Archive - August 2020

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Murray v. City of Warren (E.D. Mich. 2020)
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Oppenheimer v. Episcopal Communicators, Inc. (W.D. N.C. 2020)
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Oppenheimer v. Episcopal Communicators (Western District of North Carolina, 2020)
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Integrated Communications & Technologies v.Hewlett-Packard Financial Services Company (D. Mass. Aug. 13, 2020)

Murray v. City of Warren (E.D. Mich. 2020)

Key Insight: The court agreed that plaintiff’s request for “all emails” from three custodians was overly broad and narrowed it to relevant search terms relating to plaintiff’s allegations of harassment. The court also relied on its prior ruling, directing the parties to confer regarding the search terms and if the parties cannot agree on appropriately limited search terms, they will share the cost of retaining an expert to assist them. If they still cannot agree, plaintiff can renew his motion and provide the court with an expert report substantiating his position.

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email, Personnel files

Case Summary

Oppenheimer v. Episcopal Communicators, Inc. (W.D. N.C. 2020)

Key Insight: The litigation was over Defendant’s purported copyright infringement due to Defendant’s publishing of a copyrighted photograph on its website. Defendant served its first discovery requests on Plaintiff; Plaintiff provided an untimely response with a number of objections including attorney-client privilege (without a privilege log), and “boilerplate objections”. Defendant filed a Motion to Compel, which was granted. Plaintiff provided a supplemental response, however, Defendant filed an additional Motion to Compel, and also sought attorney’s fees for the Motion. Besides privilege, at issue was Plaintiff’s objection to the proportionality of Defendant’s discovery requests.

The Court did not find Plaintiff’s “boilerplate objections”, including proportionality, persuasive. And found that they lack specificity and/or merit. Plaintiff’s objection(s) of confidentiality on the grounds of settlement, proprietary business information was rejected. Similarly, the Court rejected the Plaintiff’s privilege objection(s) due to Plaintiff’s failure to provide a privilege log.

In summary, the Court found that Plaintiff’s assertion of boilerplate objections (and failure to provide a privilege log) consisted of grounds overruling all of his objections. The Court granted Defendant’s Motion to Compel, and similarly, ordered Defendant to provide it an estimate of the attorney’s fees spent on the Motion (for the purpose of awarding Defendant attorney’s fees).

Nature of Case: Intellectual Property, Copyright Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Digital Photograph

Case Summary

Oppenheimer v. Episcopal Communicators (Western District of North Carolina, 2020)

Key Insight: A non-moving party’s objections to discovery need to be more than boilerplate and must be specific

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement (DMCA)

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents generally

Keywords: Copyright, DMCA, photographs, Oppenheimer,

View Case Opinion

Integrated Communications & Technologies v.Hewlett-Packard Financial Services Company (D. Mass. Aug. 13, 2020)

Key Insight: Spoliation had occurred, but no default judgment issued. Evidence regarding destruction was allowed, no testimony from plaintiffs regarding unpreserved ESI and adverse inference instruction.

Nature of Case: Breach of Contract

Electronic Data Involved: Emails and Computers

Keywords: adverse inference, sanctions

View Case Opinion

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