Case Summaries – Page 176 – Electronic Discovery Law

Kravtsov v Town of Greenburgh, No. 10-cv-3142 (CS), 2012 WL 2719663 (S.D.N.Y. July 9, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where defendant?s failure to preserve potentially relevant surveillance video despite notice of plaintiff?s claim and a request for preservation was at least grossly negligent in light of the failure to implement a litigation hold, the delay between the request for the video and efforts to retrieve it, and the ?collective ignorance? of the people who should have know how the surveillance system worked (the time stamp was set for the wrong time zone resulting in collection of the wrong footage?a mistake that was not discovered until the relevant footage had been recorded over) and where the court determined that because of the grossly negligent conduct, ?relevance [was] determined as a matter of law,? the court ordered sanctions, including an adverse inference and payment of related costs and attorneys? fees

Nature of Case: Claims of discrimination on the basis of disability, national origin, and religion, assault, unlawful imprisonment, and denial of a reasonable accommodation for Plaintiff?s disability

Electronic Data Involved: Video Surveillance

Perez-Garcia v. Puerto Rico Ports Auth., No. 08-1448 (GAG), 2012 WL 2553274 (D.P.R. July 3, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court found request for sanctions for defendant?s failure to retain records dating back to 1995 was not supported by the rules or the case law on the subject and stated that ?Corporations may maintain their records according to their business practices, so long as the record keeping does not afoul [sic] of the rules outlined by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence and judicially created rules of the court.? Addressing plaintiff?s citation to an Eighth Circuit case ?that states that a negative inference can be given when the company?s policy for retention of documents is unreasonable or in bad faith,? (Remington Arms Co. , 836 FRD 1103 (8th Cir. 1988)) the court found that defendant?s policy was neither unreasonable nor in bad faith

Nature of Case: Claims arising from crash of golf cart perhaps related to faulty emergency brake

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Johnson v. Metro. Gov. of Nashville and Davidson Cnty., TN, 2012 WL 4945607 (6th Cir. Oct. 18, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Reviewing District Court?s denial of spoliation sanctions for abuse of discretion, Circuit Court found that the at-issue information should have been preserved and was intentionally destroyed but upheld the denial of sanctions based on plaintiffs? inability to establish relevance, a necessary element of the test for determining whether sanctions are appropriate

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI (Survey results)

Chechelle v. Ward, No. CIV-10-1286-M, 2012 WL 4481439 (W.D. Okla. Sept. 28, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where an employer allowed employees to use its computer systems for personal business but informed employees that it reserved the right to monitor and access emails and that emails were considered business records and may be subject to discovery in litigation, the court found that an employee had waived his claims of privilege as to communications with his attorney sent from his work account because it was unreasonable to expect that his attorney-client communications would remain confidential

Nature of Case: Violation of Securities and Exchange Act

Electronic Data Involved: attorney-client communications (emails)

In re Porsche Cars N. Am., Inc., No. 2:11-md-2233, 2012 WL 4361430 (S.D. Ohio Sept. 25, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court addressed a number of discovery issues related to Plaintiffs? motion to compel production and, among other things: 1) ordered production of the parameters of Defendants? searches where evidence indicated the possibility that Defendants made unilateral decisions to limit their search/production, where the parties disputed the meaning of certain search terms, and where the dearth of emails produced ?weighed in favor? of disclosing the search efforts; and 2) ordered defense counsel to certify that they had completed a reasonable inquiry and provided examples of the sort of information that should be included in such a certification

Nature of Case: Product Liability

Electronic Data Involved: ESI; search parameters; certification of reasonable inquiry

Lakes Gas Co. v. Clark Oil Trading Co., 875 F. Supp. 2d 1289 (D. Kan. June 21, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: In a brief discussion of spoliation, the court denied defendant?s motion for sanctions where, despite the fact that it ?seemed clear that there was some loss of evidence ? in the form of email and/or ?instant messages? ? at a time [Plaintiff] knew litigation was imminent,? the evidence suggested that the loss was inadvertent, there was no claim of bad faith or evidence to support such a finding, defendant?s claims of prejudice were largely speculative and defendant did not aggressively pursue the issue of spoliation; court?s analysis stated that ?in these circumstances? (referencing apparent inadvertence of the loss and lack of a claim of bad faith), ?the court looks to the culpability of those involved and the relevance of the proof to the issues at hand?

Nature of Case: Action to recover payment for propane transfers based on conversion and unjust enrichment theories

Electronic Data Involved: Email and/or instant messages

Lake Village Healthcare Ctr., LLC v. Hatchett, 407 S.W. 3d 521 (Ark. 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Trial court did not err when it struck part of defendants’ answers as sanction for discovery violations where trial court’s order specifically detailed the opportunities afforded defendants to either comply with the email request or furnish a basis upon which the court could determine they were trying to comply with the request, and trial court found that defendants failed to produce the emails in response to the discovery request, failed to produce the emails when ordered by the court, failed to timely notify the court of compliance problems, failed to furnish sufficient information of their good faith efforts, and failed to furnish information regarding when compliance could be expected

Nature of Case: Wrongful death, negligence, breach of fiduciary and confidential duty, medical malpractice

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Kruse Tech. P?ship v. Daimler AG, No. SACV 10-1066 JVS (RNBx), 2012 WL 12888668 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 22, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Defendant moved to re-tax $202K of costs for exemplification and reproduction that were denied by the clerk. The court found that costs of copies provided to Defendant?s witnesses were not necessary or taxable because they were not requested by or tendered to the opposing party, as discussed in In re Ricoh Co., Ltd. Patent Litig., 661 F.3d 1361, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2011). The court allowed $12.013.68 in XDD?s costs for converting documents to TIFF, performing OCR (required by court order) and producing the documents to Plaintiff. Defendant argued costs from third-party vendor IAV for storage of responsive documents and processes to allow digital searching of Defendant?s databases should have been allowed by the clerk. Plaintiff argued these were costs for collection and review of documents, rather than for copying. Plaintiff also argued the OCR fees were duplicative and that Defendant?s invoices did not provide sufficient detail to support taxation. The court found these costs were not taxable (searching and organizing rather than copying, as well as duplicative) and properly denied by the clerk.

Nature of Case: Taxable Costs

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Eisai v. Sanofi-Aventis U.S., LLC, No. 08-4168 (MLC), 2012 WL 1299379 (D.N.J. Apr. 16, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motions to compel discovery from an additional 175 custodians and an additional 27 custodians (two separate requests) upon its determination that the requests were cumulative or duplicative and that the burden outweighed the potential benefit; of note was the significant expenditures of the defendants on already-produced discovery and the volumes produced as well as the estimated cost of the additional requested discovery, where the estimated burden of producing the additional 175 custodians was 140,00 hours of manpower and roughly $15 million dollars?an amount that exceeded the expected value of plaintiff?s claim

Electronic Data Involved: ESI from 200+ custodians

Gray v. Novell, Inc., No. 8:06-CV-1950-T-33TGW, 2012 WL 3886026 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 6, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where defendant failed to explain why conversion and printing of all of plaintiff?s electronically produced discovery was necessary, court declined to allow defendant to recover those costs

Electronic Data Involved: Costs related to printing of ESI

Catagory:Case Summaries