Case Summaries – Page 177 – Electronic Discovery Law

Country Vintner of North Carolina, LLC v. E&J Gallo Winery, Inc., No. 5:09-CV-326-BR, 2012 WL 3202677 (E.D.N.C. Aug. 3, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Addressing Defendant?s efforts to recover costs related to ?technical, specialized services that were needed in order to ?collect, process, preserve, track, copy to digital format, and ultimately produce? the large amount of electronically stored information (?ESI?) that was utilized in the discovery process in this case,? the court adopted the Third Circuit?s reasoning in Race Tires America, Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp and thus determined that ?a prevailing party may recover costs associated with copying or duplicating its files, but it may not receive reimbursement for any other ESI-related expenses?; in the present case the court found that ?the only tasks that involve copying are the conversion of native files to TIFF and PDF formats and the transfer of files onto CDs?

Nature of Case: Unfair and deceptive trade practices

Electronic Data Involved: ESI taxable costs

James v. Edwards, No. CL11-225, 2012 WL 9735714 (Va. Cir. Ct. July 24, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court granted in part motion to compel disclosure of the contents of Plaintiff?s Facebook account and ordered Plaintiff to provide his counsel with his username and password, which his counsel could then utilize to provide access to Plaintiff?s Facebook account to defense counsel; defendant was not allowed to be present during the review of his Facebook account; court imposed date range on relevant materials; court found Plaintiff?s expectation of privacy in his account ?misplaced? in light of Facebook?s privacy disclaimers which ?dispel any notion that information one chooses to share, even if only with one friend, will not be disclosed to anybody else?

Nature of Case: Personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: Facebook

Pacific Coast Marine Windshields Ltd. v. Malibu Boats, LLC, No. 6:12-cv-33-Orl-28DAB, 2014 WL 10817204 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 30, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where defendant?s contractor produced CAD files with incorrect creation dates and was subsequently ordered to produce his computer for inspection in an unaltered state, but ran a file-deletion or ?computer cleaning/wiping? program named ?CCleaner? the night before delivering the computer for inspection, court found that sanctions were appropriate to keep defendant from benefitting from contractor?s intentional conduct and to deter others from similar conduct in the future; contractor would not be allowed to testify at trial, all evidence that originated with contractor would be excluded, defendant would not be allowed to rely on contractor?s deposition testimony for summary judgment purposes or at trial, and defendant was required to pay plaintiff?s reasonable attorneys? fees and cost of forensic investigation conducted by plaintiff?s forensic expert

Nature of Case: Patent infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives of defendant’s contract CAD software operator; metadata and contents of CAD files

Annex Books, Inc. v. City if Indianapolis, No. 1:03-cv-SEB-TAB, 2012 WL 892170 (S.D. Ind. Mar. 14, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where plaintiff was unable to produce requested ?bookkeeping data? in a manner that was usable by defendants despite significant efforts to do so (including retaining two computer forensic services, spending over $9500 on 30 hour of work, and purchasing QuickBooks Pro in an attempt to export the relevant data), the court found that plaintiff had demonstrated that the data was not reasonably accessible but also found that defendant had demonstrated good cause for seeking the information and ordered defendant to bear the costs of additional efforts (noting that it was ?unreasonable? for defendant to insist on production in QuickBooks format when incompatibility had been established)

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

S2 Automation LLC v. Micron Tech., Inc., No. CIV 11-0884 JB/WDS, 2012 WL 3150387 (D.N.M. July 23, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Over objection of plaintiff, court entered non-waiver and claw-back order pursuant to FRE 502(d)

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Kolon Indus. v. E.I. Du Pon De Nemours & Co., No. 3:11cv622, 2012 WL 614137 (E.D. Va. Feb. 23, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court granted defendant?s motion to compel production of ?computer images and dumpster files? for 29 custodians upon finding that the information sought was relevant and that production would not be unduly burdensome

Nature of Case: Patent Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Computer images and “dumpster files”

Stanfill v. Talton, No. 5:10-CV-255(MTT), 2012 WL 1035385 (M.D. Ga. Mar. 29, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where defendant preserved only portions of a relevant video tape and allowed the remainder to be recorded over, court denied motion for spoliation sanctions because plaintiff did not establish that a duty to preserve existed or, if it did, that it was owed to the plaintiff and because the level of culpability with which the video was lost did not support a spoliation sanction in the 11th circuit

Nature of Case: Claims arising from death of defendant in jail

Electronic Data Involved: Video surveillance

MPCA King of Spades v. T.E.C. 2 Broad., Inc., No. 1:11cv00080, 2012 WL 1203372 (W.D. Va. Apr. 10, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: In litigation including claims that defendants had publically broadcast plaintiffs? copyrighted music without permission, the court noted that the question of ?what songs have been played and when? was at the ?heart? of the litigation and that the inability to retrieve that information in an ?easily accessible format? was the result of defendants? failure to preserve such that mirror imaging was warranted to determine if deleted programming logs could be restored and ordered that defendant bear the risk of any possible interruption to its ability to broadcast while the copying occurred (i.e., plaintiff would not be liable for any interruption in programming)

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Programming logs

Sloan Valve Co. v. Zurn Indus., Inc., No. 10-cv-204, 2012 WL 1886353 (N.D. Ill. May 23, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Finding defendants? search efforts inadequate, court ordered discovery re-opened and that defendant conduct specific additional discovery, including additional searches on specific repositories, and provide specific information regarding how its search efforts were conducted and by whom; the court also provided a good discussion of preservation obligations, but ultimately concluded that additional information was necessary to make a determination regarding the reasonableness of defendants efforts; ultimately, court declined to impose drastic sanctions, but ordered additional discovery and that defendants pay monetary sanctions (attorneys? fees and cost)

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

In re White Tail Oilfield Servs., No. 11-0009, 2012 WL 4857777 (E.D. La. Oct. 11, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where the petitioner (for an order compelling production) had access to plaintiff?s Facebook account but argued that merely taking screen shots would not include deleted information and where plaintiff alleged numerous difficulties with using the ?download your information? feature such that he could not produce the contents himself, the court ordered plaintiff to produce the information within 7 days but also noted that because the petitioner had access to the password, it could access the account and utilize the ?download your information? button, which would send that information only to Plaintiff, and that Plaintiff would then be obligated to forward that information to Petitioner?s counsel

Nature of Case: Personal Injury

Electronic Data Involved: Facebook

Catagory:Case Summaries