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Facebook Postings Could be Evidence in Divorce

Divorce is often a very contentious and stressful experience. Parties can look for any advantage they can get and a Facebook faux pas can have major consequences.

Depending on your privacy settings, not everyone who can read your Facebook is your “friend.” As more and more people use social media, we are seeing a growing trend in Wisconsin and across the country with more electronic postings from the internet coming into courts of law as evidence in civil cases like divorce and in criminal matters.

On September 10, the New York State Bar Association issued an ethics opinion that permitted using Facebook evidence so long as no trickery or fraud was used in obtaining it. Last year, a Wisconsin court of appeals upheld using a defendant’s Myspace page as evidence against him.

The sort of evidence that you can get from social media web sites is the sort of evidence that you used to need a private investigator to get. Now people are more than willing to share their secrets to complete strangers over the internet. Examples of self-damaging Facebook posts are plentiful. They range from a fugitive commenting on the great weather where she was hiding, to a parent claiming to be too poor to pay child support and then showing off a newly bought luxury car in Facebook photos.

People tend to write things on Facebook they would never say aloud and post pictures they would not want everyone to see. Facebook is a great outlet for expression, but some people should take more care with what they post on Facebook. Facebook postings have come back to haunt some people in court.

Sources:

St. Petersburg Times (TampaBay.com): Facebook flubs make for salacious legal cases; Stephanie Hayes, 10/15/2010.

State v. Trusty, 776 N.W.2d 287 (Wis. App. 2009)

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Can Facebook and Social Media Lead to Divorce?

The power social media has to connect people is undeniable. Social media makes it quick and easy to reconnect with an old friend or classmate. However, social media is playing an increasing role in causing marital discord and even leading to divorce. Recently, National Public Radio had an interesting piece on the power of social media to drive couples apart.

Social media is driving married couples apart in two key ways. Social media increases the opportunity for infidelity, and it serves to reduce a person’s inhibitions when it comes to approaching another person.

Opportunity:

Opportunity is a major predictor of infidelity. The more opportunity a person has to cheat, the more likely he or she is to cheat. Social media sites like Facebook and Myspace increase opportunity tremendously. While finding someone used to take digging through a phone book, and often an out of town directory, it now takes only minutes, if not seconds, to do a quick search to find an old lover or a new crush.

Reduced Inhibitions:

In the past, if you found a person interesting and wanted to say hello, you would have to either approach the person in person, or make a phone call. Tara Fritsch, a marriage therapist, was interviewed for the NPR story. She explained how social media reduces inhibitions quite well. She said, “Twenty years ago, if you really thought a co-worker was interesting, and later on that evening you thought of them and wanted to say, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ Then you would have to ask yourself, ‘Is it really appropriate to call them at home? What if their spouse answers? What am I thinking about?'”

Social media erodes those mental barriers. Sending a Facebook message, a text or an e-mail can feel quite innocent. But, as we are finding out, things can escalate quite quickly. People who do not intend to have an affair at first can quickly find themselves in one. Research has shown that people communicating in an online environment can often fall for each other within a week. According to Bob Rosenwein of Lehigh University, “When you don’t have nonverbal communication, the likelihood of being able to disclose at a deeper level is greater, because there’s less inhibition. So it’s going to feel like a more intimate relationship.”

Preventing Social Media From Leading to Divorce or Separation:

The NPR story included some great tips from therapists for keeping marriages free from Facebook interference including:

  • Share an account or share passwords.
  • Trust your instincts; if you feel like you are writing something you would not want your spouse to read, you may be crossing a line.
  • If an ex messages or makes a “friend request”, talk it over with your spouse on if you should reply, and how it would make your spouse feel.

Source: National Public Radio: Can Social Media Break Up A Marriage?; Jennifer Ludden, 11/2/2010

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Lifetime alimony lost due to Facebook flub

In the past, we have written about the use of Facebook evidence in divorce cases. The use of Facebook evidence to resolve disputed claims in a divorce is becoming increasingly common. A recent divorce case illustrates how impactful Facebook evidence can be.

A family court judge recently sided with an ex-husband on the issue of alimony after seeing evidence from a social networking site that the man’s former spouse was not disabled as she had claimed, but was actively working as a belly dancer. The ex-wife had claimed to be disabled in a car accident and was requesting $850 per month in alimony from him for the rest of her life.

Despite her claims of being disabled, she apparently spent several hours a day performing as a belly dancer. She also spent many hours each day posting about her belly dancing on the Internet. The posts made their way into court as evidence on the issue of her need for alimony.

The belly-dancing woman told the judge that the reason she belly danced was for physical therapy reasons, as a way to recover from injuries she had received in a disabling car accident in the mid-1990s.

The court did not find the woman’s testimony credible compared to the evidence the ex-husband presented clearly showing the effervescent blogs of his ex-wife’s belly dancing activities. The judge took a dim view of the woman’s claim and ordered that her requested $850 monthly spousal support for a lifetime be reduced to $400 each month for limited time of two years.

In addition to cutting the amount and the time limit on the spousal maintenance owed to the ex-wife, the judge in the case also decided that the ex-husband should receive 60 percent of the proceeds of the sale of the couple’s home and that the woman should pay thousands of dollars for her ex-husband’s legal fees.

Source: New York Post, “‘Disabled’ woman seeking alimony revealed to be belly dancer,” Dareh Gregorian, 4/16/2011

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