Key Insight: Default judgment entered against defendant and attorneys’ fees awarded to plaintiff, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37, for defendant’s willful and intentional destruction of laptop presumably containing crucial evidence of defendant’s decoder key modification programs, sale records and customer lists
Nature of Case: Cable TV provider sued businessman for cable TV theft
Electronic Data Involved: Laptop
Key Insight: Insurer’s willful failure to comply with discovery orders and failure to produce database warranted evidentiary preclusion order amounting to entry of default judgment on agent’s counterclaim
Nature of Case: Insurer sued former general agent and agent counterclaimed for renewal commissions owed
Electronic Data Involved: Database containing raw data regarding policies sold by agents
Key Insight: Magistrate found good cause to grant motion to compel where deponent identified source code in deposition which had not been produced; court ordered defendant to produce sworn declaration setting forth the specific efforts it made to locate responsive documents and either a certification that all documents have been produced, or an explanation of why the documents have not yet been produced
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Source code
Key Insight: Where defendants “deliberately and willfully” failed to produce responsive documents, court concluded that defendants had not substantially complied with its prior discovery order and awarded civil contempt sanctions against defendants in the amount of plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees and costs
Nature of Case: Securities litigation
Electronic Data Involved: Documents on individual defendant’s personal computer
Key Insight: Emails exchanged between a narrow group of plaintiff corporate business’s non-attorney employees were protected from discovery by attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine; further, statements on plaintiff’s web site waived work product protection for affidavits described therein, but did not waive work product protection with respect to plaintiff’s recorded conversation with competitor’s former employees and email exchanges with them
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Finding no bad faith in defendant’s failure to preserve email since defendants simply persevered in their normal document retention practices, court nonetheless ruled that plaintiff would be allowed to prove the facts reflecting the non-retention of email and argue to the trier of fact that this destruction of evidence, in addition to other proof offered at trial, warranted certain inferences
Nature of Case: Trademark infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Applying Zubulake balancing test, court ordered parties to share equally the cost of extracting source code from defendant’s database; however, defendant solely to bear cost of copying source code for production once it is extracted
Nature of Case: Infringement action
Electronic Data Involved: Source code
Key Insight: Court entered preliminary injunction prohibiting defendants from, among other things, deleting, destroying or altering any document, email or computer drive containing any ProPath or ProPath related information, and required defendants to segregate said items into a confidential file not to be used in their business
Nature of Case: Contract breach, misappropriation of confidential information, breach of fiduciary duty
Electronic Data Involved: Email and other electronic files
Key Insight: Claiming that it had already spent approximately $1.4 million to restore, review and produce email, and may have to expend as much as $3 million more in order to complete the document review and production, nonparty unsuccessfully attempted to avoid compliance with discovery orders in state proceeding by seeking injunctive and declaratory relief in federal court
Nature of Case: Action for declaratory and injunctive relief
Electronic Data Involved: Email stored on backup tapes
Key Insight: Where defendants admitted to removing customer sales information from sales representatives’ computers by means of “delete and scrub” utilities in response to plaintiff’s claim that such material constituted trade secrets, and retained copies of deleted information, court granted unopposed motion for preliminary injunction enjoining defendant from distributing customer sales information and recalling and impounding customer sales information database
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement; plaintiff also alleged that defendant obtained private customer sales information from plaintiff’s former sales representative
Electronic Data Involved: Database containing customer sales information
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