San Francisco, CA employment attorney Traci M. Hinden talks about how social media can affect your employment case. She warns that social media activity can create assumptions in an employer’s mind or influence how an insurance company or opposing attorney views a person’s credibility. She explains that her office generally discourages clients from posting on social media because even seemingly harmless posts, such as announcing a birthday, can prompt questions about an individual’s circumstances, including whether they were involved in a car accident or how they are doing after being terminated. She notes that even private communications through platforms such as Messenger can become problematic because social media posts and messages may be requested during discovery as part of the litigation process.

She describes discovery as the stage when the opposing side examines information about the individual and the circumstances of the case to determine whether the matter should be resolved or contested. She provides an example involving a severely disabled client who posted a picture of a woman who looked substantially like her bungee jumping after someone asked what she was doing that weekend. Although the client was physically incapable of bungee jumping, the image appeared to be her, which caused the employer to believe that she had been misrepresenting her disabilities and significantly complicated the case.

She notes that although the matter was ultimately resolved, the social media post created a serious challenge because the employer genuinely believed the image showed the client engaging in an activity inconsistent with her claimed disabilities. She also cautions that comments posted on a person’s social media page by others can create additional problems, particularly if the comments appear racist, offensive, or otherwise inappropriate. She emphasizes that insurance companies and opposing parties may obtain copies of this information, and such material can potentially affect how they evaluate an individual’s credibility or whether certain evidence is introduced in the case.