September 15, 2006 – Electronic Discovery Law

Party Not Entitled to Shift Costs of Restoring Emails that were Converted to Inaccessible Format After Duty to Preserve was Triggered

Sep 15 2006

Quinby v. WestLB AG, 2006 WL 2597900 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 5, 2006)

Like the plaintiff in the Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, the plaintiff in this case was a highly-paid investment banker who accused her employer of gender discrimination and illegal retaliation. In her requests for production, plaintiff requested that 19 current and former WestLB employees’ email accounts be searched for certain terms alleged to refer to plaintiff in particular or that were potentially sexist in general. Plaintiff also sought emails relating to discrimination against other women at WestLB and e-mails showing that men were more highly compensated than women. Most of the requests were not limited to any particular period of time.

Defendant objected, claiming the requests were overly broad and would result in undue burden. When the parties were unable to agree on the scope of electronic discovery, they sought the court’s help.

Court Orders Party to Preserve Tapes of Recorded Phone Calls, and to Meet and Confer re Document Preservation Plan

Sep 15 2006

Del Campo v. Kennedy, 2006 WL 2586633 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 8, 2006)

Plaintiff sued the District Attorney of Santa Clara County (George Kennedy) and American Corrective Counseling Services, Inc. ("ACCS"), a private company that operates a Bad Check Restitution Program under contracts with district attorneys in California. The program is designed to return lost monies to the victim and provide rehabilitation for the offender. Plaintiff alleged that ACCS unlawfully threatens to prosecute program participants and attempts to collect fees not allowed under the statute.

In June 2006, plaintiff filed an ex parte request for an interim order requiring preservation of documents. Plaintiff claimed to have recently learned that ACCS routinely tapes phone calls and routinely destroys the tapes on a two week schedule. Although the court denied the request on procedural grounds, the court ordered ACCS to abstain from destroying any existing tapes.

Archive - September 15, 2006