Archive - December 2004

Alexander v. FBI., 186 F.R.D. 78 (D.D.C. 1998)

Former government official involved in the “Filegate” investigation testified in deposition that he deleted material from his computer when he changed positions within his department. The court noted that, despite official’s claims that he printed out relevant material before deleting it, “cause for concern should exist when an upper-level government employee completely deletes his hard drive when this hard drive may have information relevant to an on-going criminal investigation, let alone the instant case.” 186 F.R.D. at 96. Read More

Alexander v. FBI, 188 F.R.D. 111 (D.D.C. 1998)

Plaintiffs sued for Privacy Act violations in connection with the FBI’s release of certain files to individuals in the White House. Plaintiffs sought restoration and production of email and deleted files from backup tapes and hard drives. Read More

Sattar v. Motorola, Inc., 138 F.3d 1164 (7th Cir. 1998)

Defendant produced email on four-inch magnetic tapes which plaintiff, lacking the necessary equipment and software, was unable to read. Plaintiff moved to compel the production of the email in hard copy form (some 210,000 pages). Read More

Concord Boat Corp. v. Brunswick Corp., 1997 WL 33352759 (E.D. Ark. Aug. 29, 1997)

For approximately a year, the parties attempted to resolve issues concerning defendant’s electronic information. The court instituted a “spot-checking” procedure to help determine the adequacy of all parties’ production. Based on results of that procedure, plaintiff moved for an adverse inference/spoliation instruction based on defendant’s alleged destruction of email. Read More

In re Cheyenne Software, Inc., 1997 WL 714891 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 18, 1997)

Plaintiff moved for various discovery sanctions, demonstrating, among other things, that defendants had failed to review potentially responsive email that had been previously provided to the SEC. The court ruled that defendants would be required to bear the cost of downloading and printing up to 10,000 additional pages of email responsive to key word searches requested by plaintiff. 1997 WL 714891, at *1. Read More

Storch v. Ipco Safety Prod. Co. of Pa., 1997 WL 401589 (E.D. Pa. July 16, 1997)

Plaintiff sought production of a disk containing sales data that had been produced in hard copy form, arguing that the electronic version was needed in order to run an analysis of the information. Otherwise, she stated, she would incur between $10,000 and $20,000 in data encoding fees to properly format the information. The defendant merely argued that it was still investigating its ability to provide the information in computerized form. Read More

Fennell v. First Step Designs, Ltd., 83 F.3d 526 (1st Cir. 1996)

In wrongful termination suit, defendant moved for summary judgment after the close of discovery. Plaintiff sought to continue the motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(f) and requested additional discovery. At issue was a critical document exonerating defendant, which plaintiff claimed had been fabricated or backdated. Read More

Gates Rubber Co. v. Bando Chem. Ind., Ltd., 167 F.R.D. 90 (D. Colo. 1996)

Based on evidence obtained during discovery that defendant had destroyed computer files, plaintiff was granted expedited discovery and a site inspection order for the purpose of locating and copying materials, including all computer records, that it wished to preserve. However, plaintiff’s computer technicians lost or failed to recapture important information because of an inadequate effort. Read More

In re Brand Name Prescription Drugs Antitrust Litig., 1995 WL 360526 (N.D. Ill. June 15, 1995)

Plaintiffs moved to compel production of email stored on defendant’s backup tapes. Claiming to have 30 million pages of email data stored on the subject tapes, the defendant resisted the motion on burdensomeness and other grounds. Defendant estimated that it would cost $50,000 to $70,000 to compile, format, search and retrieve responsive email. 1995 WL 360526, at *1. Read More

Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 1 F.3d 1274 (D.C. Cir. 1993)

Researchers and nonprofit organizations challenged the proposed destruction of federal records (email communications). The court held that substantive email communications constituted “records” under the Federal Records Act, and that, “since there are often fundamental and meaningful differences in content between the paper and electronic versions of these documents,” the electronic versions do not lose their status as records when printed out in hard copy. 1 F.3d at 1287. As such, they must be managed and preserved in accordance with the Act. Read More