Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel production of documents by non-party pursuant to subpoena where court determined non-party did not have control of the documents requested because such documents were maintained by foreign parent company and non-party did not have access to them in the ordinary course of business
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, source code
Key Insight: Court of appeals vacated (in part) judgment of trial court and ruled former statute ?does not exempt disclosure of personal email addresses used by elected officials to discuss city business? and that plaintiff was entitled to the requested email messages without the personal email addresses redacted; court also held that there was no express obligation to produce email records in electronic format, but that statutory duty to ?provide the fullest assistance? obligated trial court to consider reasonableness and feasibility of electronic production on remand; redacted emails need not be scanned and produced electronically
Nature of Case: Complaint pursuant to Public Disclosure Act
Electronic Data Involved: Email addresses, emails
Key Insight: Court denied defendant?s motion to compel production of ?information that is located in the unallocated or deleted space? of the relevant hard drive where defendant was in possession of ?precisely the same images of the hard drives? that the plaintiff possessed, where plaintiff was not in possession, custody, or control of information not already produced to defendant, and where ?Defendant [was] just as capable as the Government is of extracting the information for trial.?
Nature of Case: Criminal
Electronic Data Involved: Data from unallocated space on hard drive
Key Insight: Court granted motion to serve preservation subpoena on third-party prior to the Rule 26(f) conference where plaintiff showed good cause for such a subpoena, including the potential relevance of the documents and the danger of spoliation where the company had been ?dormant? since 2006, and where the subpoena was narrowly tailored to prevent spoliation and did not impose an immediate obligation to produce documents
Nature of Case: Class action
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Considering the five factors established in Sony Music Ent. v. Does 1-40, 326 F.Supp.2d 556(S.D.N.Y. 2004) to determine whether an anonymous defendant?s identity is shielded from discovery by the first amendment (in circumstances such as those presented here), court denied a motion to quash the subpoena seeking anonymous defendant?s identity where plaintiffs made a concrete showing of a prima facie claim, where the subpoena was narrowly drawn and sought limited information, where there was no alternate means of identifying the defendant, where the information was necessary to effect service on the defendant and where ?defendant has little expectation of privacy in allegedly distributing music over the internet without permission of the copyright holder?
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Identity of alleged John Doe infringer
Key Insight: Upon in camera review of all documents produced to plaintiff by Facebook pursuant to subpoena, and in response to plaintiff?s objection to producing all such documents on the grounds that many were irrelevant and immaterial, court found ?no meaningful distinction? between the pages produced and the pages withheld and stated that ?Facebook usage depicts a snapshot of the user?s relationship and state of mind at the time of the content?s posting? and that ?relevance is more in the eye of the beholder? such that production should not be limited to plaintiff?s determination of what may be ?reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence? and ordered the production of all documents produced by Facebook to defendants, rather than the smaller subset previously provided
Nature of Case: Claims arising from alleged bullying and harassment of private school student
Electronic Data Involved: Facebook
Key Insight: Where plaintiff was ordered to produce a relevant recording and instead submitted an affidavit indicating that after a ?good faith search? she determined she was not in possession of the recording and had been mistaken in her representations to the contrary, the court granted defendant?s motion and ordered evidentiary sanctions for violating the court?s order to produce the recording after noting plaintiff?s failure to assert the possibility that she was not in possession of the recording prior to the entry of such an order; where plaintiff destroyed her handwritten notes after transcribing portions thereof, the court granted defendant?s request for an adverse inference
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination and retaliation
Electronic Data Involved: Audio recording, handwritten notes
Key Insight: Where plaintiff settled its claim of intentional spoliation against one defendant no longer in the case but failed to bring that claim against the defendants that remained and where the evidence was undisputed that the defendant who had settled all claims and was no longer a party to the litigation had maintained exclusive custody and control of the at-issue hard drives and plaintiff offered no evidence of the remaining defendants? involvement in destroying the relevant hard drives, the court held that the remaining defendants could not be sanctioned under either Ohio law or Federal law
Nature of Case: Breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, copyright infringement, etc.
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives
Key Insight: Where, in response to request for documents indicating an effort to find work, defendant produced a list of emails and screen shots from his computer, but not the emails themselves, court found defendants response inadequate and ordered production of all relevant documents in his possession
Electronic Data Involved: Emails
Key Insight: Where defendants failed to request production of a photograph taken by cell phone in electronic format and later contested plaintiff?s format of production, court denied defendants? motion to compel production and inspection upon noting defendants? failure to contest the photos authenticity or to show that viewing the original would provide information not already in their possession and upon noting Rule 34?s instruction that a party need not produce the same electronically stored information in more than one form
Electronic Data Involved: Photograph taken with cellular phone
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