Reality TV Star Must Produce Social Media Posts in Eviction Proceeding, Judge Finds
A former reality TV show star who has claimed succession rights for her late mother's rent-regulated Brooklyn apartment must produce social media posts from the two years leading up to her mother's death, a Housing Court judge found.
August 01, 2018 at 05:12 PM
2 minute read
A former reality TV show star who has claimed succession rights for her late mother's rent-regulated Brooklyn apartment must produce social media posts from the two years leading up to her mother's death, a Housing Court judge found. Mercedies Webber, who also goes by “Benze Lohan” and appeared in a season of “Bad Girls Club” on Oxygen, is subject to a holdover proceeding filed by her landlord, who moved for discovery for Webber's posts on Twitter, Instagram and other platforms to determine whether her adoptive mother's apartment was her primary residence before the mother passed away in 2015. Webber argues that, because the critics panned “Bad Girls Club” as “horrible” and “tasteless without merit,” the landlord is going on a “fishing expedition” in an effort to “smear her in the eyes of the court.” Until this year, Brooklyn Housing Court Judge Zhuo Wang ruled on July 27, New York courts hewed to the rule that discovery on social media accounts was restricted to what information could be used to contradict a party's claims. That changed in February, the judge found, when the New York Court of Appeals issued a ruling favorable to the defendant in Forman v. Henkin, 30 NY3d 656, in an effort to get discovery of the private Facebook account of a plaintiff injured in a fall from a horse who claims that she suffered traumatic brain injury and social isolation, causing her once-prolific online self to go dark. “Courts addressing disputes over the scope of social media discovery should employ our well-established rules—there is no need for a specialized or heightened factual predicate to avoid improper 'fishing expeditions,'” Chief Judge Janet DiFiore wrote for the high court. Finding in favor of the landlord, Wang said the Court of Appeals ruling reaffirmed the provision under the state Civil Practice Law and Rules that parties are entitled to liberal—though not unlimited—discovery. Abraham Neuhaus of Stahl & Zelmanovitz appeared for the landlord; Martin Needelman of Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A represented Webber.
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