Evidence

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While Alex Jones was the most recent high-profile example of a controversial public persona creating very personal and private problems, he is certainly not alone. Similar in theme, but not in execution is the case of the Michael and Heather Martin who are described as “YouTube stars” and post to a channel with over 760,000 subscribers.

Their shtick is to torment their five children (three together; two are Michael’s kids from another relationship) by, “verbally [berating them], frequently to the point of tears, while performing stunts like appearing to destroy an Xbox video game system and accusing the children of making messes they had not made.” However, one of the aspects of fame is that when the number of people watching you increases, so to does the likelihood that someone may not share your idea of “fun” and, instead, question whether you are actually physically and emotionally abusing your children.  Such is the situation the Martins find themselves.

Recently, the Martins lost custody of Michael’s oldest two children after their biological mother petitioned in Fredrick County, Maryland for an emergency order for custody. Undoubtedly, the apparently 300 plus videos (since removed) they posted to their channel will be used in some form or fashion in a future custody case(s).

Not unlike the Alex Jones situation, the Martins refer to themselves as being “characters,” the videos are entertainment and scripted, and that the children were often in on the pranks and interested in how many hits the videos receive. Maybe the entire family fell into the wormhole of internet fame and the kids equated the validation of a popular video as the quid pro quo for being emotionally manipulated, screamed at, and exposed to violent situations.

Regardless of the motivations, it is indisputable that the videos are valuable evidence. They either depict physical and emotionally abuse by the parents, or they record a pair of amateur entertainers whose actors (their children) perform under unsafe working conditions and seemingly without the benefit of knowing what is real and what is “part of the show.”

The parents admit in their apology video to being seduced by the fame and upping the shock value for the sake of more attention and, presumably, financial benefit. They certainly imply that the success of the stunts lead to significant financial gain and their hiring of a reputable family law attorney and crisis management public relations firm certainly seems to corroborate that.

The Martins said that having “stepped away” from their “characters,” they now understand the criticism directed at them and that they made some bad decisions and let things get out of control. People lose their kids over one or two bad decisions. Imagine if someone publicly displayed hundreds of such examples.

This is the reality of today’s social media and non-traditional entertainment platforms. Essentially, anyone can produce and disseminate media on multiple platforms instead of the old system of television, radio, and movies. The line between actor or character and who you are in “real life” gets blurred. And as the Martin and Jones cases demonstrate, the more “authentic” you try to be for entertainment purposes, the more difficult it can be to separate yourself from the actions of your “character.”

We’ve reported on the United States v. Elonis in the past. This case involved a Northampton County man who made a series of threats on his Facebook page directed at his estranged wife, his employer, and an FBI agent who came to investigate a threat he made to attack an elementary school. Elonis, in his defense, claimed that his posts were not, in fact, threats, but rap lyrics and forms of artistic expression.

He was nonetheless charged with under 18 U.S.C. 875(c) which prohibits transmitting in interstate commerce a communication containing a threat to injure the person of another. He was eventually convicted at trial of four out of the five charges against him and sentenced to forty-four (44) months in jail. He conviction was upheld by through the appellate system and eventually appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court who granted cert to hear his appeal. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction, but did not address any of the First Amendment claims or other issues raised on appeal except for what they viewed as an error in the jury instruction identifying the standard the jury was to apply to the offenses. Helpfully, however, Justice Samuel Alito articulated in a concurring/dissenting opinion a road map for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals – the court where the Supreme Court was remanding the case for further consideration – on how to have Elonis conviction upheld.

The Third Circuit did just that, finding that the jury instruction amounted to harmless error and he would have been convicted under either of the discussed standards since there was indisputable evidence in the record that Elonis intended his wife and others to perceive the statements as threats.

The reason this case is relevant to family law cases is that Elonis conviction proves that social media posts will be closely scrutinized by the courts to determine whether or not they can be construed as threats. There is no special First Amendment protection attached to them and context will have a huge affect on whether or not a statement will be interpreted as art or as a threat of harm. In this case, there can be little confusion that Elonis wanted to inflict fear and anxiety on his estranged wife and others around him. His threat to attack an elementary school with the intent to die in “blaze of glory” was concerning enough to prompt a visit from the FBI – an episode that prompted Elonis to “creatively write” and post shortly thereafter a scenario where he uses a knife to quickly slit the agent’s throat as she stood on his porch.

In short, even if Elonis had no intention of carrying out these acts, the trial court and Third Circuit found that he clearly intended them to be threats and whether that determination is made by a reasonable person or if his acts were interpreted as reckless was immaterial to the fact they were made and with a desired affect. Issues of the First Amendment and free speech were never considered and, frankly, I don’t think any court will be looking to carve out violent lyrics as being a protected class of speech. For every Eminem who wins Grammys for writing vividly violent verses about his ex-wife, there will be hundreds or thousands of people who try to circumvent their PFA Orders or try to intimidate an ex-partner through social media or other means and use the facade of “art” and “lyrics” to shield themselves from prosecution or being found to have violated a protective order.

What Court wants to define the line between art and threats? Quite simply, the courts – like many of us – don’t know how to define art, but know it when we see it. Similarly, we might not be able to define an easy catch-all definition of what constitutes a threat over social media, but we can discern context and content make those determinations on a case-by-case basis to ensure both the accused and accuser are protected under the law.

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Aaron Weems is an attorney and editor of the Pennsylvania Family Law Blog. Aaron is a partner in Fox Rothschild’s Blue Bell, Pennsylvania office and practices throughout the greater Philadelphia region. Aaron can be reached at 610-397-7989; aweems@foxrothschild.com, and on Twitter @AaronWeemsAtty.

 

A recent criminal case addressed, in part, an issue we saw in the case of Elonis v. United States.  The Elonis case went to the U.S. Supreme Court which ultimately reversed the criminal conviction of a man based on statutory construction grounds that his Facebook postings did not offer the requisite mental intent to threaten the victim(s). The Supreme Court’s opinion did not  address any First Amendment rights, however.

The case of Commonwealth v. Lambert, involved a Protection from Abuse Order entered against Lambert, the victim’s ex-boyfriend.  Interestingly, and likely an insight into the voluminous use of social media by Lambert, was the specific PFA Order instruction that he shall refrain from posting “any remark(s) and/or images regarding Plaintiff, on any social network(s), including, but [not] limited to, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, or any other electronic networks.” In other words, he was not permitted to post anything to social media pertaining to his ex-girlfriend. It should be noted that a Protection from Abuse Order restricts a perpetrator from having direct or indirect contact with a victim. If they do have contact, they could be subject to an Indirect Criminal Contempt.  PFA Orders are civil restraining orders to protect a victim, but they have criminal repercussions: a violation – either verbally, in writing, or physically – will land someone in jail.

With that context in mind, we look at what Lambert did to violate the PFA Order. A day after the Order was entered, he posted a series of Facebook comments in which he does not name his ex-girlfriend, but that she was clearly the subject of the posts. As the Superior Court points out, Trial Courts need to consider the context of the violation and “temporal proximity” of the statements. Perhaps if Lambert had not made his posts a day after he was found to have abused his ex-girlfriend, the context and temporal proximity would have led the court to a different interpretation. The posts were not actually threatening or outwardly menacing (though the victim could certainly feel otherwise), but, as the Court considered, the posts were about the victim.  They were discovered by the ex-girlfriend when she went to his Facebook page – she testified that she regularly checks the page for her own knowledge since he is such a voracious social media user that if he was angry or having mental health issues she would have notice of them before risking an interaction with him.

The victim let her local police know about the postings; they contacted the District Attorney’s office, who then initiated the contempt action. He was subsequently found guilty of contempt. That conviction led to the appeal by Lambert as to whether his indirect criminal contempt conviction was a violation of his First Amendment rights to free speech and whether the lack of wrongful intent (i.e. the posts were not threats) should have led to acquittal.

The main issue the Superior Court considered was the First Amendment claim. The Court’s opinion on that issue can be summarized with concept that the PFA Order is contact-based not content-based.  In other words, the PFA does not restrict speech so much as it restricts who the speech is directed at.  This is an important distinctions since restrictions on content must be strictly scrutinized.  Here, however, the contact was – directly or indirectly – made to the victim through Lambert’s public (likely another factor) Facebook profile. By making statements about the victim on a public profile where she could reasonably be exposed to them, Lambert was, effectively, attempting to contact the victim.

As a consequence, his conviction was upheld. His mental intent argument – which successfully led to the overturning of the Elonis conviction – was unsuccessful, as well, since his mental intent to threaten was not at issue; merely the attempt to contact mattered – whether it was to threaten or say he was sorry is immaterial. It should also be noted that the standard of proof for Elonis was the criminal justice system’s “beyond a reasonable doubt,” whereas the standard for finding abuse occurred is the lower “preponderance of the evidence” standard, though an indirect criminal contempt carries the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard.

The broader implication is that Facebook and social media can be and will be considered forms of communication with the victim of a PFA. Shouting into the void of social media is not without consequences and, as Lambert demonstrates, the intent is secondary to the act of communicating.

123rd.com ostillThe Discovery Rules account for all manner of need for obtaining evidence. Many of these rules are seldom, if ever, utilized by family law attorneys because either they are not germane to a family law case; not permitted by the Divorce Code (i.e. prohibition against discovery in simple support cases), or; family court cases have their own procedure for obtaining the information. One example would be Discovery Rule 4010 which provides for the examination of a party where their mental or physical condition  has been called into question. As demonstrated by the case below, you will commonly see this Rule used in a personal injury case. This rule would not necessarily come into play in the Family Court since the Custody Code and associated Rules of Civil Procedure, for instance, outline how and when a custody or psychological evaluation will occur.

Still, though this rule may not crop up often, if at all, in a family law case, it is still a rule and understanding it may help an attorney whose client is undergoing some form of physical or mental evaluation to be familiar with the Court’s holding in Shearer v. Hafer, 2016 WL 910146.  At issue was whether the trial court erred in granting Hafer’s request for protective order which prevented Shearer from having counsel present during Hafer’s neuropsychological evaluation pursuant to Discovery Rule 4010.

The background to the case is that Hafer was sued by Shearer for injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Shearer underwent a neuropsychological evaluation and the defendant in the case, Hafer, sought to have an independent evaluation conducted setting up a case of dueling experts. Shearer, as the plaintiff and party seeking damages, did not generally oppose the request, but insisted on having their counsel present for the test.  This demand was objected to by the independent physician hired by Hafer on, among other reasons, professional ethics grounds. Hafer filed for a protective order to keep Shearer’s attorney out of the evaluation. Their justification for the exclusion was that Shearer’s attorney, through observation, could create areas of cross-examination of the expert’s eventual report, particularly when viewed against the doctor’s written statements. The concern, it would seem, is that in watching how the sausage is made that counsel attacking pieces of the process on cross-examination could unfairly invalidate a conclusion by focusing on one of numerous elements which in isolation may not lend themselves to that outcome. Having an adverse audience, it was argued, could lead to invalid or biased results.

So while the party being examined under the rule can have counsel present – for, among other reasons, to avoid any self-incrimination – the rule is silent as to the access of the opposing counsel.  The Superior Court’s decision established the prohibition against the presence of outside observers during a neuropsychological evaluation and found good cause for the protective order.  The Trial Court made a careful consideration of the issues and opinions and ethical issues of the governing bodies for neuropsychology professional associations and potential for an invalid or biased outcome.  The Trial Court also expressed a concern that the doctor’s written statements could be used for impeachment purposes if the examination were conducted in the presence of a third party.

Those concerns led to the conclusion that having the “requesting” party’s attorney in the room carries more risk to the process than reward and for that, counsel is excluded and left wait until the report is issued and wait to cross-examine the physician at trial.

(Photo Credit: 123rf.com / ostill)

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Aaron Weems is an attorney and editor of the Pennsylvania Family Law Blog. Aaron is a partner in Fox Rothschild’s Blue Bell, Pennsylvania office and practices throughout the greater Philadelphia region. Aaron can be reached at 610-397-7989; aweems@foxrothschild.com, and on Twitter@AaronWeemsAtty.

6874479-3d-rendering-of-a-server-room-with-white-serversIn nearly every facet of litigation, the issue of electronic discovery and how to manage its production and review is becoming an important issue. This is no different in family law cases. Increasingly, individuals, businesses, and financial institutions are producing discovery via PDFs, hyperlinks to shared databases, and hard drives or cloud access.  The collection of data and record retention policy gives us access to millions of megabytes of data to download, sift through, and produce. The size of discovery productions in family law cases can at times rival or exceed that of more “traditional” litigation.

The pressure to handle these productions in a secure and ethical way has grown so great that my firm took the affirmative step some time ago to select my partner, Joshua Hummel, to chair our Electronic Discovery Practice Group. Josh’s group is tasked with planning and managing Fox Rothschild’s e-discovery compliance. Thanks to Josh and his staff, our firm is extremely capable of handling large scale e-discovery cases which might otherwise drown a litigation department.

The burden is not just on the attorneys and clients, either. The courts have become overrun with electronic discovery issues.  It is with this in mind that Courts throughout Pennsylvania have begun to set up special discovery master programs to deal with e-discovery and complex discovery cases.  As highlighted in an article in The Legal Intelligencer, many of the local Philadelphia courts, both state and federal, have adopted special masters.  Montgomery County has had private attorneys working as discovery masters for some time with Wendy Rothstein from my office serving as a master, while in Berks County, J. Benjamin Nevius of our Exton (Chester Co.) office appointed as a discovery master last fall.

The ultimate intent of a special master program – like with any court reform – is to speed up the litigation process and to deal with discovery issues efficiently and effectively.  As cases become increasingly based on e-discovery and the laws and rules regarding their production evolve, it will be up to the attorneys to help their clients manage the information and ensure a production compliant with the Discovery Rules is made.

(Photo Credit: 123rf.com; zentilia)

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Aaron Weems is an attorney and editor of the Pennsylvania Family Law Blog. Aaron is a partner in Fox Rothschild’s Blue Bell, Pennsylvania office and practices throughout the greater Philadelphia region. Aaron can be reached at 610-397-7989; aweems@foxrothschild.com, and on Twitter@AaronWeemsAtty.

iPad Texts?
iPad Texts?

We have written about electronic discovery and Pennsylvania’s wiretapping law on this blog before. For family law attorneys, they are issues which can be critical to your case, but also present a minefield of ethical and evidentiary issues. How information may be collected and in what manner can be unclear; similarly, it can be ambiguous to counsel and the courts how to weigh evidence collected electronically and presented to the court in a manner which makes it difficult to authenticate (i.e. text messages).

The criminal courts are, as always, the great laboratory of evidentiary law and last June the Superior Court issued a ruling in a case involving text messages from an iPad. Specifically, whether the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act was violated by police when had an informant relay text messages to them from the defendant in a drug deal.  The trial court in Commonwealth v. Diego suppressed the text message evidence.

The Wiretapping Act was originally passed in 1978 and has been periodically updated to address evolving technology, though probably not quickly enough. This case presents iPad communication as a case of first impression.  The Superior Court cited a 2001 case (Commonwealth v. Proetto) which found that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in sending emails or chat-room messages to third parties. Basically, using email and text services renders moot any expectation of privacy. Not unlike arguments used with social media; once released, an email or text may be forwarded, modified, and read by anyone the recipient chooses to disclose it to. Knowledge that the message was being recorded by text or email was sufficient notice to keep it from within a protected category of communication.

An iPad is not a telephone under the common understanding of the relevant term, the Superior Court reasoned, and no one would misidentify an iPad for a telephone.  The Superior Court’s decision, however, did not ultimately hinge on the type of device more so the method of intercept. The informant cooperated with police and relayed to them the contents of the text messages he received from Diego. Rather than observing them before the informant received them – which the Court identified as being a separate and distinct legal issue – the informant was voluntarily disclosing them to the police after he received them.  Accordingly, the evidence collected which lead to Diego’s arrest was legally obtained.

The take-away, as always, is that anything placed in a digital format poses a threat of being repurposed, passed along, or disclosed to unintended third parties. Maintaining solid “e-security” is difficult, if not overwhelming, but as this case indicates, you cannot be certain that texts and emails are not going to be discoverable or accessible to third parties; you can never be sure the recipient’s eyes are the only ones on them.

(Photo Credit: 123rf.com; Dirk Ercken).

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Aaron Weems is an attorney and editor of the Pennsylvania Family Law Blog. Aaron is a partner in Fox Rothschild’s Blue Bell, Pennsylvania office and practices throughout the greater Philadelphia region. Aaron can be reached at 610-397-7989; aweems@foxrothschild.com, and on Twitter@AaronWeemsAtty.

Ashley Madison Data Breach only Slightly Less Obvious
Ashley Madison Data Breach only Slightly Less Obvious than Lip Stick on the Collar

 

When I first heard of the Ashley Madison data breach, I seem to be one of the few family law attorneys who felt somewhat cool to the idea it was going to result in a crescendo of divorce filings. First, due to Ashley Madison not having an email verification protocol, the presence of an email on the list is not in any way a confirmation that the legitimate owner of the email registered it with the website. Secondly, I had to assume that anyone with common sense was not using a “real” email and the chance for exposure would be minimal. Thirdly, I assumed that of the millions of identified users, perhaps a smaller percentage were active users and a portion were fake emails or users who registered as a goof; I imaged a much smaller pool relative to amount of registered users. Finally, I considered the other spouse and whether they would have the wherewithal or suspicion to search for their spouse’s email (emails?) among the users. Overall, I imagined a smattering of “Ashley Madison motivated divorces” being reported, but nothing that would move the needle on average filings.

If initial reports are accurate, I clearly overestimated the common sense of many Ashley Madison users and grossly underestimated their laziness in not opening anonymous, dedicated email accounts to register to the site.

Now that the data has been dumped and various websites are combing the data for notable users and email suffixes, I am much more certain that there will be some serious fall-out for relationships, certainly, but also for the employment of users. The news coverage surrounding the breach also brought to light what might end up being the most relevant aspect of the breach for any future divorce cases: the expense. Again, while the presence of an email is not dispositive of use, the credit card records are pretty conclusive.

Based on the price scaling reported, a motivated philanderer could rack up a fairly significant bill on Ashley Madison before they ever get to their first illicit rendezvous. When you factor in the costs of carrying on an affair (i.e. meals, travel, and gifts) the expenses increase exponentially. Each dollar applied to the affair is a dollar inappropriately dissipated from the marital estate.  Once the affair is exposed and a case is in litigation, a forensic accounting of bank accounts and credit cards will occur and eventually the financial scope of the affair will emerge.

The affair, in of itself, may not have a tremendous impact on a case since equitable distribution in Pennsylvania is blind to the bad actions of parties (unless those actions have a financial impact on the estate). For members of the armed forces, however, adultery is a punishable crime which could lead to dishonorable discharge and loss of financial benefits, such as pensions. Losing a pension adversely impacts not just the service member, but the service member’s spouse. Losing a retirement account due to such behavior would undoubtedly be argued as a dissipation of that marital asset and with the value of the lost pension being assigned to the service member and corresponding assets given to the spouse (assuming there are any).

Other people may be in sensitive positions involving confidential data or public positions where the appearance of impropriety from an exposed affair has a greater impact than whether the affair affects their ability to do their job. Losing a job over an affair could be interpreted as a “voluntary decrease” in income, not unlike being fired for cause or voluntarily taking a lower paying position to avoid a support obligation.

The real story about Ashley Madison data drop is not the salacious exposure of people seeking out affairs, but the breach of security for an organization relying so heavily on confidentiality – their entire business model and marketing campaign hinges on it. Go see our blog on data security for more information on such topics.

What will continue to generate news for the coming weeks, however, will be the cases where Ashley Madison data will be presented as evidence for economic loss in divorce or support cases, and the jumping off point for investigations into certain registered users. After the initial fireworks of the disclosures, this will be a slow burn story as more people are exposed and the repercussions are felt. The easy joke is that this is a boon for divorce lawyers, but I think it will be the family therapists and accountants who end up the busiest in the end.

(Photo Credit: Copyright a href=’httpwww.123rf.comprofile_toniton’toniton  123RF Stock Photoa)

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Aaron Weems is an attorney and editor of the Pennsylvania Family Law Blog. Aaron is a partner in Fox Rothschild’s Blue Bell, Pennsylvania office and practices throughout the greater Philadelphia region. Aaron can be reached at 610-397-7989; aweems@foxrothschild.com, and on Twitter@AaronWeemsAtty

Welcome Gift for Coming to PA and Violating a Restraining Order
Welcome Gift for Coming to PA and Violating a Restraining Order

Like many border areas of states, living in eastern Pennsylvania commonly results in legal issues which “span the river” into New Jersey, New York, Maryland, or Delaware (for our colleagues in the central and western part of the state, you can add West Virginia and Ohio); states with distinct laws and procedures from each other. Jurisdictional issues, choice of law issues, and standing can become important considerations for cases. For an action like a Protection from Abuse (“PFA”) or, in New Jersey, a Final Restraining Order (“FRO”), it is not uncommon for parties to live in each state and for incidents to occur in each jurisdiction.

Such is the recent Bucks County case on appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court. In this case, the issue arose as to whether Pennsylvania Courts had jurisdiction to enforce a New Jersey FRO. The FRO was entered against two individuals in New Jersey in 2009. Later, in 2012 and 2013, the protected party had interactions with the defendants which rose to violations of the FRO. He brought contempt actions in Bucks County after a series of incidents with the defendants in Pennsylvania.

The Bucks County wrote this opinion after the defendants sought appeal on three different grounds based on a due process claim, insufficiency of evidence, and, the one relevant for this discussion, that Bucks County did not have jurisdiction to adjudicate the contempt action against the defendants.

The Bucks County court relies on 23 Pa.C.S. § 6114.1 of the PFA Act which allows a plaintiff to file a petition for civil contempt with the issuing court or on a foreign protection order. As defined by 18 U.S.C. § 2266, a foreign protection order covers any order or injunction in civil or criminal court which prevents violent or threatening acts or harassment against sexual violence, contact or communication with or physical proximity to the protected person. In other words, if any jurisdiction issues a restraining order or something comparable, Pennsylvania will enforce it provided the violating act occurred in Pennsylvania.

The logic behind this section of the PFA code is obvious: what good does a restraining order do if its effectiveness stops at the state line? By allowing for the enforcement of the order in Pennsylvania’s courts, the goal – the protection of an individual from harm by others – is accomplished. Furthermore, by limiting the enforcement to incidents happening in Pennsylvania, there is no opportunity for forum shopping or abuse of the system by plaintiffs looking for a favorable jurisdiction.

The Bucks County opinion strongly argues that jurisdiction exists to consider the Pennsylvania incidents for contempt of the New Jersey FRO. What this cases serves to demonstrate, however, is that restraining orders travel in Pennsylvania; the Courts will not deny someone an opportunity to enforce that protection simply because the restraining order was issued by a court in another state. The emphasis should be on the protection of the individual.

Smithers v. Stanton, C.P. Bucks County, Family Division, No. A06-09-61861-A-36; 2014 BCBA, 87 Bucks Co. L. Rep. 286 (2013).

(Image: www.wisegeek.com)

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Aaron Weems is an attorney and editor of the Pennsylvania Family Law Blog. Aaron is a partner in Fox Rothschild’s Blue Bell, Pennsylvania office and practices throughout the greater Philadelphia region. Aaron can be reached at 610-397-7989; aweems@foxrothschild.com, and on Twitter @AaronWeemsAtty.

The Instruments of Embarrassment
The Instruments of Embarrassment

A recent story through ABC’s Good Morning America website highlighted the evolution of the prenuptial agreement in the social media age. Divorce lawyers are reporting an increasing amount of requests for language in prenuptial agreements – if not stand-alone agreements – addressing social media usage.

It makes a lot of sense. In an age where nothing ever really seems to be removed from the internet, protecting one’s privacy or “personal brand” on social media is a major personal and professional priority. People have been fired from their jobs due to content someone posted about them online; personal and professional reputations have been tarnished over embarrassing photos.

The concept of this clause does raise some intriguing legal issues. First, your ex-wife posting an embarrassing photo of you is not going to be defamation per se; after all, it is difficult to assert she is lying when the photographic evidence speaks for itself. Secondly, how can financial damages even be measured for someone posting on social media? Unless a job is lost or there is a concrete connection between the posted content and the outcome, I think a person calling “foul” over their ex-spouse posting photos will have a difficult time proving they lost income.

The way to give such an agreement “teeth,” therefore, is to provide for a defined financial sanction against the posting party. One attorney in the story suggests that the sanction should be relative to the earning power of the violating party and apply to each incident in which barred information was published. Practically speaking, the sanction has to be great enough that neither party will feel that the personal satisfaction of humiliating their former spouse outweighs the financial penalty.

I would think such an agreement, however, would need to carve out an exception for trial evidence or at least be narrowly tailored to the dissemination of information through social media platforms. Pictures and video acquired during the marriage can be a valuable resource for the corroborating behavior or actions of a party; it can provide important, admissible evidence. A blanket prohibition of the dissemination of pictures or video could undermine their application at trial and would certainly be subject to a discovery motion as to whether the agreement precluded the use of information at trial or, merely, the use of such information on social media. I would be surprised if people – particularly if they plan to have children – would want to prospectively preclude the introduction of certain types of evidence which may be relevant at a custody trial. An exception for the use of such media evidence at trial or, possibly, an agreement that such evidence would be viewed by the judge “in camera” (i.e. not in open court) could also help address the sensitive nature of the evidence.

It is axiomatic that technology changes faster than the court system can keep up. Private agreements, however, can mirror the shifting landscape of technology and privacy. Expect to see greater creativity in prenuptial and post-nuptial agreements dealing with this and other technologically based issues.

(picture credit: celeritystaffing.com)

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Aaron Weems is an attorney and editor of the Pennsylvania Family Law Blog. Aaron is a partner in Fox Rothschild’s Blue Bell, Pennsylvania office and practices throughout the greater Philadelphia region. Aaron can be reached at 610-397-7989; aweems@foxrothschild.com, and on Twitter @AaronWeemsAtty

Psst, can I stop whispering in your ear and just email you instead? Its work-product.
Psst, can I stop whispering in your ear and just email you instead? Its protected as work-product.

Many of my cases involve the use of expert witnesses; individuals hired to review and testify about a specific issue or topic. Usually they are financial experts whose job is value a particular asset such as a business, while other experts could be psychologists conducting a custody evaluation. In other areas of law, there are individuals qualified as experts in virtually every conceivable topic and issue.  Whatever the underlying issue of a case, it is reasonable to assume there is an expert out there prepared to testify about it.

Consequently, communication between an attorney and the expert working on the case is critical and often encompasses trial strategy. It is vitally important that the expert and the attorney can openly and easily communicate about the case.  Not too long ago, however, this relationship and communication became subject to discovery in the case of Barrick et al. v. Holy Spirit Hospital of the Sisters of the Christian Charity et al.  At the time, the trial court ruled that expert testimony was subject to Pennsylvania’s liberal discovery rules and should be turned over to the other side. This was a radical departure from commonly held beliefs and practices protecting this communication and created significant consternation among attorneys.

The Superior Court heard the case in 2011 and overruled the trial court’s decision and barred the production of communication between a surgeon serving as an expert and the plaintiff’s attorney in a personal injury case. Attorneys across the state breathed a sigh of relief; they could actually email their experts again.

Recently, any ambiguity was mostly removed when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the Superior Court’s decision through a split, 3-3 decision (an evenly divided court results in affirmation of the Superior Court decision). I say mostly because it was a 3-3 split, but in affirming the decision, three justices created a bright-line rule denying the production of expert/attorney communication.

The argument that communications with experts did not fall within the work-product doctrine of confidentiality and were critical for counsel to the cross-examination and critiquing by counsel was not accepted by the Court. The Court felt that by having the opportunity to cross-examine the expert, there was sufficient opportunity to attack his/her opinion without having to divulge communications between the expert and attorney.

This is an important decision in Pennsylvania and affects every litigator, regardless of area of expertise and will allow for experts and attorneys to freely exchange ideas without fear that they will turn into trial exhibits.

Photo Credit: www.health.com

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Aaron Weems is an attorney and editor of the Pennsylvania Family Law Blog. Aaron is a resident of Fox Rothschild’s Blue Bell, Pennsylvania office and practices throughout the greater Philadelphia region. Aaron can be reached at 610-397-7989; aweems@foxrothschild.com, and on Twitter @AaronWeemsAtty