Personal Injury Law

MySpace page of car crash victim subpoenaed in lawsuit

By Kirk Bernard, Esq.

Marissa Schneider was terribly injured in the Seattle car crash that wasn?t her fault. Her family sued both the driver and Chrysler, the makers of her car, with allegations that her injuries were, in part, to a design flaw in her Dodge Spirit.

But now the lawyers for the Chrysler Company have issued a subpoena for a court order to get inside her MySpace page and see her personal blogs, and her family wants to know why.

"Cyber-investigations" such as these are becoming more common in lawsuits.

The driver of the car in the Seattle Auto Accident, a 21 year old Arlington woman, is now in a nursing home because she can't talk or take care of herself. She was on her way to work when her car was hit by an on-coming vehicle that crossed the center line.

After denying the claim, Chrysler turned its attention on the victim, and issued a subpoena to get full access to Marissa's MySpace account, which includes private blogs which have been largely unchanged since her accident.

?It's what Marissa wrote and I don't see anything that has to do with it. It's just her private little messages to her friends," said her mother.

Full post as published by Seattle Injury Blog on February 19, 2008 (boomark / email).