No Sanctions for Failure to Preserve Disaster Recovery Back-up Tapes where Other Preservation Efforts were Reasonable “In the Context of This Case”
Gaalla v. Citizens Med. Ctr., No. V-10-14, 2011 WL 2115670 (S.D. Tex. May 27, 2011)
Plaintiffs moved for sanctions based on defendant’s failure to preserve its disaster recovery back-up tapes, which were overwritten every seven or fourteen days, even after the filing of this lawsuit. Further, “as the briefing developed,” plaintiffs “appeared to contend” that even absent a duty to preserve the disaster recovery back-up tapes themselves, “[defendant]’s failure to preserve the back-up tapes in conjunction with the failure to take timely ‘snapshots’… of relevant email accounts, and evidence that certain CMC employees had deleted emails from their account at some point in the past warrant[ed] severe sanctions.”