On the Interpretation of a Judgment Obliging the Operator of a Social Network to Grant Heirs of an Account Holder Access to the Complete Account
The Third Civil Senate of the Federal Court of Justice has ruled that the operator of a social network, which has been ordered to grant the heirs of a network participant access to her complete user account, must enable the heirs to access and review the account and its content in the same manner, and to "navigate" within it – with the exception of active use – as the original account holder previously could.
Factual Background
The debtor operates a social network. She was ordered by a legally binding judgment of the Regional Court of Berlin dated December 17, 2015 – confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice (Judgment of July 12, 2018 – III ZR 183/17 – Press Release 115/18) – to grant the parents of a deceased network participant, as heirs, access to their daughter's complete user account and the communication content held therein. Subsequently, the debtor provided the creditor, the deceased's mother, with a USB stick containing a PDF file of over 14,000 pages, which, according to the debtor, contains a copy of the data extracted from the account maintained by the deceased. It is disputed between the parties whether this fulfilled the debtor's obligation under the Regional Court's judgment of December 17, 2015.
Procedural History
Upon the creditor's application, the Regional Court imposed a coercive fine of €10,000 on the debtor for non-fulfillment of her obligation under the judgment of December 17, 2015. The Higher Regional Court (Kammergericht) overturned the Regional Court's decision following the debtor's immediate appeal and rejected the creditor's application for the imposition of a coercive measure against the debtor. The creditor's legal appeal, permitted by the Higher Regional Court (Kammergericht), is directed against this.
Decision of the Federal Court of Justice
The Third Civil Senate of the Federal Court of Justice overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal and reinstated the first-instance ruling.
An interpretation of the operative part of the Berlin Regional Court's judgment of December 17, 2015, already indicates that the creditor must not only be granted access to the communication content stored in the user account but also be given the opportunity to access the user account itself and its content in the same manner as the original account holder could.
This also follows from the grounds for the aforementioned judgment and the Federal Court of Justice's judgment of July 12, 2018. Both decisions derived the creditor's claim, to be fulfilled by the debtor, from inheritance law. The Federal Court of Justice stated that the user agreement between the creditor's daughter and the debtor, with its rights and obligations, had passed to the heirs by way of universal succession. The latter thereby entered into the contractual relationship and, as contracting parties and new account holders, therefore have a primary claim to access their daughter's user account and the digital content contained therein. From this position of the heirs and the principal claim of the deceased, which passed to them from the contractual relationship with the debtor, it readily follows that the heirs must be granted access to the user account in the same manner as their daughter previously had. This is further supported by numerous other statements made by the Federal Court of Justice and the Berlin Regional Court in their aforementioned judgments.
The debtor has not fulfilled its obligation under the Berlin Regional Court's judgment of December 17, 2015. Providing a USB stick with an extensive PDF file did not grant complete access to the user account. The PDF file does not fully represent the user account. The latter requires not only the display of the account's content but also the activation of all its functionalities – with the exception of those pertaining to its active continued use – and the German language, in which the user account was contractually maintained during the deceased's lifetime. The file provided by the creditor does not meet these requirements.
Decision of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) of august 27, 2020 – III ZB 30/20
Lower Courts:
Berlin Regional Court – Decision of February 13, 2019 – 20 O 172/15
Kammergericht (Court of Appeal) – Decision of December 3, 2019 – 21 W 11/19
