Key Insight: Court awarded electronic copying costs incurred in response to plaintiffs? production request
Electronic Data Involved: Exemplification costs
Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel inspection of defendants? computers reasoning that such inspections are granted only under limited circumstances ?when there is reason to believe that a litigant has tampered with the computer or hidden relevant materials despite demand for them in the course of the lawsuit or when the possession or use of the computer is an element of the parties’ claims or defenses? and further reasoning that movants made no showing to justify their request, particularly where certain information they sought had already been provided
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives
Key Insight: Addressing Defendant?s Motion for an order precluding discovery of disaster recovery backup tapes, court considered the factors laid out in Rule 26(b)(2)(B)?s Committee Note (2006) and relevant case law and concluded that Defendant met its burden to establish inaccessibility where restoration and production would be ?extraordinarily expensive, both in restoration costs and attorney time? and that Plaintiff failed to establish good cause to compel production, citing as most important the failure to substantiate the claim that the emails would be important or useful to her case; court rejected argument that sampling must be conducted before a cost-benefit analysis could be undertaken by the court
Electronic Data Involved: Disaster Recovery Backup Tapes
Key Insight: Addressing Plaintiff?s motion for an Order Regarding Production of Electronically Stored Information, court limited scope of its findings and order to jurisdictional discovery and granted plaintiff?s motion to the extent that it required production of ESI in its native format with metadata intact, noting that plaintiff did not have the burden of showing why the metadata requested with native format production was relevant to each of their requests and that upon a request for production in a specific format, the burden shifts to producing party to show why it is unduly burdensome
Nature of Case: Products liability
Electronic Data Involved: ESI in native format
Key Insight: Finding that the alleged spoliator had no notice of the potential relevance of the allegedly spoliated data and that the information?namely maintenance records?was available elsewhere, court concluded that he moving party failed to establish that the data at issue was ?crucial? to its case and denied motion for sanctions
Nature of Case: Claims arising from auto accident
Electronic Data Involved: Engine related data from Electronic Control Module (e.g., the speed of the tractor/trailer, the rotation of RPMs of the engine)
Key Insight: Trial court did not abuse its discretion in permitting prosecution to show a YouTube video where, although officer testified ?he did not know when the video was made or who produced it? he testified that the video was an accurate depiction of what it looked like on YouTube such that the trial court ?could conclude that the video would assist jurors in determining the facts of the case and motivation for the crimes? and where the court determined that the issues of when and who produced the video spoke to issues of reliability and weight and that the images on the video (picture of the alleged victim with an ?x? over his face, for example) coupled with evidence linking defendant to the crime of attempted murder ?sufficiently link[ed] the video with the defendant?
Nature of Case: Attempted murder
Electronic Data Involved: YouTube video
Key Insight: Court granted writ of certiorari, reversed the ruling of the trial court, and granted defendant?s motion to compel production in native format where plaintiff failed to establish that the discovery sought was ?not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost? pursuant to the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure
Nature of Case: Claims for unpaid portion of insurance premuim
Electronic Data Involved: ESI in native format
Key Insight: Where Toyota conducted inspection of relevant Event Data Recorder without providing plaintiffs the opportunity to be present but where there was no showing of actual alteration or deletion of relevant data, court declined to impose terminating sanctions and ordered a cautionary instruction be given to the jury; court also credited plaintiff?s evidence regarding a dispute surrounding the location of a plastic piece in plaintiffs? engine, which was allegedly moved by Toyota representatives during their inspection, and ordered an evidentiary instruction stating that the Toyota representatives testimony regarding the plastic piece should be regarded with ?greater caution? than that of other witnesses
Nature of Case: Personal injury/product liability
Electronic Data Involved: Event Data Recorder data and plastic piece in engine
Key Insight: Court denied motion for sanctions and for appointment of special master absent evidence that allegedly relevant audio and video were lost in bad faith and where, despite ?concern? over loss of emails resulting from failure to timely suspend automatic deletions, the court ?[did] not find that relevant evidence was destroyed? and further indicated doubt that relevant emails existed; court further found that failure to suspend automatic deletions was merely negligent and not in bad faith; as to unsearched hard drives, court noted that the parties had already expended a large amount of time and money searching for relevant deleted evidence to no avail and that in light of doubts that relevant email ever existed, there was ?nothing to gain by searching those hard drives?
Nature of Case: Death of inmate while incarcerated
Electronic Data Involved: Audio, video, emails, hard drives
Key Insight: Court granted motion for sanctions and ordered an adverse inference for trial where defendant was grossly negligent in its destruction of relevant emails (as proven by Plaintiff?s receipt of relevant emails from third parties that should have been in defendant?s possession, for example, and defendant?s failure to dispute the existence of certain emails which were relevant to plaintiff?s claims but which were not produced); court found defendant was ?at least negligent? in its failure to preserve (and later found that defendant was grossly negligent) where the city had no formal email retention policy and instead relied on its employees to determine what to save: ?Because the City has effectively conceded that it had a duty to preserve the e-mails in question, its failure to maintain a formal e-mail retention policy was at least negligent.?
Nature of Case: Violation of constitutionally protected property rights based on Stop Work Order
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
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