A 29-year-old Canadian woman is taking an insurance company to court, claiming that they ended the benefits they had been paying her for over a year and a half because of photos posted on her Facebook page.
In February 2008 Nathalie Blanchard was diagnosed with severe depression.
As a consequence of that diagnosis Ms Blanchard took sick leave from her job with IBM in Bromont, Quebec.
For 20 months Ms Blanchard was receiving monthly benefits from IBM's insurance company Manulife. But in October of this year those monthly payments were stopped.
When Ms Blanchard contacted Manulife to ascertain why her payments had ceased she claims she was told that, based on photos posted on her Facebook page, she was no longer considered too sick to work and therefore was not entitled to the benefits she had been receiving.
According to
CBC News the photographs in question were of Ms Blanchard at her birthday party, taking a beach holiday, and watching a performance in a bar by
Chippendales, the male dancing group.
Ms Blanchard, who is from Eastern Townships in Southeastern Quebec, says that she took the beach holiday and enjoyed the evenings out with her friends on the advice of her doctor. Furthermore she maintains that she actually notified Manulife that she would be taking the holiday.
Now, having been forced to sell her home because she was unable to meet the mortgage payments, her mortgage insurance provider was informed too of the photos on Facebook, allegedly by either Manulife or IBM, and with her credit record adversely affected, Ms Blanchard is seeking redress in the Quebec Superior Court, where she has filed a claim for wrongful dismissal. In addition damages from Manulife are being sought.
Thomas Lavin is the lawyer acting for Ms Blanchard, who is unsure how the insurance company were able to view her photos as she only allows certain people to access her Facebook postings, and he said that Manulife had cut his client's benefits without first asking her to explain what she was doing seemingly have a good time whilst officially on sick leave.
Mr Lavin is quoted by
Canwest News Service as saying of the situation in which Ms Blanchard finds herself:
She's in a fragile position to begin with and this has certainly not helped her recovery
CBC News reports that Mr Lavin has asked for a psychiatrist to assess Ms Blanchard, adding that he has questioned the use of Facebook as a means to judge a person's mental state and stated that his client's circumstances are unlike those of a person who may have been pictured carrying a load of bricks whilst claiming benefits for a broken back.
Meanwhile Manulife, headquartered in Toronto and one of the largest insurance companies in the world, it operates in the U.S. as John Hancock, has admitted to using social networking sites such as Facebook to investigate its clients. However it denies that information obtained from Facebook or a similar site would be the sole reason why a claim might be rejected or terminated.
Speaking on behalf of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, Claude Distasio said that its members must utilize any information that comes in to their possession, regardless of its source, when investigating claims made by clients.
Canwest News Service notes that earlier in the year Mirae Mayenburg was told by a court in British Columbia that she should have removed from Facebook pictures contradicting her claim that a car accident had meant that she was no longer able to participate in some of her favorite pastimes. Ms Mayenburg was photographed cycling and hiking.
