Launch of New Cyber Law Blog

As you may have noticed, a number of my posts have dealt with articles that address recent cyber law topics such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogging in the context of civil litigation in Canada. In an effort to create a more “focused” forum for law and technology issues, I have recently started up a cyber law blog with Richard Bortnick of [...]

Ontario Court Denies Ex Parte Motion to Preserve Facebook

A New Decision on Facebook: Ex Parte Injunctions and Preservation Orders
Another Ontario decision dealing with production of Facebook profiles in personal injury lawsuits was released on October 29, 2009. In Schuster v. Royal & SunAlliance Insurance Company of Canada, the defendant brought a motion before a judge, without notice to the plaintiff, seeking an injunction requiring the plaintiff to preserve and produce her [...]

Pamela Pengelley has been Profiled for Martindale Hubbell’s “Legal News and Views”

I was recently interviewed by Norman Gautreau, author of “Sea Room” and “Island of First Light“, for Martindale Hubbel’s Legal News and View’s Member Spotlight with respect to its new social networking initatives. Needless to say, it was a very interesting experience. I have been asked to spread the article around (not a difficult chore). It [...]

Alberta Court Allows Substitutional Service on Facebook

According to an interesting article posted by Shaunna Mireau,  ‘Substitutional Service via Facebook in Alberta’ on Slaw,  on February 5, 2009  Master Breitkreuz ordered in Knott v. Sutherland that the plaintiffs could substitutionally serve one of the multiple defendants by publication of a notice in the newspaper, by forwarding a copy of the statement of claim [...]

Spend Long Hours on Facebook? Claim You Can’t Work and You’re On the Hook!

A British Columbia Court agreed that a plaintiff’s late night computer usage on Facebook was relevant to his claim that he was unable to work. The Court ordered production of his computer hard drive to determine the period of the time he spent on Facebook between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.
In Bishop v. Minichiello, [2009] [...]

MySpace – MyEmails – MyPrivacy?

A married woman in Nevada sued her employer, claiming that he sent her inappropriate emails and gave her unwanted sexual attention. During the lawsuit, the employer’s lawyer discovered that the woman had set up a MySpace account where she pretended to be single. The employer’s lawyer wanted to see her Myspace emails; if this woman [...]

Software and Semantics

Following a recent decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal, government institutions now have to go the extra mile to comply with their MFIPPA obligation to provide access to information stored in their electronic databases – even if they have to design special software, from scratch, to get at the information.
James Rankin, a journalist with [...]

Production of Facebook Profiles for Use in Civil Litigation

FACEBOOK IN THE COURTROOM

In a recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued on February 20, 2009, Justice Brown ordered the production of a plaintiff’s private Facebook profile.   This is the second Canadian decision to order production of private Facebook pages for use in personal injury insurance litigation.  The full text of Justice Brown’s decision, Leduc v. [...]