Well you know you’ve hit the big time when your service is used by some crafty lawyer to file an appeal. Ok, so maybe it’s not hitting the big time but it is certainly evidence that not everyone on Twitter is a rocket scientist. Shocking I know but hey welcome to the new world order.
It happened in Arkansas as reported by Techdirt when a building company had a judgment against them for $12.6 million. That’s gonna leave a mark for sure. Unless of course one of your jurors tells his Tweeps the following:
“I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money”
“oh and nobody buy Stoam. Its bad mojo and they’ll probably cease to Exist, now that their wallet is 12m lighter”
Who knows what this person’s intent was and with the law that is often not even important. How it is being presented by the lawyers that represent the building company is that this juror was predisposed to a verdict that would “impress his audience”. I have to think that the leap from reaching a verdict to a predisposition to a verdict for Twitter recognition is a big one but anything is possible.
Let’s not focus on just one event like this though. In Philadelphia, there are accusations that a juror’s Twitter habit broke rules about disclosing deliberations. In a different twist there have been instances where jurors are accessing information on their phones during a trial that led to a mistrial in Florida. This wasn’t some minor case either; it was a federal drug trial.
So what’s the takeaway here? There are a million of them depending on your point of view. From where I sit though I have to say that if you can’t curb your desire to tell everyone about everything you are doing when it comes to a lawsuit you should probably have your social media membership card revoked. Even in a world where everyone knows everything about everyone else there are times that it’s not about us. We may think that what we are doing and thinking is important all the time but it’s not required that we tell everything all the time especially if other people are profoundly impacted by our narcissism. Think before you tweet!