Case Summaries – Page 406 – Electronic Discovery Law

Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Inc. v. Home Indem. Co., 1991 WL 111040 (E.D. Pa. June 17, 1991)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court rejected insurers’ contentions that requested discovery was impossible insofar as they were grounded in the particular manner in which defendants maintain their records and computer systems; cost of discovery to be borne by insurers, but plaintiffs to pay costs of copying documents selected

Nature of Case: Declaratory judgment re insurance coverage

Electronic Data Involved: Insurance information from claim files

Stallings v. Daniels, 583 S.E.2d 428 (Table, Text in WESTLAW), 2003 WL 21791751 (N.C. App. Aug. 5, 2003) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Appellate court reversed trial court’s dismissal of suit; backup tape of plaintiff’s earlier court proceeding was public record under state statute and defendants were required to permit plaintiff to examine and inspect the backup tape

Nature of Case: Suit to compel disclosure of public records

Electronic Data Involved: Backup tape containing sound recording of a hearing in a separate lawsuit

Timpken Co. v. United States, 659 F. Supp. 239 (Ct. Int’l Trade 1987)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Defendant ordered to provide copies of computer tapes containing data previously provided in hard copy form

Nature of Case: Challenge of decision by Dept. of Commerce to deny plaintiff access to computer tapes in trade investigation

Electronic Data Involved: Computer tapes containing costs and sales data

United States v. Visa USA, Inc., 1999 WL 476437 (S.D.N.Y. Jul. 7, 1999)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Parties agreed to narrow the scope of archived email search, both in terms of the number of employees whose email was to be produced and the number of days per month for which that email was to be produced; defendants to bear cost of production ($130,000) initially, but court reserved decision about who ultimately would bear cost; court denied plaintiff’s request that defendant make its production available on CD-ROM

Nature of Case: Antitrust

Electronic Data Involved: Archived email

YCA, LLC v. Berry, 2004 WL 1093385 (N.D. Ill May 7, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court denied defendant’s motion to strike the testimony of plaintiff’s computer expert (who recovered “plethora” of deleted documents from defendant’s old YCA computer) since any delay in disclosing the expert and the recovered material was justified given defendant’s failure to disclose that his old computer might contain relevant evidence

Nature of Case: Breach of nondisclosure agreement, tortious interference

Electronic Data Involved: Deleted documents, computer hard drive

Adams v. Dan River Mills, Inc., 54 F.R.D. 220 (W.D. Va. 1972)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs’ motion to compel production of defendant’s current computerized master payroll file and all computer print-outs for W-2 forms of defendant’s employees, given accuracy of records and inexpensiveness of production

Nature of Case: Race discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Computerized master payroll file

Bowles v. Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders, 2004 WL 2203831 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court ruled that defendant effected waiver of its attorney-client and work product privileges as to all documents on the same subject matter as the privileged documents it gave to plaintiff when she was president, since defendant’s failure to take any legal action to assert its privilege or otherwise to recover the documents for more than a year did not constitute “reasonable steps to reclaim the protected material.” Parties ordered to submit further briefing on the scope of the subject matter waiver.

Nature of Case: Former president of association sued for wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged emails

Comcast of Los Angeles, Inc. v. Top End Int’l, Inc., 2003 WL 22251149 (C.D. Cal. July 2, 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Defendants could not assert the privilege against self-incrimination to resist production of corporate records; court ordered individual defendants to produce all the business records on their computers

Nature of Case: Cable TV provider sued defendants alleging a scheme to illegally manufacture and sell cable TV descramblers

Electronic Data Involved: Computerized sales data

Excelligence Learning Corp. v. Oriental Trading Co., 2004 WL 2452834 (N.D. Cal. June 14, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court granted defendant’s motion to compel production where defendant agreed to limit scope of email request; further, court rejected defendant’s undue burden objection to plaintiff’s discovery requests where defense counsel argued that retrieval of responsive information would be time-consuming because it involved cross-referencing many databases and backup tapes, but did not submit the information in the form of a declaration

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets and related torts

Electronic Data Involved: Email; vendor information relating to 278 products

In re Grand Jury Subpoena Dated June 30, 2003, 770 N.Y.S.2d 568 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: DA’s application to compel witnesses to answer questions granted: attorney/client privilege did not preclude attorneys representing individuals connected to events surrounding homicide from answering questions about laptop that was instrumentality of crime

Nature of Case: Grand jury proceedings investigating homicide

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop

Catagory:Case Summaries