Case Summaries – Page 327 – Electronic Discovery Law

G.D. v. Monarch Plastic Surgery, P.A., 2007 WL 773722 (D. Kan. Mar. 9, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where court had earlier ordered production and inspection of defendants’ computer, but had also entered a protective order governing such production and inspection, court declined to sanction defendants and found that the most “just manner” to apportion fees and costs was for each of the parties to pay their own

Nature of Case: Plaintiffs claimed defendants wrongfully disclosed plaintiffs’ confidential medical information stored on a computer hard drive by placing the computer on the curb for trash disposal

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive of subject computer

Io Group, Inc. v. Veoh Networks, Inc., 2007 WL 1113800 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 13, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiff’s motion to compel and denied defendant’s request to shift costs of production to plaintiff, since defendant provided no information about whether and how such information was “inaccessible” or any other information relevant to cost-shifting determination under Zubulake III; court encouraged parties to agree on most efficient means of production and noted that plaintiff had indicated willingness to provide high capacity storage devices

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Adult video content; website traffic information

Pace v. Int’l Mill Serv., Inc., 2007 WL 1385385 (N.D. Ind. May 7, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendant had produced requested work orders in .pdf format and then in other electronic formats in attempts to resolve plaintiff’s complaints, court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel and for sanctions since plaintiff could not show that production request called for any specific format and court could not conclude that defendant had failed to meet such request

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Work orders

Bakhtiari v. Lutz, 2007 WL 3377215 (8th Cir. Nov. 15, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to impose spoliation sanctions against defendant university for deletion of former teaching assistant’s email account, where university backed-up the contents of the account onto two CDs before deleting it, and the deletion occurred before the lawsuit was filed

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination, civil rights

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Garcia v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co. of Am., 2007 WL 3407376 (D. Colo. Nov. 13, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Finding that all emails on DVD appeared to constitute “crucial evidence” in the case, court ordered their production notwithstanding plaintiff’s claimed burden and expense to review them and even though some of them may prove to be irrelevant to the dispute; court rejected plaintiff’s counsel’s claim of technical incompetence, finding that once he was on notice of potential problems he was obligated to seek competent professional assistance to ascertain the truth about the contents of DVD

Nature of Case: Plaintiff alleged bad faith breach of insurance agreement

Electronic Data Involved: DVD containing email sent or received by plaintiff through University of Denver email account

Wingnut Films, Ltd. v. Katja Motion Pictures Corp., 2007 WL 2758571 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 18, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendant did not conduct a reasonably diligent search for numerous categories of documents that court ordered be produced, did not conduct a reasonably diligent search for ESI, and did not suspend its document destruction policy or otherwise take adequate steps to preserve documents, among other forms of relief court ordered defendant to retain at its own expense an outside vendor, to be jointly selected by the parties, to collect responsive ESI; court further indicated it would impose $125,000 in sanctions representing reasonable amount of attorneys’ fees expended by plaintiff as result of defendant’s discovery misconduct

Nature of Case: Licensing and distribution claims, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair competition, fraud

Electronic Data Involved: Email and other electronic documents

Escobar v. City of Houston, 2007 WL 2900581 (S.D. Tex. Sept. 29, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Adverse-inference instruction not warranted where there was no showing that relevant electronic communications were destroyed or that destruction occurred in bad faith; officers involved in the shooting were not likely to have used email to communicate about the event in the day after it occurred, and, under HPD’s document retention and destruction policy, electronic communications records were routinely destroyed within ninety days

Nature of Case: Wrongful death action based on shooting death of 14-year-old boy by police officer

Electronic Data Involved: Records of Houston Police Department electronic communications in the 24 hours after victim’s death

Haka v. Lincoln County, 246 F.R.D. 577 (W.D. Wis. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Balancing relevant factors, court ruled that fairness and efficiency required parties to proceed with search for ESI incrementally and limited initial search to emails stored on hard drives; court instructed plaintiff to narrow his search terms, and any additional searches would occur only by joint agreement or court order; parties to share equally the costs of performing initial keyword search, but defendant to pay full cost of privilege/relevance review

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email and other ESI

Tilton v. McGraw-Hill Cos., Inc., 2007 WL 3229157 (W.D. Wash. Oct. 30, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendants had not shown that plaintiff’s initial disclosures or discovery responses were incomplete or incorrect and parties were not subject to any court order requiring them to produce documents created after the discovery deadline, and applicable legal authority was scant and fairly debatable, court declined to decide whether plaintiff was required to produce emails created after the close of discovery and ruled that plaintiff?s conduct was not sanctionable

Nature of Case: Plaintiff sued publisher alleging breach of a promise to keep his name and employer confidential

Electronic Data Involved: Email created after close of discovery

Williams v. Armstrong, 2007 WL 1424552 (W.D. Mich. May 14, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District Court sustained plaintiff?s objection to magistrate judge?s discovery order to the extent that factual findings omitted consideration of an exhibit submitted with plaintiff?s motion, which constituted evidence of defendant?s past possession of email which should have been produced in response to a particular discovery request (the exhibit was an email that discussed at least one prior email which was not produced); court remanded to magistrate judge issue of whether to compel further response or production in response to that particular discovery request

Nature of Case: Prisoner asserted claims relating to prison’s Kosher Meal Program

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Catagory:Case Summaries