Catagory:Case Summaries

1
Brodsky v. Humana, Inc., 2009 WL 1956450 (N.D. Ill. July 8, 2009)
2
State Farm Ins. Co. v. Policherla, 2009 WL 2170183 (E.D. Mich. July 20, 2009)
3
New Salida Ditch Co, Inc. v. United Fire and Cas. Ins. Co., 2009 WL 2399933 (D. Colo. July 31, 2009)
4
In re Netbank Sec. Litig., 2009 WL 2461036 (N.D.Ga. Aug. 7, 2009)
5
Commonwealth v. Ruddock, 2009 WL 3400927 (Mass. Sup. Ct. Oct. 2009)
6
Oracle USA v. SAP AG, 264 F.R.D. 541 (N.D. Cal. 2009)
7
In re Nuvaring Prod. Liab. Litig., 2009 WL 2486330 (E.D. Mo. Aug. 11, 2009)
8
Donnelly v. NCO Fin. Sys., Inc., 2009 WL 5551377 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 16, 2009)
9
People v. Buckner, 228 P.3d 245 (Colo. App. 2009)
10
Fells v. Virginia Dept. of Transp., 605 F. Supp. 2d 740 (E.D. Va. Mar. 25, 2009)

Brodsky v. Humana, Inc., 2009 WL 1956450 (N.D. Ill. July 8, 2009)

Key Insight: Addressing whether certain of plaintiff?s requests were unduly burdensome relative to the likely benefit of production, court granted in part and denied in party plaintiff?s motion to compel upon determining that certain requests were unduly burdensome in light of the estimated time and effort to respond

Nature of Case: Violations of Telephone Consumer Protection Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, mirror image drives

State Farm Ins. Co. v. Policherla, 2009 WL 2170183 (E.D. Mich. July 20, 2009)

Key Insight: Court denied defendants? motion to quash third party subpoena upon finding defendants? could claim no viable privacy interest and thus lacked standing and where plaintiff?s showing of relevance outweighed defendants? claims of harm; court granted plaintiff?s motion to compel claim related information, despite acknowledgement of defendants? burden, where plaintiff established the relevance of such data, but ordered a sampling of the requested data while reserving plaintiff?s prerogative to make a showing that additional disclosure would be productive

Nature of Case: RICO

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

New Salida Ditch Co, Inc. v. United Fire and Cas. Ins. Co., 2009 WL 2399933 (D. Colo. July 31, 2009)

Key Insight: Where defendant was successful in ?ascertaining with clarity whether it had any information responsive to the discovery dispute? only after months of delay and claims that it was unable to perform the requisite searches in its computer system, court ordered defendant to pay plaintiff?s fees and costs upon finding that defendant failed to show its behavior was ?substantially justified? or that sanctions would be ?unjust? and where plaintiff was ?the victor in the discovery dispute? and suffered prejudice by defendant?s delay, including ?unnecessary expenditure of time and expense?

Nature of Case: Insurance coverage

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Commonwealth v. Ruddock, 2009 WL 3400927 (Mass. Sup. Ct. Oct. 2009)

Key Insight: Recognizing that the defendant would be ?severely handicapped? absent expert consultation and finding that requiring defendant?s expert to examine the evidence while in the commonwealth?s custody would burden defendant?s rights to effective assistance of counsel and create the risk that his work product would be accessible to the government, court ordered mirror image of defendant?s hard drive to be produced, but entered a strict protective order limiting its use and dissemination

Nature of Case: Possession of child pornography

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

Oracle USA v. SAP AG, 264 F.R.D. 541 (N.D. Cal. 2009)

Key Insight: Pursuant to the authority granted by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 37 and 16, court granted defendants? motion to preclude plaintiffs? presentation of evidence of certain damages where plaintiffs failed to timely inform defendants of their vastly expanded damages claims (despite their ability to do so) and failed to timely supplement their initial disclosures accordingly, and where such expansion would prejudice the defendants in light of the volume of information to be analyzed and the attendant cost; court?s analysis relied in part upon the extensive discovery that had already been undertaken

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Evidence of expanded damages claims

In re Nuvaring Prod. Liab. Litig., 2009 WL 2486330 (E.D. Mo. Aug. 11, 2009)

Key Insight: Court denied defendants? motion for cost sharing for their review and production of electronically stored information where the parties had implicitly agreed to be responsible for their own expenses, where plaintiffs already took steps to eliminate the cost to defendants of repeatedly producing documents, and where defendants failed to establish that plaintiffs? request had caused undue burden or expense or that they would in future; court instructed defendants to file motions for protective orders specifically identifying the requests creating the burden and expense to allow the court to address the objections

Nature of Case: Products liability

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Donnelly v. NCO Fin. Sys., Inc., 2009 WL 5551377 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 16, 2009)

Key Insight: Court granted motion to compel defendant to produce a list of all persons it called on cellular telephones within particular area codes, despite defendant?s claim that such production would be unduly burdensome and minimally probative and that it would need to create special programs to extract the information which would take ?several hundred hours,? where court determined plaintiff?s need for the information outweighed the burden in producing it

Nature of Case: Class action

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

People v. Buckner, 228 P.3d 245 (Colo. App. 2009)

Key Insight: Court held admission of defendant?s cell phone was not error and did not constitute impermissible hearsay where the prosecution sought to show that an undercover officer?s number showed up on defendant?s phone, where the phone was authenticated by the officer?s testimony, and where the telephone was not a ?person? or ?declarant? making ?a communicative ?statement? within the meaning of the relevant hearsay rule; court rejected argument that admission of phone was error because it contained other phone numbers, texts, etc. where defendant failed to show that he was prejudiced and failed to identify any particular message, etc. that the jury would have obtained from the phone

Nature of Case: Criminal

Electronic Data Involved: Cellular phone

Fells v. Virginia Dept. of Transp., 605 F. Supp. 2d 740 (E.D. Va. Mar. 25, 2009)

Key Insight: Identifying a difference between costs expended for converting a paper document into an electronic one and creating electronically searchable documents, the court denied defendant?s request for recovery of costs related to ?electronic records initial processing, Metadata extraction, [and] file conversion?

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

 

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