Case Summaries – Page 227 – Electronic Discovery Law

People v. Spykstra, 234 P.3d 662 (Colo. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Reversing the order of the trial court, the Supreme Court established 5 part test to challenge the issuance of a pretrial subpoena and quashed the subpoenas issued by defendant where, by ordering the relevant individuals to submit their computers to inspection by defendant?s expert, the trial court ?improperly converted the subpoenas into the functional equivalent of search warrants? and where defendant failed to establish any factual basis demonstrating a reasonable likelihood that the emails sought existed or that they contained material evidence

Nature of Case: Criminal

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, Contents of hard drives

Language Line Servs., Inc. v. Language Servs. Assocs., LLC, 2010 WL 2764714 (N.D. Cal. July 13, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Upon plaintiff?s showing of a likelihood of success in its claims and a possibility of irreparable harm absent judicial intervention, the court granted plaintiff?s motion for a preliminary injunction precluding defendants from using, copying or divulging plaintiff?s confidential information and from destroying or erasing such information, among other things; upon the parties? agreement, the court also appointed a Special Master to preside over all proceedings regarding the preservation of plaintiff?s information in the possession of defendants, the forensic imaging of defendant?s computer systems and servers to determine the extent of plaintiff?s information in their possession, and defendant?s communications with any of plaintiff?s customers appearing in the alleged confidential information

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of Trade Secrets and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Gallagher v. Magner, 2010 WL 3419820 (8th Cir. Sept. 1, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: District court upheld denial of sanctions for defendants? failure to preserve emails and other ESI where plaintiffs failed to establish the prejudice resulting from the failure to preserve by presenting nothing more than speculation and by failing to pursue other possible sources of discovery (which the court characterized as ?incongruent with Plaintiff?s claim of prejudice?) and where plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that defendant intentionally destroyed or withheld evidence to suppress the truth

Nature of Case: Claims alleging disparate treatment and impact arising from City’s enforecement of housing codes

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, other ESI

Beluga Shipping GMBH & Co. KS ?Beluga Fantastic? v. Suzlon Energy, Ltd., 2010 WL 3749279 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 23, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted non-party?s Google Inc.?s Motion to Intervene to oppose Defendant?s request for leave to conduct discovery and to subpoena from Google the contents of two cross-defendants? accounts and other, related information where production of the emails themselves was barred by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act absent consent from the accounts owners, and thus it was futile to issue subpoenas; court granted in part defendant?s petition for leave to conduct discovery and ordered Google to disclose documents reflecting when the accounts were created, the names of the account holders, and the countries from which the accounts were created ? information not precluded from disclosure by the ECPA ? and instructed Google to preserve the snapshot of the emails in the account

Nature of Case: Petition for leave to conduct discovery in foreign judicial proceedings

Electronic Data Involved: Information related to Google account holders, and contents of accounts (emails)

Hare v. Opryland Hospitality, LLC, 2010 WL 3719915 (D. Md. Sept. 17, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff sought spoliation sanctions for defendant?s alleged destruction of ?full and complete surveillance video? of the relevant incident but failed to establish that defendant had the burden to preserve any video aside from the portion produced or that any other relevant footage existed and was deleted and where plaintiff failed to establish the ?requisite state of mind?, the court denied plaintiff?s motion for sanctions

Nature of Case: Personal Injury

Electronic Data Involved: Video surveillance footage

Brinckerhoff v. Town of Paradise, 2010 WL 4806966 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 18, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Citing plaintiff?s failure to raise the issue of electronic discovery at the discovery conference, her failure to request ESI in discovery, and the lack of hardship in reviewing hard copy produced by defendants, the court generally denied plaintiff?s request to compel production of ESI in native format but, as to an evaluation of plaintiff, the court compelled the production of metadata and reasoned that the revelation of the date created and whether it was modified could be pivotal for the plaintiff

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

In re Air Cargo Shipping Servs. Antitrust Litig., 2010 WL 2976220 (E.D.N.Y. July 23, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted motion to compel production of ESI from South Africa, despite the country?s strict blocking statute, where the information was relevant, the request was sufficiently narrow and not shown to be burdensome, the US interest in enforcing its antitrust laws trumped South Africa?s enforcement of their blocking statute, there was no evidence of hardship to the producing party absent an unsubstantiated threat of sanctions, and where there was no alternative source from which to obtain the information

Nature of Case: Antitrust litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI in foreign jurisdiction

Oce N. Am., Inc. v. Brazeau, 2010 WL 5033310 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 18, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court rejected objections to the Magistrate Judge?s recommendation that plaintiff?s motion for a preliminary injunction be denied and, addressing plaintiff?s assertions that an evidentiary gap regarding defendant?s alleged misappropriation of information could be filled by adverse inference resulting from defendant?s failure to preserve instant messages, declined to impose such an inference where defendant mistakenly believe that the messages were automatically preserved and, upon learning otherwise, made changes to preserve going forward and thus plaintiffs were unable to show a culpable state of mind and where the alleged spoliation caused little harm in light of the availability of other evidence

Nature of Case: Breach of non-competition agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Instant messages

Govan Brown & Assoc., Ltd. v. Does 1&2, 2010 WL 3076295 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 6, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. ? 1782, court granted in part plaintiff?s application to conduct discovery in a foreign proceeding and ordered that plaintiff may serve upon Google, Inc. a subpoena seeking the IP address associated with an account from which an allegedly defamatory email was sent, but denied the application to the extent it sought to serve a subpoena for information related to an email sent from a separate account that merely read, ?Have a nice day? and which could not form the basis for a cause of action under the laws of Canda; to the extent the IP addresses for the two email accounts was the same, however, Google would be allowed to disclosure that information

Camesi v. Univ. of Pittsburgh Med. Ctr., 2010 WL 3718867 (W.D. Pa. Sept. 20, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Stating that ?it is defendant?s responsibility to demonstrate objectively reasonable compliance? with the rules regarding ESI, the court found that defendants had failed to do so and denied their motion for a protective order; granting plaintiff?s motion to compel, the court ordered the parties to meet and confer to identify custodians for the purpose of limited discovery/sampling and to identify search terms to be utilized; court ordered defendants to identify potentially responsive ESI sources and to provide a reasonable description of the information stored therein in compliance with Local Rule 26.2

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, emails

Catagory:Case Summaries