Archive - December 2004

Tulip Computers Int’l B.V. v. Dell Computer Corp., 2002 WL 818061, 52 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1420 (D.Del. 2002)

Plaintiff brought a motion to compel and a motion for sanctions based on numerous discovery disputes relating to hard copy and electronic material. Plaintiff complained that, among other things, defendant had failed to produce any email or electronic documents for any senior employees. Defendant argued that it had circulated plaintiff’s document requests to over 300 employees, and all responsive documents had been produced. 2002 WL 818061, at *4. Read More

Antioch Co. v. Scrapbook Borders, Inc., 210 F.R.D. 645 (D. Minn. 2002)

Plaintiff sued former consultant and competing company for copyright infringement and unfair competition. Prior to any pretrial conference or entry of a scheduling order, and before any formal discovery had commenced, plaintiff moved for the entry of a preservation order, expedited discovery, and the appointment of a neutral computer forensics expert for the purposes of copying defendants’ hard drives. Read More

Stallings-Daniel v. N. Trust Co., 2002 WL 385566, 52 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1406 (N.D. Ill. 2002)

Employment discrimination plaintiff sought reconsideration of court’s order denying her use of an expert “to conduct so-called ‘electronic discovery’ of [defendant’s] e-mail system.” 2002 WL 385566, at *1. Materials had been produced by the defendant in hard copy form. Read More

In re Triton Energy Ltd. Sec. Litig., 2002 WL 32114464 (E.D. Tex. Mar. 7, 2002)

Plaintiffs complained that hundreds if not thousands of documents were produced after key depositions were taken, or on the eve of the depositions. Plaintiffs requested (1) that defendant be required to provide a log of all documents withheld from plaintiffs on any grounds; (2) that defendant produce a written certification to the court describing the efforts, if any, it has undertaken to comply with the court’s previous orders regarding the preservation and production of evidence and their obligations under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act; and (3) that plaintiffs be given access to defendant’s computer storage systems (including servers and hard drives) and those of all present and former members of the board of directors, and allow non-destructive testing of these systems to determine what documents and emails, if any, have been deleted and what, if any, of this information bears significantly on the subject matter of the lawsuit. Read More

Murphy Oil USA, Inc. v. Fluor Daniel, Inc., 2002 WL 246439, 52 Fed.R.Serv.3d 168 (E.D. La. 2002)

Plaintiff sought the production of email from 93 backup tapes. Defendant offered expert testimony that the process would cost over $6.2 million and take over six months to retrieve the material, not including the time required to review the material for responsiveness and privilege. 2002 WL 246439, at *2. Read More

In re Bristol-Meyers Squibb Sec. Litig., 205 F.R.D. 437 (D.N.J. 2002)

“The issues presented here raise the increasingly common problem of fair allocation of costs associated with discovery in the age of electronic information.” 205 F.R.D. at 439. Plaintiffs had agreed to pay $.10 per page for copying documents which defendants estimated to number around 500,000 pages. Defendants subsequently produced over thee million pages of documents, for which they sought over $300,000 in copying charges. Read More

Lombardo v. Broadway Stores, Inc., 2002 WL 86810 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan.22, 2002)

During the course of discovery, defendant repeatedly failed to provide substantive responses to interrogatories or produce certain categories of documents. Finally, more than a year after defendant had agreed to produce computerized payroll data, it revealed that certain computerized records had been “lost, misplaced or destroyed.” 2002 WL 81810, at *2. Read More

Rowe Entm’t, Inc. v. The William Morris Agency, Inc., 205 F.R.D. 421 (S.D.N.Y. 2002)

Plaintiffs sought the production of email from backup tapes and hard drives, and defendants moved for a protective order. The court denied defendant’s motion, but shifted the cost of the production to the plaintiffs. In doing so, the court utilized a balancing test that considered eight different factors: Read More

United States Fid. & Guar. Co. v. Braspetro Oil Serv. Co., 2002 WL 15652, 53 Fed.R.Serv.3d 60 (S.D.N.Y. 2002)

Plaintiffs sought production of privileged documents, on the grounds that defendants had made all of the documents on their privilege log available to their experts, thereby waiving all privilege with respect to those documents, as well as subjecting the documents to the requirements of expert discovery under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(s). Read More

McNally Tunneling Corp. v. City of Evanston, 2001 WL 1568879 (N.D. Ill. Dec.10, 2001)

In litigation arising from delays in a municipal sewer project, defendant sought electronic production of email, computerized schedules and cost summaries which had already been produced in hard copy form. Read More