Archive - December 2009

1
“International Man of Mystery” Sanctioned for Contempt of Court and Intentional Spoliation
2
Western District of Oklahoma Adopts Best Practices for Electronic Discovery in Criminal Cases
3
Court to rule on privacy of texting
4
Court Rules Mistaken Transmission of Privileged Email Due to Use of “Autofill” Function in Email Did Not Result in Waiver
5
Ex Parte Contact with Independent Forensic Examiner Results in Forfeiture of Opportunity for Forensic Examination and Denial of Motion for Sanctions with Prejudice
6
Supreme Court of Washington Holds Trial Court Did Not Abuse Discretion in Imposing $8,000,000 Default Judgment Pursuant to CR 37 for Defendant’s Willful Discovery Violations
7
Trial Court Violated Attorney-Client Privilege by Ordering In Camera Review
8
Finding Back-up Tapes “Not Reasonably Accessible” Court Declines to Compel Restoration of All but One Tape; No Sanctions for Deletion of Email Absent Evidence of Duty to Preserve or Showing of Bad Faith
9
Communications with Attorney Using Company Computer and Email Account Not Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege
10
Pom Wonderful LLC v. The Coca-Cola Co., No. CV 08-6237 SJO (FMOx), 2009 WL 10655335 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 30, 2009)

“International Man of Mystery” Sanctioned for Contempt of Court and Intentional Spoliation

TR Investors, LLC v. Genger, 2009 WL 4696062 (Del. Ch. Dec. 9, 2009) (Unpublished)

In this case, defendant Arie Genger was held in contempt and found to have intentionally spoliated relevant documents in violation of a court order following his instruction to his personal IT consultant to wipe the unallocated space of his company’s computer system which his consultant then carried out.  Declining to impose terminating sanctions, the court instead ordered that Genger produce 10 documents previously subject to a claim of privilege, that the burden of persuasion as to Genger’s affirmative defenses and counter-claims be raised one level, that Genger was precluded from prevailing on any material factual issue by reason of his testimony alone, and that Genger pay for plaintiffs’ reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses in the amount of $750,000.

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Western District of Oklahoma Adopts Best Practices for Electronic Discovery in Criminal Cases

If you needed more proof that electronic discovery is not just for civil cases, the Western District of Oklahoma has adopted “Best Practices for Electronic Discovery of Documentary Materials in Criminal Cases.”  Adopted on August 20th, these Best Practices recognize the lack of guidance in Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16 or in U.S.C. § 3500 regarding the production of discovery materials in electronic from and are intended to “summarize proposed electronic discovery practices.”

Included in the Best Practices are requirements that counsel for the parties shall, by a time prescribed, address issues including the volume of discovery, the litigation capabilities of counsel, and timeframes for production, among other things.  Additional requirements include the production of electronically stored information in .PDF format, the production of an index identifying the “source and/or nature of the materials” produced, and mandatory good-faith discussions of possible cost-sharing measures when handling voluminous discovery.

A full copy of the Best Practices are available here.

Court to rule on privacy of texting

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 15, 2009

The Supreme Court will decide whether employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy for the text messages they send on devices owned by their employers.

The case the court accepted Monday involves public employees, but a broadly written decision could hold a blueprint for private-workplace rules in a world in which communication via computers, e-mail and text messages plays a very large role.

To read the full article, click here.

Court Rules Mistaken Transmission of Privileged Email Due to Use of “Autofill” Function in Email Did Not Result in Waiver

Multiquip, Inc. v. Water Mgmt. Systs., LLC, 2009 WL 4261214 (D. Idaho Nov. 23, 2009)

When responding to an email communication from his attorney, defendant mistakenly sent his message to a third party.  As a result, the email was eventually provided to opposing counsel in the litigation.  Plaintiff’s counsel refused to return the email upon defense counsel’s request and filed a motion for a protective order to which the email was attached.  Defendants then filed a motion to exclude plaintiff’s use of the email.  Defendant David Muhs explained that the mistaken transmission occurred when the autofill feature on his email program supplied the wrong address in place of that of the intended recipient.  Conducting its analysis pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 502, the court determined that privilege had not been waived.

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Ex Parte Contact with Independent Forensic Examiner Results in Forfeiture of Opportunity for Forensic Examination and Denial of Motion for Sanctions with Prejudice

G.K. Las Vegas Ltd. P’ship v. Simon Prop. Group, 2009 WL 4283086 (D. Nev. Nov. 30, 2009)

Following a determination that defendants participated in improper ex parte communications with an independent, court-appointed forensic expert and thus destroyed its impartiality, the district court held that defendants had forfeited their right to a forensic examination of plaintiffs’ relevant computer systems and modified its prior order to deny defendants’ motion for spoliation sanctions with prejudice.

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Supreme Court of Washington Holds Trial Court Did Not Abuse Discretion in Imposing $8,000,000 Default Judgment Pursuant to CR 37 for Defendant’s Willful Discovery Violations

Magaña v. Hyundai Motor Am., 220 P.3d 191 (Wash. 2009)

Plaintiff sustained injuries in an automobile accident that he alleged were caused in part by a defective seat design which allowed the seat to collapse.  The case went to trial and plaintiff was awarded $8,000,000.  The verdict was reversed on appeal for reasons related to plaintiff’s expert’s testimony and a new trial on the issue of liability was ordered.

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Trial Court Violated Attorney-Client Privilege by Ordering In Camera Review

Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Superior Court, S163335 (Cal. Nov. 30, 2009)

In 2000, Costco hired outside counsel to provide legal advice regarding the applicability of certain wage and overtime laws to its warehouse managers.  In furtherance of providing such advice, counsel spoke with two managers Costco had made available to her.  Thereafter, she provided Costco with a 22-page opinion letter addressing the question at issue.  Several years later, plaintiffs in a class action against Costco sought to compel production of the relevant opinion letter arguing that the letter contained unprivileged information and that Costco had placed the contents in issue thereby waiving the privilege.

To resolve the question, the court ordered the letter be reviewed by a discovery referee who subsequently recommended production of the letter with heavy redactions.  The referee reasoned that the factual information therein was not privileged and that while interviewing the two managers, the attorney had acted not as an attorney but as a fact finder.  The trial court adopted the recommendation and ordered the letter produced.  On appeal (and without ruling on the merits of the trial court’s order or its decision to refer the letter to a discovery referee for review), the court affirmed the order reasoning that Costco had failed to establish that the production would cause irreparable harm.  The issue was appealed to the Supreme Court of California.

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Finding Back-up Tapes “Not Reasonably Accessible” Court Declines to Compel Restoration of All but One Tape; No Sanctions for Deletion of Email Absent Evidence of Duty to Preserve or Showing of Bad Faith

Calixto v. Watson Bowman Acme Corp., 2009 WL 3823390 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 16, 2009)

In this breach of contract litigation, plaintiff filed a motion to compel defendant Watson Bowman Acme Corporation (“WABO”) to “remedy its spoliation of documents” by restoring and searching back-up tapes that potentially contained copies of emails that were deleted.  Plaintiff also sought sanctions for the alleged spoliation.  The court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel the restoration of all back-up tapes, following its determination that the burden and cost of such restoration rendered the documents not reasonably accessible and upon finding that plaintiff failed to establish good cause for such a search.  However, as to a one tape determined to potentially contain the relevant deleted emails, the court granted plaintiff’s motion and ordered the tape be restored and searched.  Regarding sanctions, the court denied plaintiff’s motion absent a clear indication of a duty to preserve at the time of the deletion and absent any evidence of bad faith.

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Communications with Attorney Using Company Computer and Email Account Not Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege

Alamar Ranch, LLC v. City of Boise, 2009 WL 3669741 (D. Idaho Nov. 2, 2009)

In this case arising from a land use and permitting dispute, the court ruled that emails sent by a non-party to her attorney using her work computer and work-assigned email address were not protected by the attorney-client privilege.  In so holding, the court relied in large part upon the existence of company policy which put the employee on notice that her emails were subject to monitoring and were not confidential.  Emails sent by the attorney to the employee’s work account were likewise unprotected where the attorney was on notice of the employee’s use of company email and should have recognized the risk that such emails were unprotected.  As for emails sent to the attorney by other clients and copied to the employee, the court reasoned that such emails retained their privileged status where the senders (non-employees of the relevant company) were not on notice of the potential exposure of their emails to outside scrutiny.

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Pom Wonderful LLC v. The Coca-Cola Co., No. CV 08-6237 SJO (FMOx), 2009 WL 10655335 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 30, 2009)

Key Insight: Defendant produced 138 emails whose attachments that were not linked, claiming it produced the documents in ?the normal course of business? and had no obligation to re-link the attachments. The court disagreed, stating that ?plaintiff must have the ability to identify which attachments belong to which emails.? Defendant argued it could not automatically re-link the emails with the attachments, but would have to ?employ a tedious manual process.? The court indicated Defendant ?cannot seek to preclude plaintiff from pursuing discovery based on a record-keeping system that is plainly inadequate.? The court found Defendant did not meet the burden to prove it would be unduly burdensome to re-link the message units and granted the motion (Defendant must provide data/software to allow Plaintiff to re-link or must re-produce the 138 emails with their attachments). The court denied the motion to compel Defendant to produce purchase and valuation documents, finding Defendant met its burden to show the requested information is not relevant to this case.

Electronic Data Involved: Email

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