Supreme Court bars illegal recordings as evidence in civil trials

The Supreme Court ruled on April 30 that audio recordings made by a third party without consent have no evidentiary value in civil lawsuits. The decision came in case number 2024Da222212, a damages case involving infidelity where a spouse had secretly recorded conversations to prove misconduct.

Such recordings violate the Communications Secrets Protection Act, which prohibits intercepting or recording private conversations unless authorized under criminal or military procedure laws. Consequently, files or transcripts obtained through this illegal wiretapping are inadmissible in proceedings.

While the Civil Procedure Act generally allows judges to evaluate evidence freely, the court found that specific statutes like the Communications Secrets Protection Act override this principle when they explicitly ban the use of illegally gathered information.

The court drew a distinction between audio interceptions and other forms of digital evidence, such as photos or text messages captured via mobile phone. Where no specific law mandates exclusion, judges must weigh the need to discover the truth against the severity of the privacy violation.

Factors for this balancing test include the nature of the dispute, the method used to obtain the evidence, the degree of harm suffered by the victim, and the urgency of securing proof.

In the underlying case, a spouse installed a recording device in the other spouse's car and accessed their mobile phone during divorce proceedings to gather proof of an affair. Lower courts rejected the audio recordings but accepted photographs and text messages as valid evidence to award damages.

The Supreme Court upheld these rulings, dismissing appeals from defendants who argued that all evidence obtained through privacy violations should be thrown out.