Case Summaries – Page 174 – Electronic Discovery Law

YCB Int?l, Inc. v. UCF Trading Co., No. 09-CV-7221, 2012 WL 3069683 (N.D. Ill. June 12, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where plaintiffs failed to take appropriate steps to preserve information, including failing to suspend their document destruction policy and failing to issue a litigation hold, which resulted in the destruction of relevant documents (but, as the court concluded, not ESI), the court declined to impose drastic sanctions but recommended that the jury be instructed about the failure to preserve (but not instructed to draw any inferences based on that destruction) and recommended that plaintiffs be ordered to pay $1000 to defendant to ?partially compensate? it for attorneys? fees incurred by its motion and to pay $1000 to the court clerk

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Hard copy inspection reports

Roxane Labs. Inc. v. Abbot Labs., No. 2:12-cv-312, 2013 WL 1829569 (S.D. Ohio Apr. 30, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff argued that production of the requested ESI would be unduly burdensome because of the lack of a ?centralized electronic document system? which would require it to ask ?hundreds of employees to search their electronic documents,? and would require ?significant effort to review and produce,? and where Plaintiff also argued that a 30(b)(6) deposition would be a less burdensome method of obtaining discovery, the court noted the lack of information provided to establish the burden alleged and reasoned that ?the mere fact that a party does not have a centralized electronic document system? does not establish undue burden and granted defendant?s motion to compel

Nature of Case: Patent litigation seeking declaratory judgment of invalidity and noninfringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Spanish Peaks Lodge, LLC v. KeyBank National Assoc., No. 10-453, 2012 WL 895465 (W.D. Pa. Mar. 15, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Acknowledging the ?flexible and fact-specific? nature of the question of reasonable forseeability, the court addressed several possible triggers for the duty to preserve but ultimately determined that plaintiffs had not demonstrated that the duty to preserve was reasonably foreseeable at the time defendant implemented its document retention policy or that defendant should have reasonably anticipated litigation and therefore denied plaintiffs? motion for spoliation sanctions

Commercial Law Corp., P.C., v. Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., NO. 10-13275, 2012 WL 137835 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 18, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Finding metadata related to documents at issue was relevant to the action and that a forensic search of the computers used to generate the documents was ?an appropriate method to locate and extract that information,? but recognizing that at least one of the computers belonged to an attorney, court fashioned a protocol that allowed for forensic examination of the computers while simultaneously protecting potentially privileged information thereon

Electronic Data Involved: Metadata

Adair v. EQT Prod. Co., No. 1:10cv00037, 2012 WL 1965880 (W.D. Va. May 31, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Considering the burden of production and the court?s ability to relieve it, the court held that consideration of the cost of review alone, related to otherwise accessible data, can be considered in deciding whether discovery imposes an undue burden or cost and may form the basis for a court?s decision to shift costs; court noted in this case, though, that a protective order and clawback agreement combined with a proposal to preclude production of any documents to or from in-house or outside counsel precluded defendant’s need to conduct a expensive privilege review and ordered production in accordance with the court?s order; affirmed with minor modifications 2012 WL 2526982

Electronic Data Involved: Esi

Rudolph v. Beacon Indep. Living, LLC, No. 3:11-CV-617-FDW-DSC, 2012 WL 2804114 (W.D.N.C. July 10, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where it was undisputed that Defendant instructed a non-party witness to delete relevant emails on his computer and that the non-party complied, court granted in part plaintiff?s motion for sanctions and ordered that defendant and the non-party preserve all ESI going forward, that defendant and the non-party submit their computers for forensic examination to recover deleted emails and to gather native format versions of information previously produced ?as fixed images,? that defendant pay the cost of the forensic examinations, and that defendant bear plaintiffs? attorneys costs and fees for preparing the underlying motion

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, ESI

Cordance Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 855 F. Supp. 2d 244 (D. Del. Apr. 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Plaintiff objected to Defendant?s bill of costs, including significant costs related to electronic discovery. Citing the recent decision of the Third Circuit in Race Tires America., Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire, Corp., the court reduced Defendant?s request for e-discovery costs from $447,694.63 to $2,721.53.

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs related to ediscovery

Bourne v. Arruda, No. 10-cv-393-LM, 2012 WL 1570831 (D.N.H. May 3, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion for access to defendants? computers and other electronic storage devices (at defendants? expense) where plaintiff?s allegations of incomplete discovery and spoliation were merely speculative and were insufficient to justify his request

Nature of Case: Defamation

Electronic Data Involved: Computers, electronic storage devices

Goldstein v. Colborne Acquisition Co., No. 10 C 6861, 2012 WL 1969369 (N.D. Ill. June 1, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: President and owner of corporation waived privileged as to emails on company servers by consenting to the sale of all company assets, including the company?s servers and emails, without asserting his privilege; shareholders/officers of corporation waived privilege as to messages sent from company email where subjective belief that their communications were confidential was not reasonable in light of company?s email policy which claimed ownership of emails on company systems and reserved the right to access them; court?s analysis applied Asia Global Crossing factors, but acknowledged that privilege waiver inquiries require case-by-case analysis

Nature of Case: Claim of fraudulent sale of business to avoid judgment

Electronic Data Involved: Allegedly privileged emails

Borwick v. T-Mobil West Corp., No. 11-cv-01683-LTB-MEH, 2012 WL 3984745 (D. Colo. Sept. 11, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where defendant converted relevant audio files to .wav format and destroyed the originals pursuant to its document retention policy, the court declined to enter spoliation sanctions because the record did not establish bad faith reasoning (1) that defendant had provided an adequate explanation for plaintiff?s concern about gaps in the recordings, (2) that plaintiff should have requested the files in native format (which she did not) and that had she done so, defendant would have been on notice to preserve relevant files in their original format, and (3) the files were discarded pursuant to an established document retention policy; regarding bad faith, court stated, ?Only the bad faith loss or destruction of evidence will support either a judgment in favor of Plaintiff or the kind of adverse inference that Plaintiff seeks, i.e., that production of the original i360 recordings would have been unfavorable to Defendant?

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Audio files converted from original format

Catagory:Case Summaries