Case Summaries – Page 239 – Electronic Discovery Law

Booker v. Mass. Dept. of Public Health, 612 F.3d 34 (1st Cir. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Trial court did not err in failing to issue an adverse inference instruction where plaintiff failed to establish the evidentiary foundation for such an instruction, namely that the party accused of spoliation was 1) aware of the pending claim, and 2) aware of the document?s relevance to that claim

Nature of Case: Retaliation, torotuous interference with contractual employment relations

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Pitney Bowes Gov. Solutions, Inc. v. United States, 94 Fed. Cl. 1 (Fed. Cl. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where, despite the destruction of relevant ESI, defendant was able to restore the relevant documents from backup tapes and produce them, but where the metadata was different such that the author of the documents was listed as one person rather than the many who had actually authored them, the court accepted the explanation that the author reflected in restored documents had received each document as an email attachment and saved those documents to her hard drive, thus changing the metadata, and further found that plaintiff made no showing that the documents were otherwise modified and denied the motion for sanctions

Nature of Case: Bid Protest

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Trusz v. USB Realty Investors LLC, 2010 WL 3583064 (D. Conn. Sept. 7, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff accused defendant of a ?document dump? in the wake of its production of 4,004,183 pages of documents and where defendants argued that the high volume was a result of plaintiff?s overbroad discovery requests, the court reasoned that the issue could have been avoided had counsel conferred to refine search terms and ordered the parties to confer in good faith to reach agreement regarding reducing the volume of discovery and that absent agreement, a special master would be appointed

Nature of Case: Claims arising from alleged concealment of overvaluing real estate investments

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

BBVA Compass Ins. Agency, Inc. v. Olson, 2010 WL 4004516 (D. Colo. Oct. 12, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff presented evidence that searching for the information requested by defendants could exceed 400 hours and where the request was duplicative and other sources of information existed, the court found that ?the burden on plaintiff ? is heavier than Defendants? alleged need for the files warrants? and granted plaintiff?s request for a Protective Order

Nature of Case: Claims for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of the duty of loyalty and breach of contract, among others

Electronic Data Involved: ESI/customer files

United States v. Wright, 625 F.3d 583 (9th Cir. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court reasoned that the Adam Walsh Act?s requirement that defendant have ?ample access? to examine child pornography evidence did not mean ?equal access? and ruled that where defendant?s expert was given access to the evidence under certain conditions (including time and place restrictions) but not provided with a mirror image of the drive to examine at will and where the expert was expressly ?comfortable? with that arrangement and was afforded 14 months to examine the evidence, ?ample access? was provided

Nature of Case: Child Pornography

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive containing the pornographic images

United States v. Hornback, 2010 WL 4628944 (E.D. Ky. Nov. 8, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant?s expert was offered the opportunity to examine the seized computer in a private, unmonitored room as often as necessary and to consult with defendant by phone during the examination, but where simultaneous internet access was not provided, the court found that ?ample opportunity? for inspection had been provided and denied defendant?s motion to compel an altered version of the hard drive with actual photographs removed

Nature of Case: Possession of child pornography

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

Commonwealth v. Suarez-Irizzary, 2010 WL 5312257 (Pa. Comm. Pl. Aug. 6, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court upheld the Commonwealth?s request to establish the school zone applicability using measurements from Google Earth upon finding that the measurement was properly authenticated by testimony that the accuracy of the measurement had been verified by comparing Google Earth?s results to a known distance between two points as established by independent, manual measuremen

Nature of Case: Drug charges

Electronic Data Involved: Google Earth measurement

Rosenbaum v. Becker & Poliakoff, P.A., 708 F. Supp. 2d 1304 (S.D. Fla. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

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

Nycomed U.S. Inc. v. Glenmark Generics, Ltd., 2010 WL 3173785 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 11, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

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

Chenault v. Dorel Indus., Inc., No. A-08-CA-354-SS, 2010 WL 3064007 (W.D. Tex. Aug. 2, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

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

Catagory:Case Summaries