressed some concerns regarding Leduc's privacy. On review, Judge Brown disagreed.

Read the full post and let us know your thoughts!

Canada: E-Laws Printouts Are Good Law!

Law is Cool strikes again. This time it is a post by Lawrence Gridin titled It's Official: E-Laws Printouts Are Good Law. It is obvious that we all are more and more reliant on technology. Some of us can't even imagine conducting legal research without electronic Lexis or Westlaw. As pointed out in the post, traditionally, legal research has been preferred to be in print and electronic printouts of legal materials, such are cases and legislation, have not been accepted in court.

In Canada this traditional belief undergone a reform, and the general rule has changed. As reported in this post, Ontario has been publishing its laws online since 2001. As of November 30, 2008, the Canadian government has gone even further.

According to MAG press release, copies of regulations and statutes published on e-laws will now be an official source of law. Further, an on-screen display of a statute or regulation viewed on, or downloaded from, the e-Laws website; and a prinout of a statue or regulation viewed on, or donwloaded from, the e-Laws website, are both going to be official.

What are your thoughts? Would you like U.S. state and federal governments to take similar steps or not, and why? Share your comments.