Need evidence to fight a fraudulent employee claim? Don’t expect Facebook to help.
The social networking site was recently in the middle of a workers’ comp dispute. Here’s what happened:
An employee of Virginia-based airline Colgan Air filed for disability benefits after she was injured on the job. The company initially paid the benefits but became suspicious after the employee wouldn’t cooperate with efforts to find her a job she could do.
Colgan appealed the case, suspecting that photos from the employee’s recent vacation would prove the injury wasn’t as serious as she claimed. So the company looked in the place where people most often store photos and other personal information: Facebook.
The employee’s profile had been marked as private, but the court agreed the evidence would be helpful and sent a subpoena asking Facebook to hand over “all documents, electronic or otherwise, related directly or indirectly, to all activities, writings, photos, comments, e-mails, and/or postings” in the employee’s account. A $200-a-day fine for noncompliance was threatened.
Facebook refused on privacy grounds. The court eventually backed down.
The company in this case failed to round up the evidence it needed — but many other employers have successfully fought comp and other claims by using information freely made public on social networking sites.
