Case Summaries – Page 237 – Electronic Discovery Law

S. New England Tel. Co. v. Global Naps, Inc., 624 F. 3d 123 (2nd Cir. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Finding of contempt and order to pay plaintiffs? attorney?s fees and costs was no abuse of discretion where the court?s order to disclose financial assets was ?perfectly clear? and where there was ?clear and convincing? evidence of defendants? non-compliance and that defendants were not diligent in their attempts to comply; trial court did not abuse discretion in granting default judgment against all defendants in light of willful and bad faith discovery violations, including intentional deletion of ESI and lying about the existence and location of documents which ?formed a pattern of ?prolonged and vexatious obstruction?, and where lesser sanctions would be ineffective and defendants were aware of the consequences of non-compliance with their discovery obligations

Nature of Case: Claims arising from defendants’ failure to pay for special access servers ordered from plaintiff

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Interserve, Inc. v. Fusion Garage, Ltd., 2010 WL 3931100 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 6, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where the court found that defendant?s source code?s metadata ?(i.e. programmer?s notes or comments and other annotations in the source code) ? may be relevant to [plaintiff?s] claims,? the court ordered defendant to produce the metadata but indicated that it could redact the actual source code from the production and produce the metadata subject to the parties? stipulated protective order

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of business ideas, false advertising, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud

Electronic Data Involved: Metadata for source code ?(i.e. programmer?s notes or comments and other annotations in the source code)”

In re Urethane Antitrust Litig., 2010 WL 4226214 (D. Kan. Oct. 21, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiffs sought a protective order to preclude discovery of a certain category of information, court denied their motion for a myriad of reasons, including rejecting arguments of undue burden and expense where the arguments were ?largely conclusory and unsupported? and where plaintiffs evidence actually established that the discovery could be reasonably undertaken as the result of work done while responding to other requests and reasoned that while responding would ?take time?, it would not be an ?inordinate? amount

Nature of Case: Price fixing, market-allocation conspiracies

Electronic Data Involved: ESI related to criminal investigation of some plaintiffs

Lynch v. Int. Assoc. of Machinist & Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, 2010 WL 5299879 (E.D. Wis. Dec. 17, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant claimed it did not regularly maintain the information requested and that to search for such information manually in its database would result in substantial cost, the court found that plaintiff had not shown that the likely results of a search would produce admissible evidence or that such evidence could justify the expense to defendant and denied plaintiff?s motion to compel, including plaintiff?s request for the entire database to be produced; where plaintiff?s request ?showed a preference for maintaining functionality but did not specify a format for response? and where the request for Excel format was verbal and occurred after defendant had begun to generate its production in Word format, court found production in Word format was sufficient and that defendant did not convert the information to remove functionality in contravention of Rule 34

Nature of Case: Allegations arising from union’s failure to pursue plaintiff?s grievances following his retirement

Electronic Data Involved: Database

Tran v. Sonic Indus. Servs., Inc., 2010 WL 5376348 (W.D. Okla. Dec. 21, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant produced emails in ?approximate-date order,? the court ?agree[d] with Defendants? disjunctive reading of ?or? within Rule 34 that producing documents either in the method kept during the ordinary course of business or organized and labeled into categories corresponding with the request is sufficient to satisfy the rule? and denied plaintiff?s motion to compel re-production according to separate email accounts

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Achte/Neunte Boll Kino Beteiligungs GMBH & Co. v. Does 1-4577, 736 F. Supp. 2d 212 (D.D.C. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Noting that “courts have held that Internet subscribers do not have an expectation of privacy in their subscriber information as they already have conveyed such information to their Internet Service Providers,” court denied motion to quash subpoena seeking identifying information from relevant ISPs

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Names and contact information for ISP subscribers

LG Elecs., Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., No. 10 CV 3179, 2010 WL 3075755 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 5, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel non-party to produce email communications which were in the possession of a party to the action but not subject to production because of party agreement: ?This court will not require Motorola to produce e-mail communications that Vizio and LG purposefully decided not to seek in the underlying lawsuit.?

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Estate of Eva Boles v. Nat?l Heritage Realty, Inc., 2010 WL 1759026 (N.D. Miss. Apr. 27, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where production of defendants? general ledger was necessary because there was no suitable alternative to provide the information, but where defendants? counsel asserted that such production would require ?hundreds of hours? and involve great expense, court noted defendants failure to produce any details in support of its assertion and that plaintiff was willing to bear the reasonable costs and granted plaintiff?s motion to compel

Electronic Data Involved: General ledger in electronic format

Estate of Boles v. Nat?l Heritage Realty, Inc., 2010 WL 3087472 (N.D. Miss. Aug. 6, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court denied motion for reconsideration of order compelling electronic production of defendants? general ledger and specifically rejected defendants? Rule 34 argument that because plaintiff failed to state the form of production, it could produce in hard copy, where defendants failed to specify a particular form of production in their response, where defendants failed to timely raise the Rule 34 issue (despite filing several motions discussing production of the ledger), and where defendants also failed to produce the evidence in the form in which it was ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably usable form as is required by the rule; a Motion to Stay this order was thereafter denied, See Estate of Boles v. Nat?l Heritage 2010 WL 3218386 (N.D. Miss. Aug. 7, 2010)

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic copy of general ledger

Jannx Med. Sys., Inc. v. Methodist Hosps., Inc., 2010 WL 4789275 (N.D. Ind. Nov. 17, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where absent a specific request for native production plaintiff produced ESI in .pdf format and where defendant objected that .pdf format was not in compliance with Rule 34 because it was not produced in the ?fully searchable and manipulable? format in which it was normally maintained, the court acknowledged that ?there are circumstances in which .pdf format may satisfy discovery obligations? but found that plaintiff had converted the ESI into a more burdensome format in contravention of Rule 34 and granted the motion to compel ?to the extent that Defendants? request that Plaintiff produce responsive information in an electronic database format that allows the information to be reasonably usable, i.e., fully searchable and manipulable, with the connections between the data fields intact?

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic database data

Catagory:Case Summaries