Toward the end of January, New York’s Appellate Division, First Department, issued a short but significant decision holding an injury claimant’s private social media information discoverable, albeit with some limitations on the time span and subject matter. The opinion is Vasquez-Santos v. Mathew, 2019 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 527 (1st Dep’t Jan. 24, 2019). New York’s highest court had already held, in February 2018, that disclosure of materials from an injured plaintiff’s Facebook account, with limitations against improper “fishing expeditions,” was consistent with New York’s liberal approach to pretrial discovery. Forman v. Henkin, 30 N.Y.3d 656, 2018 N.Y. LEXIS 180 (Ct. App. Feb. 13, 2018).

Given Forman decided a year ago, what is so significant about the Appellate Division’s pithy Vasquez-Santos decision from a few weeks ago? After all, several decisions after Forman already had grappled with aspects of social media disclosure. See E. Glassman, M. Keough & M. Newcomer, “Insight: Making Social Media # Discoverable (or Not): Lessons Learned From Forman,” Bloomberg BNA (Nov. 26, 2018) (survey of several post-Forman decisions).