A Smart(phone) Decision
The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed a trial court decision to deny discovery access to a party’s smartphone
To assist in trial preparation, our rules of discovery are designed to enhance the availability of information to both parties. At the same time, our discovery rules contain certain limiting principles aimed at curbing information overreach and the potential for abuse. These limiting principles—including restrictions based on relevance, burden, expense, embarrassment, privilege, and proportionality—implicate the value of protecting a party’s privacy interests. The discovery request here, access to a party’s smartphone device, presents a unique challenge to balancing these privacy interests against the disclosure of information.
In resolving this issue of first impression, we hold that the party seeking production of a smartphone must provide some evidence of the device’s use at a time when it could have been a contributing cause of the incident litigated and must describe the data sought with reasonable particularity. In so holding, we stress three things: (1) that, unlike certain privileged information exempt from disclosure, privacy concerns are not a per se bar to discovery of relevant information; (2) that the “some evidence” standard poses a relatively low burden on the requesting party, leading to disclosure in most cases when that party makes the required showing through sources obtained by less-invasive means; and (3) that, given the highly deferential standard of review, we will affirm a trial court’s discovery ruling so long as it’s sustainable on any legal basis in the record.
Based on the record here, we hold that, because the plaintiff’s discovery request lacks the necessary evidentiary support and because it casts too wide a net, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying plaintiff’s motion to compel. Accordingly, we affirm.
The case involves a driver who struck a pedestrian; the driver raised a claim of contributory negligence
During the early stages of discovery, Plaintiff subpoenaed Defendant’s cellphone provider (Verizon), records from which revealed that Defendant had not been talking or texting at the time of the accident.
In light of that
Plaintiff insists that evidence of Defendant’s phone use could “prove she’s a liar.” Oral Argument at 41:50–42:00. That very well may be true. But the central issue at trial (as Plaintiff repeatedly stressed in his briefings) was whether Defendant was distracted at the time of the accident, not whether Defendant was credible.
Dissent of Justice Molter
In a car accident case like this one, there is little evidence more relevant than whether a driver was distracted by their cell phone, which is the evidence Jennings sought here. Smiley acknowledged using her iPhone’s navigation application to chart her route, so Jennings requested a forensic analysis of Smiley’s cell phone covering only data indicating whether she was using her cell phone around the time the accident occurred. The Court concludes Jennings wasn’t entitled to that data for a few reasons, but each is mistaken in my view…
In sum, cell phone data revealing whether Smiley was using her phone when the accident occurred was critical to a central issue in the case— whether Smiley was a distracted driver—and the benefit of that information to resolving the case far outweighed Smiley’s privacy concerns, which could have easily been addressed through a protective order. Accordingly, the trial court exceeded its discretion by denying Jennings’ motion to compel, and because that error was not harmless, we should vacate the judgment. Since the Court concludes otherwise, I respectfully dissent.
(Mike Frisch)