Electronic Discovery Law – Page 116 – Legal issues, news and best practices relating to the discovery of electronically stored information.

Shaw v. Experian Info. Sol., Inc., 2015 WL 1260552 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 18, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court granted Plaintiffs? motion to compel production of defendant database records. Defendant argued that the harm to third parties from disclosure of personal information contained in the requested data outweighed the relevance of the information to plaintiffs? claim, and that the preparation, review, and production presented an undue burden. Finding that the requested data was highly relevant to the class certification requirements, the court concluded plaintiffs? need significantly outweighed privacy concerns given the option of producing subject to protective order and Plaintiffs? agreement to accept data with personal information redacted. Nor was the court persuaded by defendant?s burden argument, finding the estimate and explanation from plaintiffs? database consultant ?more persuasive, appropriate, and accurate? than that provided by defendant – particularly in light of modifications Plaintiffs made to their request after defendant clarified how the data was stored in their systems. The court also noted that defendant?s briefing failed to allege any facts supporting its assertion that the information was more readily available from other sources.

Nature of Case: Class Action; Violation of Fair Credit Reporting Act

Electronic Data Involved: Database

Loop AI Labs Inc. v. Gatti, 2015 WL 1090180 (N.D.Cal. Mar. 12, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion for temporary restraining order which requested restrictions on defendant?s assets, and orders prohibiting destruction of evidence, expediting discovery, allowing plaintiff access to defendant?s email and social media accounts, and for the return of a laptop because the court found plaintiff failed to demonstrate it was likely to suffer irreparable harm absent injunctive relief. In asserting it would suffer irreparable harm, plaintiff argued defendant had demonstrated she would not observe her obligation to preserve evidence, but provided no evidence in support of this claim. Stating that ?suspicions are not a proper ground for injunctive relief,? the Court noted that counsel for each defendant were ?expected to advise their clients of their duty to preserve potentially relevant evidence and the serious consequences for failing to do so,? but denied further relief.

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of Trade Secrets; Breach of Contract

Electronic Data Involved: Email, social media, laptop

Thermoset Corp. v. Building Materials Corp. of Am., No. 14-60268-CIV, 2015 WL 156310 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 8, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Applying the elements of Fed. R. Evid. 502(b), court concluded that whether production was ?inadvertent? should be determined by asking whether the party intended to produce the document or whether it was a mistake rather than looking at court-identified factors to determine whether the ??inadvertent? element? was satisfied and found: 1) that the at-issue emails were produced by mistake, and thus inadvertently, 2) that reasonable steps to prevent the disclosure were taken where counsel identified the documents as privileged after personally inspecting them but where they were nonetheless produced inadvertently among the other 1,000 pages produced in response to the relevant request, and 3) that prompt steps were taken to prevent the error where counsel informed opposing counsel of the inadvertent production on the same day he discovered it; thus, the inadvertent production did not result in waiver

Nature of Case: Claims arising from defective roofing adhesive

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

In re Lithium Ion Batteries Antitrust Litig., No. 13-MD-02420 YGR (DMR), 2015 WL 833681 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 24, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where parties disagreed regarding incorporation of ?randomized qualitative sampling? to determine the effectiveness of search terms into their Search Term Protocol because Defendant objected to Plaintiffs? access to non-responsive, irrelevant documents, court approved its use, arguing that it was intended to prevent the production of irrelevant information; in recognition of Defendants? concerns, court noted Plaintiff?s agreement that Defendant ?may review the random qualitative sample and remove any irrelevant document(s) from the sample for any reason, provided they replace the document(s) with an equal number of randomly generated document(s)?, ordered that the irrelevant documents and any attorney notes regarding the sample be destroyed within a time specified, and ordered that access to the random sample would be limited as specified

Nature of Case: Antitrust

Electronic Data Involved: ESI (search terms at issue)

Otsuka Pharm. Co., Ltd. v. Sandoz, Inc., No. 07-1000 (MLC), 2015 WL 5921049 (D.N.J. Oct. 9, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court allowed taxable costs for ?the scanning and conversion of documents into TIFF format? noting that the conversion was ?critical due to the complex nature of the case and the sheer volume of documents that were exchanged during discovery and trial? and citing Race Tires Am., Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., 674 F.3d 158, 160, 171 (3d Cir.2012)

Nature of Case: Consolidated claims under Hatch-Waxman Act

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable Costs

Adesanya v. Novartis Pharm. Corp., No. 2:13-CV-5564-SDW-SCM, 2015 WL 6122080 (D.N.J. Oct. 16, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court granted motion to compel production of computer used by Plaintiff for her work with Defendant?s competitor upon concluding that its likely contents would ?arguably be relevant to claims that Plaintiff unethically competed with her employer? among other things, and ordered Plaintiff to produce the computer as it had been stored in the ordinary course of business and that the computer be provided to a third-party vendor for imaging and then returned to Plaintiff

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination, “claims that Plaintiff unethically competed with her employer”

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Lanteri v. Credit Protection Assoc. LP, No. 1:13-cv-1501-WTL-DKL, 2015 WL 6607494 (S.D. Ind. Apr. 3, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court denied motion for protective order where Defendant?s ?general assertions of hardship and burden? re: the at-issue search were insufficient to justify a protective order, and explained that they had ?offered no affidavits or evidence of any kind to substantiate the general assertion of ?disruption? to their business? and had not ?shown with specificity that the proposed search would cause and undue burden and is thus improper?

Nature of Case: TCPA, FCPA

Electronic Data Involved: Allegedly burdensome search of ESI

Knauf Insulation, LLC v. Johns Manville Corp., No. 1:15-cv-00111-WTL-MJD, 2015 WL 7089725 (S.D. Ind. Nov. 13, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where Defendants identified 38 potential email custodians who may possess relevant ESI but proposed to load the emails of only ten custodians to save money and ?facilitate the predictive coding process? and where Plaintiff indicated that Defendant refused to informally disclose information sufficient to evaluate the importance of each custodian, the court briefly opined re: e-Discovery and the lack of any guarantee that all relevant documents will be found and then, reasoning that it had no evidence with which to weigh the likelihood that the 28 ?tangential custodians? would have relevant information but that in ?a high value? case the burden of $18,000 (the amount Defendant proposed to save) did not outweigh the potential benefit to Plaintiff of receiving the emails, declined Defendants? request to limit custodians; regarding cost-shifting, the court ordered that if the search of the 28 additional custodians returned fewer than 500 responsive documents Plaintiff would bear the cost of loading the materials but that if more than 500 were identified, Defendant would bear the costs

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Banks v. St. Francis Health Ctr., Inc., No. 15-cv-2602-JAR-TJJ, 2015 WL 7451174 (D. Kan. Nov. 23, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Addressing Plaintiff?s Motion to Compel, court overruled Defendant?s objection to producing ESI in native format with metadata where Defendant failed to indicate in its objection the form of production it intended to use instead and did not support its objection by explaining why it could not or should not be required to produce as requested and, in fact, admitted that it had previously produced material in native format; court denied without prejudice Plaintiff?s motion to compel responses outlining Defendant?s search efforts (sometimes called “discovery on discovery”) where Plaintiff?s counsel failed to confer with Defense counsel prior to bringing the motion, as is required by the District of Kansas? ESI Guidelines

Nature of Case: Title VII: racial discrimination, retaliatory conduct

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Humphreys & Partners Architects L.P. v. Lessard Design, Inc., No. 1:13-cv-433, —F.Supp.3d—, 2015 WL 7176010 (E.D. Va. Nov. 13, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court declined to allow recovery for ?electronic discovery vendor fees? because they are ?outside the scope of Section 1920? (28 U.S.C. 1920)

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable Costs