Case Summaries – Page 213 – Electronic Discovery Law

General Steel Domestic Sales, LLC v. Chumley, No. 10-cv-01398-PAB-KLM, 2011 WL 2415715 (D. Colo. June 15, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel production of plaintiff?s audio calls where plaintiff asserted that defendant?s claims were ?thin? and did not specify any damages and where in light of this, plaintiff asserted that the burden of producing the requested audio recordings outweighed any potential benefit; plaintiff supported its assertions that the audio recordings were ?not reasonably accessible? with affidavits indicating the high volume of calls to review, the need to listen to each call to determine its responsiveness, the incredible time and financial costs of such a review, and the possibility that privileged calls were present in the mix such that a third party could not be relied on to assist

Nature of Case: False and misleading advertising, deceptive sales practices

Electronic Data Involved: Audio recordings of phone calls

AMG Nat?l Trust Bank v. Ries, No. 06-CV-3061, 2011 WL 2912874 (E.D. Pa. July 21, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Court granted motion for spoliation sanctions for defendant?s deletion of relevant computer files and ordered an adverse inference and payment of plaintiff?s attorney?s costs and fees but, because the extent of the prejudice could not be determined, indicated that the language of the inference would be withheld until defendant paid for a forensic examination of his computer to determine what, if any, evidence could be recovered and thus the extent of the prejudice suffered by the plaintiff

Nature of Case: Breach of employment contract, breach of fiduciary duties, and violation of Uniform Trade Secrets Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Cedar Rapids Lodge & Suites, LLC v. JFS Dev., Inc., No. C09-0175, 2011 WL 4499259 (N.D. Iowa Sept. 27, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where plaintiffs alleged that examination of defendant?s laptop and other storage devices revealed evidence of spoliation and filed a motion for default judgment, the court reasoned that the evidence did not support a finding of intentional spoliation or bad faith, that the risk of prejudice to plaintiffs was small, that there was plenty of information for plaintiffs to utilize to pursue their claims, that public policy favored disposition on the merits, and that a less drastic sanction was available (namely a possible adverse inference instruction), and denied plaintiffs? motion; the recommendation of the Magistrate Judge was adopted by the District Court 2011 WL 5975127

Nature of Case: Claim for damages arising from property development

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

United States v. AT&T, Inc., No. 1:11-cv-01560, 2011 WL 5347178 (D.D.C. Nov. 6, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Court denied non-party?s motion to quash defendant?s subpoena where defendant adequately narrowed its request and where the non-party failed to establish that the burden of responding was undue, including by failing to provide particulars related to the expected burden of responding; court?s analysis closely followed standard set forth in Rule 26(b)(2)(C)(iii)

Nature of Case: DOJ investigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

B&B Hardware, Inc. v. Fastenal Co., No. 4:10-cv-00317-SWW, 2011 WL 6829625 (E.D. Ark. Dec. 16, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. ? 1920(4), court awarded the prevailing party $11,675.00 ?for the technical, specialized services necessary for responses to B&B?s request for electronically stored information? noting that B&B?s requests required defendant to extract 150 gigabytes of raw data for ten custodians which required additional processing and review and concluding that? [g]iven the extensive e-discovery that Fastenal was required to conduct, the Court in these circumstances finds that allowing a prevailing party to recover the costs of providing ESI where the opposing party requested that responsive documents be produced in certain electronic formats is appropriate.?

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Commonwealth v. Koch, 39 A.3d 996 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Conviction reversed and case remanded where trial court abused its discretion by admitting text messages found on the defendant?s cell phone without providing any evidence to establish that the defendant was the author of the at-issue messages, particularly where several messages referred to the defendant in the third person and ?and thus, were clearly not written by her?; court also found the text messages constituted inadmissible hearsay

Nature of Case: Drug conviction

Electronic Data Involved: Text messages

Mgmt. Compensation Group Lee, Inc. v. Oklahoma State Univ., No. CIV-11-967-D, 2011 WL 5326262 (W.D. Okla. Nov. 3, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where non-party OSU represented that responding to a subpoena seeking 6571 documents would require an expenditure of $1,761.24 and 55 hours of in-house counsel?s time, court found the burden was not so undue as to require protection from compliance and, in so finding, noted OSU?s financial interest in the outcome of the litigation, OSU?s close ties to a party in the case, and the amount in controversy of the underlying litigation (many millions of dollars)

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

United States v. Gravely, 2011 WL 112468 (E.D. Ky. Jan. 13, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Bureau of Prison?s failure to preserve video footage of hallway outside cell in which the alleged murder of an inmate occurred did not violate the defendant?s constitutional rights where the defendant failed to establish that the footage was materially exculpatory and where the court found the failure to preserve was grossly negligent but not in bad faith

Nature of Case: Defendant charged with murdering another inmate

Electronic Data Involved: Video

Lowy v. Peacehealth, 247 P.3d 7 (Wash. Ct. App. 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Appellate court reinstated original order compelling defendants? to search its quality assurance database for records pertaining to incidents similar to plaintiff?s and denied defendants? motion for a protective order where RCW 70.41.2003 prevents defendants? from allowing a review of such records by ?outside persons? but where an internal review for the purpose of identifying responsive records would not be in violation of the statute

Nature of Case: Medical malpractice

Electronic Data Involved: Information related to claims similar to plaintiff’s

Miami-Dade Cnty. v. Johnson Controls, Inc., No. 10-20881-CIV, 2011 WL 1548969 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 21, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where 3rd party established the burden of responding to defendant?s subpoena, including that compliance would result in a total cost of approximately $118,000, the court ordered defendant to bear the reasonable cost of the 3rd party?s compliance with the subpoena, subject to the conditions set forth by the court

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Catagory:Case Summaries