Key Insight: In an order addressing several discovery disputes court ordered re-production of information downloaded from relevant Blackberry telephones where defendant produced the requested data in hard copy and where the information was not fully readable
Electronic Data Involved: ESI from Blackberry telephones
Key Insight: For failing to abide by its good-faith discovery obligations by withholding from production, without justification, certain relevant ESI and ?willfully fail[ing] to search two important and obvious repositories for responsive ESI?, the court determined that ?substantial monetary fines, payable to Nycomed and to the Clerk of the Court, are appropriate sanctions, as they will adequately advance ?the prophylactic, punitive and remedial rationales? of discovery sanctions? and ordered Glenmark to pay $100,000 to Nycomed ?to cover a portion of its costs? and to pay an additional $25,000 to the Clerk of the Court
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court approved defendant?s recovery of costs related to the creation of an electronic database where the database was utilized to reduce the otherwise recoverable costs of printing the approximately 800,000 pages of emails produced to plaintiffs
Electronic Data Involved: Costs of electronic database created in lieu of printing emails for production
Key Insight: Despite finding Fed. R. Crim. P. 16 did not require the government to identify the evidence upon which it intended to rely at trial where defendants claimed the government had attempted to overwhelm them by providing access to a database containing millions of documents, and despite government?s production of an index to the database and directions to the materials it deemed most relevant, magistrate recommended the government be ordered to provide defendants with an exhibit list and hard copies of the exhibits ten days before trial, for the government to supplement that list as necessary, and for the government to comply in good faith where the government had previously offered to supply the same
Nature of Case: Conspiracy to destroy records and destruction of records
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Where issues of material fact existed as to the willfulness of defendant?s destruction of potentially relevant ESI and as to whether such destruction ?disrupted? plaintiff?s case, court denied defendant?s motion for summary judgment as to its claim of spoliation and denied plaintiff?s request for an adverse inference as to claims 1 through 4, but indicated its willingness to entertain a motion for an appropriate jury instruction at trial
Nature of Case: Breach of confidentiality agreement and related claims, independant cause of action for spoliation
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court ordered 4 pages of privileged documents be returned to defendants where the pages were privileged on their face and inadvertently produced (4 pages of privileged material were produced among 2000 pages and the documents were subject to review by three attorneys prior to production) and where counsel immediately sought their return upon discovery of their production; court ordered narrowing of search terms and fewer custodians upon defendants? objection to plaintiffs? proposed scope (including 55 custodians and 50 search terms) where plaintiff failed to respond to the objection within the ten day period provided by the court
Nature of Case: Employment litigation
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, privileged materials
Key Insight: Where defendant appealed his conviction and argued the State?s failure to preserve videotape depicting a struggle between police and defendant was a violation of due process, court found the videotape was not subject to production pursuant to Brady absent evidence that it contained ?materially exculpatory evidence?, and that absent evidence of bad faith, defendant could not show a due process violation arising from the destruction of ?potentially useful? evidence
Nature of Case: Criminal
Electronic Data Involved: Surveillance video
Key Insight: Addressing the question of whether document imaging costs were recoverable under 28 USC ? 1920, court noted that ?[t]oday?s technologies allow counsel to exchange ?copies? of [documents for use in the case] electronically, reducing time and cost? and that there was no indication that electronic production was more expensive or duplicative of hard copy costs, and held that it ?would not punish [plaintiff] for choosing the more efficient, electronic method of producing costs? and that plaintiff?s document imaging costs were therefore recoverable under the statute
Nature of Case: Claims arising from property damage resulting from Hurrican Katrina
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Where plaintiff?s search requests were unreasonable and unduly burdensome and where defendant?s proposed ESI search could ?be reasonably expanded to search for relevant information without becoming unduly burdensome?, court ordered the parties to continue negotiating to identify 25 agreed upon search terms to search relevant custodians? reasonably accessible data; court found backup tapes ?not readily accessible because of undue burden or cost? and ordered defendant to run the agreed upon search terms ?only on reasonably accessible sources, such as active and archived data of network computers?
Nature of Case: Class action
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Where defendant challenged admission of hard copy images and video reproduced from electronic files on DVD which were copied from hard drives found in defendant?s computer, Supreme Court declined to extend best evidence rule to require admission of the hard drives themselves and, where forensic expert testified to the integrity of the copying process and where testimony was presented that verified the reproductions were accurate representations of the illicit material for which defendant was charged, court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals that the evidence was properly admitted
Nature of Case: Possession of child pornography
Electronic Data Involved: Images copied from DVDS with in turn were copied from original hard drives
Copyright © 2026, K&L Gates LLP. All Rights Reserved.