An employee said a workplace injury left him in pain, unable to “enjoy life’s pleasures” or wear shorts because of an embarrassing scar. Given those claims, attorneys for his former employer were interested in what was on his Facebook page.
Rane Zimmerman injured his left leg while operating a forklift at the Weis Markets warehouse in Milton, PA. He was employed there as a subcontractor. Zimmerman sued Weis for his injury.
But photos on the public part of his Facebook page show him wearing shorts that reveal the leg scar and riding a motorcycle.
Weis Markets filed a motion to gain access to his private Facebook postings.
Zimmerman claimed his privacy outweighed the need to obtain information from his social networking web pages.
Now, a county judge in Pennsylvania has sided with Weis.
“Zimmerman voluntarily posted all the pictures and information on his Facebook and MySpace sites … and he cannot now claim he possesses any reasonable expectation of privacy to prevent Weis Markets from access,” the judge wrote. “Information … gleaned by defendants from the Internet is fair game in today’s society.”
A lawyer for Weis Markets said he has received passwords, user names and log-in names for Zimmerman’s Facebook and MySpace pages as ordered by the judge.
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