Archive - December 2004

Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Inc. v. Michelson, 56 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1159, 2003 WL 21468573 (W.D. Tenn. May 13, 2003)

In case involving trade secrets, patents and trade information in the field of spinal fusion medical technology, defendant moved for production of 996 network backup tapes containing, among other things, electronic mail, plus an estimated 300 gigabytes of other electronic data not in a backed-up format. Read More

Nartron Corp. v. Gen. Motors Corp., 2003 WL 1985261 (Mich. Ct. App. Apr. 29, 2003)

In contract breach action, plaintiff claimed that GMC prematurely discontinued use of component part, which plaintiff had developed based on GMC’s projections of large volume purchases over an extended period of time. Plaintiff sought damages for research and development costs associated with the component part; consequently, evidence of plaintiff’s R & D payroll was a primary focus of discovery. Read More

Dodge, Warren & Peters Ins. Services, Inc. v. Riley, 130 Cal.Rptr.2d 385 (Cal. Ct. App. 2003)

Insurance brokerage firm sued former employees who, before forming their own firm, copied and removed documents maintained in files and computer storage media for their own future use. Read More

Metropolitan Opera Association, Inc. v. Local 100, 212 F.R.D. 178 (S.D.N.Y. 2003)

Similar to Danis v. USN Communications, Inc., 2000 WL 1694325 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 23, 2000), this case chronicles the myriad failings and misrepresentations of defense counsel regarding discovery obligations. Read More

McPeek v. Ashcroft, 212 F.R.D. 33 (D.D.C. 2003)
After initial search of certain backup tapes was conducted, the parties offered the court differing views of the success of the search and the need for additional searches. Read More

Liafail, Inc. v. Learning 2000, Inc., 2002 WL 31954396 (D. Del. Dec. 23, 2002)

In action for contract breach and trademark infringement, and pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(1), Liafail identified its national sales manager as likely to have discoverable information; the sales manager was a former sales manager of defendant (“L2K”). In response to L2K’s discovery requests, the sales manager gave Liafail the L2K-issued laptop that he had used while gaining knowledge of the day-to-day operations of L2K. Read More

Residential Funding Corp. v. DeGeorge Fin. Corp., 306 F.3d 99 (2d Cir. 2002)

The litigation involved cross claims for, among other things, breach of contract stemming from events occurring in late 1998. At a discovery planning conference, the parties agreed that discovery would be completed by August 1, 2001, and the case would be ready for trial by September 1, 2001. Defendant’s discovery requests sought the production of email; plaintiff raised no objection to the requests and agreed to “work diligently” to produce the responsive email. 306 F.3d at 102. Read More

Cognex Corp. v. Electro Scientific Ind., Inc., 2002 WL 32309413 (D. Mass. July 2, 2002)

In this patent infringement case, plaintiff moved to compel a search of defendant’s backup tapes for documents responsive to its document request, offering to share the cost of the search, or even pay the entire cost. At issue were 820 backup tapes covering 1992 through 2001, which defendant said contained approximately four terabytes of information. It was estimated that, if printed, the tapes would yield almost three billion pages. Read More

Byers v. Ill. State Police, 2002 WL 1264004, 53 Fed.R.Serv.3d 740 (N.D. Ill. 2002)

Plaintiffs in sex discrimination suit moved to compel defendants to produce email stored on backup tapes created daily over an eight-year period. Based on the cost of the proposed search and plaintiffs’ failure to establish that the search would likely uncover relevant information, the court concluded that plaintiffs were entitled to the archived emails only if they were willing to pay for part of the cost of production. 2002 WL 1264004, at *12. Read More

Jones v. Goord, 2002 WL 1007614 (S.D.N.Y. May 16, 2002)

Prisoners brought class action suit challenging state’s program of housing two prisoners in a cell originally designed for one prisoner, arguing that the practice increased disease transmission and violence among the prisoners. After more than three years of discovery, plaintiffs sought the production of six different electronic databases. Read More