Case Summaries – Page 128 – Electronic Discovery Law

Castillon v. Corrections Corp. of Am., No. 1:12-cv-005590EJL, 2014 WL 517505 (D. Idaho Feb. 7, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where defendant produced data from timekeeping system in searchable .PDF format and provided attestation from the vice president of technology and chief information officer that that .PDF was the ?only, built-in, reasonably accessible data format? and that producing in the requested format would require Defendant to undertake the ?lengthy and daunting? task of writing a script and where Plaintiffs did not specify the format of production in their request, the court declined to compel re-production of the at-issue data, but noted that if Plaintiffs were willing to pay for the expense of writing a script, ?they may approach Defendant with such a request.?

Nature of Case: Prisoners’ civil rights

Electronic Data Involved: Data from timekeeping system

Lozoya v. Allphase Landscape Constr., Inc., No. 12-cv-1048-JLK, 2014 WL 222068 (D. Colo. Jan. 21, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: In case where defendants estimated: (1) production costs for discovery from computers and smart phones would run $35,000 to $45,000 for uploading and processing of data, and (2) plaintiffs’ potential recovery as between $10,350 to $29,700, court granted plaintiffs’ motion to compel finding that plaintiffs’ conduct was far more accommodating and professional than defendants’ and that production in Bates numbered .pdf format would not place undue burden on defendants

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, emails, texts

Miller v. Fed. Express Corp., No. 49A02-1307-PL-619, 2014 WL 1318698 (Ind. Ct. App. Apr. 3, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Although there may have remained a genuine issue of material fact concerning spoliation based on employer’s failure to preserve contents of employee?s computer or make a complete archival backup of the contents when the computer was replaced, summary judgment in favor of the employers was properly granted since the employers were immune from the claims under Section 230(c) of the federal Communications Decency Act as providers of an interactive computer service (i.e., company network and access to internet)

Nature of Case: Individual alleged defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress against employers of authors of anonymous comments posted regarding online article

Electronic Data Involved: Comments posted regarding online article; contents of computer used by author of comments

Dixon v. Experian Info. Solutions, Inc., No. 2:13-CV-227-PPS-PRC, 2014 WL 2881589 (N.D. Ind. June 25, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff requested production of ESI in native format and defendant failed to object (thus waiving any objection) but produced the requested data as scanned .pdfs and argued that the native format would contain the same information but would be more difficult to understand (because of shortcut codes, etc.), the court reasoned that plaintiff nevertheless requested native format to no objection and ordered that the native format be produced

Nature of Case: Fair Credit Reporting Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, database

Regulatory Fundamentals Group LLC v. Governance Risk Mgmt. Compliance, LLC, No. 13 Civ. 2493(KBF), 2014 WL 3844796 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 5, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court imposed terminating sanctions for willful and bad faith spoliation on the part of the defendant (who also happened to be a lawyer), including manual deletion of relevant emails, closing an email account maintained by a third party service provider for the purpose of ensuring the deletions and undertaking significant efforts to cover his tracks (including creating a false paper trail attempting to shift the blame to the service provider), and making misrepresentations to the court and opposing counsel, among other things

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, emails, emails maintained by third party service provider

Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Ogandzhanova, No. CV-12-00372-PHX-GMS, 2014 WL 2616523 (D. Ariz. June 12, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where defendant had testified regarding frequent use of computers but the two computers she produced after being ordered by the court to do so showed very little activity, court found that defendant had willfully failed to comply with court’s order to identify and provide the computers she used during the relevant time period; court further found that defendant failed to produce relevant documents within her control and applied five-factor test to impose sanctions in the form of a permissive adverse inference instruction and payment of plaintiff?s attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred in bringing the motion

Nature of Case: Disability insurance dispute

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives, ESI

Nieman v. Hale, No. 3:12-cv-2433-L-BN, 2014 WL 1577814 (N.D. Tex. Apr. 21, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Finding that plaintiff failed to meet the high burden of proof required to justify spoliation sanctions under Rule 37 and/or the court’s inherent powers, as plaintiff’s briefing was “entirely devoid of evidence, either direct or circumstantial, that would establish the bad faith required,” court denied plaintiff’s motion for sanctions and further noted that Rule 37(e) protected defendants from sanctions to the extent that the entries allegedly missing from defendants’ privilege log resulted from a server crash

Nature of Case: Retaliation claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Apparent, Inc. v. Ai-Daiwa, Ltd., No. C 13-04156 VC (LB), 2014 WL 3738348 (N.D. Cal. July 28, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where defendant raised seven problems with plaintiff’s ESI production and sought an order compelling plaintiff to hire a qualified e-discovery vendor, court denied the request because plaintiff was addressing the problems and the circumstances of the case did not support “the potentially expensive outcome of a private vendor” given the short relevant time period and limited universe of documents; court further remarked: ?That being said, generally documents should be produced electronically (not in hard copy), and native file production (or at least processed ESI that contains relevant metadata) is better than paper production.?

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, product defect

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Kinsler v. City of Philadelphia, No. 13-6412, 2014 WL 3964925 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 11, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion for spoliation sanctions based on police department’s loss of cell phone video, as the video did not capture any interaction between plaintiff and the two police officers and it was unclear how the video could be relevant to plaintiff’s claims, plaintiff possessed a second video that did capture the events of the night in question and therefore plaintiff was not prejudiced by loss of the cell phone video, and there was no evidence that the two officers (the only remaining defendants in the case) were ever in possession or control of the cell phone video or responsible for its destruction

Nature of Case: Claims for excessive force and malicious prosecution

Electronic Data Involved: Cell phone video recorded by a witness to the events, 15-30 seconds in duration, which was uploaded onto a Philadelphia Police Department computer and subsequently lost

Chickadaunce v. Minott, No. 1:13-cv-01223-WTL-MJD, 2014 WL 4980547 (S.D. Ind. Oct. 6, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Considering the totality of circumstances and balancing the highly relevant and probative value of the information sought with the slight burden to defendant of preparing a database of case files (estimated by defendant to be 15-20 hours), and taking into account society’s interest in furthering the truthseeking function in the case, court granted plaintiffs’ motion to compel and ordered defendants to produce database of electronic case files within 14 days

Nature of Case: Class of approximately 4,800 disabled individuals sued officials of Indiana Family & Social Services Administration alleging violations of Americans with Disabilities Act and other claims

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic case files of approximately 200 past and current class members

Catagory:Case Summaries