Case Summaries – Page 310 – Electronic Discovery Law

E.E.O.C. v. Outback Steakhouse of FL, Inc., 2008 WL 2410415 (D. Colo. June 11, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where information requested was relevant to EEOC?s claim, and defendants failed to provide concrete substantiation of the alleged burden, either in terms of manpower, hours, or financial resources that would be required to compile it, court ruled that, even though EEOC requested information in electronic database form, defendants’ answers were not restricted by their electronic record-keeping system; court ordered defendants to make a good faith effort to compile supplemental information from all available sources

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Employment records and information

Mich. First Credit Union v. CUMIS Ins. Soc., Inc., 2008 WL 2915077 (E.D. Mich. July 22, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: District court overruled plaintiff?s objections to magistrate judge?s order denying sanctions and clarifying that defendant was not required to produce ESI in ?native format? or to produce metadata, where limited evidentiary value of producing ?native format? documents with accompanying metadata was outweighed by overly burdensome task of generating such documents

Nature of Case: Breach of insurance contract, unfair trade practices

Electronic Data Involved: APEX files, Lotus Notes email files, and Microsoft Office spreadsheet files

J.T. Shannon Lumber Co., Inc. v. Gilco Lumber, Inc., 2008 WL 3833216 (N.D. Miss. Aug. 14, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Granting motion to quash, court found that subpoenas duces tecum served by plaintiff on Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! requesting entire contents of individual defendants’ mailboxes and other information were facially invalid under Stored Communications Act of 1986 and were overly burdensome and oppressive; court found that breadth was so expansive that it resembled a ?fishing expedition,? and that plaintiff had not shown that all information requested was relevant or likely to lead to admissible evidence

Nature of Case: Intentional interference with business relationships, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty

Electronic Data Involved: Entire contents of individual defendants’ mailboxes stored on third-party ISPs, details of individuals’ accounts and user connection logs

Bianco v. GMAC Mortgage Corp., 2008 WL 4661241 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 22, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion to compel production of defendant?s general counsel?s laptop for imaging despite testimony that the laptop had been used to create some of the documents at issue where there was no evidence of discovery misconduct, where defendant searched extensively for and produced documents responsive to plaintiff?s requests, and where the ?intrusive search? would likely lead to the disclosure of privileged and confidential information ; court noted that Rule 34 does not create ?a routine right of direct access to a party?s electronic information system, although such access may be justified in some circumstances?

Nature of Case: Discrimination and retaliation in violation of Americans with Disabilities Act

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive, emails

Bryant v. Gardner, 587 F. Supp. 2d 951 (N.D. Ill. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where defendants failed to preserve laptop by continued use and by running defragmentation program, court imposed sanction of fees and costs and precluded defendants from making particular arguments that became unverifiable as result of failure to preserve; where forensic examination revealed creation of false evidence on laptop, court ordered accused defendant to show cause why matter should not be referred for prosecution

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination, discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop

Truckstop.net, LLC, v. Sprint Corp., 547 F.3d 1065 (9th Cir. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where defendant appealed District Court order for plaintiff to return inadvertently produced email and for privileged portions of the email to be redacted, Ninth Circuit dismissed appeal for lack of jurisdiction pursuant to the collateral order doctrine where the alleged harm from disclosure had already occurred and where defendant did not allege additional harm

Nature of Case: Contract dispute

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged email

MSC Software Corp. v. Altair Eng?g, Inc., 2008 WL 5381864 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 22, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Despite their production?s compliance with Fed. R. Civ. P. 34, court ordered defendants to specifically identify documents responsive to particular requests where plaintiff could not ?easily locate the documents? responsive to those requests within the production; court ordered defendant to use search terms provided by plaintiffs, despite objections of burden and privilege, but ordered use of connector term ?and? rather than ?or? to return documents ?more responsive? to the requests; court declined to order forensic imaging of hard drive but ordered defendant?s expert to produce attorney?s eyes only report of examination of the hard drive to address specific concerns and to provide plaintiffs with a directory list for all defendant?s non-Altair computer hard drives

Nature of Case: Theft of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email, hard drives

Martone v. Burgess, 2008 WL 5120047 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 3, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where defendants failed to demonstrate prejudice if required to preserve information, failed to adequately establish the inaccessibility of the information sought, and failed to demonstrate the absence of ?questions serious enough to require litigation,? court granted plaintiffs? motion for preliminary injunction and preservation order requiring defendants to preserve information useful for identifying persons accessing plaintiffs? intellectual property through defendants? website

Electronic Data Involved: Information regarding visitors to a particular website

In re Hawaiian Airlines, Inc., 2008 WL 185649 (Bankr. D. Haw. Jan. 22, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Although expert fees and expenses were not taxable as costs under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1920, court ruled that, since most if not all of the work performed by Hawaiian Airlines’ computer forensics expert was directly attributable to Mesa’s spoliation of evidence (which was subject of October 30, 2007 decision imposing certain evidentiary sanctions against Mesa), the expert’s fees and expenses of approximately $80,000 would be awarded as an additional spoliation sanction

Nature of Case: Airline undergoing reorganization alleged that prospective investor (Mesa) breached confidentiality agreement and misused confidential information

Electronic Data Involved: Confidential information stored on secure website

Adams v. United States, 2008 WL 346017 (D. Idaho Feb. 6, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Stating that it was convinced that DuPont was proceeding as fast as it could, given privilege concerns and the sheer bulk of the documents at issue, court denied plaintiffs’ request that DuPont provide a more expedited production of electronic documents

Nature of Case: Tort claims for crop damage allegedly resulting from government’s spraying of herbicide

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents

Catagory:Case Summaries