Case Summaries – Page 297 – Electronic Discovery Law

Laface Records, LLC v. Does, 2008 WL 4517178 (D.D.C. Oct. 6, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court granted motion to serve limited, immediate discovery on third party internet service provider seeking identities and contact information of defendants where court acknowledged ?good cause exists for Plaintiffs? discovery because Defendants must be identified before this suit can progress?; court ordered third party provider to give five days notice to defendants and set deadline for potential motions to quash

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Names and contact information for ISP subscribers

Kinnally v. Rogers Corp., 2008 WL 4850116 (D. Ariz. Nov. 7, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where plaintiffs offered only an inference that evidence was destroyed based on ?the mere lack of evidence? produced by defendant and where plaintiffs failed to take timely action to address discovery disputes, court denied plaintiffs? motion for an adverse inference based on spoliation; addressing plaintiffs? argument that defendant?s failure to issue a timely litigation hold notice resulted in destruction of evidence, court noted, ?[w]hile a party must ?put in place a ?litigation hold? to ensure the preservation of relevant documents, there is no requirement that it must be written.? [citation omitted]

Nature of Case: Age discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email

In re Zurn Pex Plumbing Prod. Liab. Litig., 20008 WL 5104173 (D. Minn. Nov. 26, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court compelled production of deponent to answer specifically tailored questions regarding retention of electronically stored documents where plaintiff suspected spoliation due to defendant?s failure to timely issue preservation notices and where inquiry into retention policies would assist in narrowing scope of discoverable electronic materials; court also compelled production of identity of author of relevant email

Nature of Case: Products liability

Electronic Data Involved: Document retention policies, email

Huthnance v. D.C., 255 F.R.D. 285 (D.D.C. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where defendants? radio log indicated a relevant communication occurred but where defendants were unable to produce the audio tape, court ordered defendant to produce its document retention policies to show ?whether the [communications] were maintained according to standard procedure?

Nature of Case: Claims arising from alleged illegal arrest and detention

Electronic Data Involved: Audio tapes of phonecalls, access to

U.S. v. Bunty, 2008 WL 2371211, (E.D. Pa. June 10, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where government agents altered the ?last accessed? date of relevant files by opening the files to investigate their contents, court denied defendant?s motion for spoliation sanctions upon finding that 1) the agents used the least intrusive means of determining the content of the disks in good faith and 2) the defendant suffered ?minimal? prejudice as a result of the alteration

Nature of Case: Possession of child pornography

Electronic Data Involved: Last accessed data

Koch Foods of Ala. LLC v. Gen. Elec. Capital Corp., 531 F.Supp.2d 1318 (M.D. Ala. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Concluding that, if the Alabama Supreme Court were to confront the issue of inadvertent waiver, it would likely adopt more comprehensive and sensitive totality-of-the-circumstances analysis, district court upheld magistrate judge?s ruling that plaintiff?s inadvertent production of privileged email among 3,758 pages of documents did not effect waiver

Nature of Case: Dispute over ownership of certain poultry processing equipment

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged email

Bro-Tech Corp. v. Thermax, Inc., 2008 WL 356928 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 7, 2008), modified, 2008 WL 724627 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 17, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where examination of defendants? hard drives and servers was only way to determine whether defendants had violated court order requiring them to locate any files taken from plaintiffs, return them to plaintiffs, and then purge plaintiffs? files from defendants? electronic storage devices, magistrate judge ordered defendants to produce forensic copies of hard drives and servers to plaintiffs? counsel on a ?Confidential-Designated Counsel Only? basis

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition

Electronic Data Involved: Defendants’ hard drives and servers

Jackson v. AFSCME Local 196, 2008 WL 1848901 (D. Conn. Apr. 25, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where nonparty stated that in-depth electronic search would need to be conducted in order to produce responsive documents, thus resulting in substantial cost to nonparty, court ordered nonparty to provide plaintiff with estimate of cost and explanation of fees, with copy to court, before embarking on search so plaintiff could decide whether she wished nonparty to proceed; court further ruled that plaintiff must pay nonparty’s compilation fees before delivery of documents to plaintiff

Nature of Case: Union member alleged that union breached its duty of fair representation

Electronic Data Involved: Unspecified ESI

Kallas v. Carnival Corp., 2008 WL 2222152 (S.D. Fla. May 27, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where plaintiff supported class certification motion with affidavits prepared by paralegals who conducted interviews with potential class members, court found that such affirmative use of work product opened door to defendant’s attempt to verify accuracy of investigation, to discover flaws, and to obtain if possible information that could impeach paralegals’ testimony; court ordered plaintiff to produce memo to file itemizing questions to be propounded to interviewees, completed form questionnaires with handwritten notations used in survey, and memoranda or handwritten notations generated by affiants during course of survey or thereafter to memorialize factual information obtained; database itself retained work product protection and plaintiff was not required to produce entire printout of database beyond those portions that plaintiffs intended to rely upon and had been produced

Nature of Case: Class action brought by passengers who had suffered symptoms associated with a spread of Norovirus

Electronic Data Involved: Epi Info database, questionnaires and underlying relevant data

Huang v. Gateway Hotel Holdings, 2008 WL 2486030 (E.D. Mo. June 18, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court ruled that plaintiffs were not required to produce for forensic inspection their ?desktop computers, cell phones, e-mail machines, laptop computers, mobile phones, ESI storage media, handheld computers and personal digital assistants,? but ordered plaintiffs determine which plaintiffs owned such devices and to produce a list of names and equipment to defendant within 20 days, and defendant would be allowed to re-file the discovery request with a showing of need; court further ruled that defendant need not produce pay and time records in an accessible electronic format but gave plaintiffs leave to re-file motion upon a showing that defendant had not supplied all available pay and time records

Nature of Case: FLSA claims, retaliation

Electronic Data Involved: Computers, cell phones and ESI storage devices used by plaintiffs

Catagory:Case Summaries