Case Summaries – Page 408 – Electronic Discovery Law

Fresenius Med. Care Holding Inc. v. Baxter Int’l, Inc., 224 F.R.D. 644 (N.D. Cal. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

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

In re Heritage Bond Litig., 223 F.R.D. 527 (C.D.Cal. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

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

Kaufman v. Kinko’s, Inc., 2002 WL 32123851 (Del. Ch. Apr. 16, 2002) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Granting motion to compel defendant to produce email from backup tapes notwithstanding fact that restoration and retrieval costs may approach $100,000, court stated: “Upon installing a data storage system, it must be assumed that at some point in the future one may need to retrieve the information previously stored. That there may be deficiencies in the retrieval system (or inconvenience and cost associated with the actual retrieval) cannot be sufficient to defeat an otherwise good faith request to examine relevant information . . .”

Nature of Case: Valuation dispute arising as result of two merger agreements

Electronic Data Involved: Email stored on monthly backup tapes

Marcin Eng’g, LLC v. Founders at Grizzly Ranch LLC, 219 F.R.D. 516 (D. Colo. 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court denied defendant’s motion to extend expert discovery deadline for purposes of reviewing plaintiff’s experts computer data and computerized versions of preliminary and superseded versions of work, where material was produced in hard copy form months earlier and defendant had been dilatory in reviewing it

Nature of Case: Breach of contract and tort claims

Electronic Data Involved: Computerized data and superceded and preliminary drafts of expert

Nutrition Mgmt. v. Harborside Healthcare Corp., 2004 WL 887401 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 19, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion in limine to preclude testimony, which was based on speculation that email had been destroyed, since defendants produced sworn testimony that all relevant emails were produced, and legitimate reason for erasing some emails “was simply a function of cleaning the junk mail and other clutter from the computer software and disk storage space”

Nature of Case: Breach of contract and tort claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Propath Services, L.L.P. v. Ameripath, Inc., 2004 WL 2389214 (N.D. Tex. Oct. 21, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

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

Sempra Energy Trading Corp. v. Brown, 2004 WL 2714404 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 30, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

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

Symantec Corp. v. McAfee Assoc., Inc., 1998 WL 740798 (N.D. Cal. June 9, 1998)

Dec 01 2004

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

United States v. Philip Morris USA Inc., 327 F. Supp. 2d 21 (D.D.C. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Finding it “astounding” that defendant’s employees failed to follow court’s preservation order and defendant’s own document retention policies, court rejected plaintiff’s request for adverse inference but imposed monetary sanction of $2,750,000 and barred testimony from at least 11 witnesses who failed to comply with defendant’s own internal document retention program

Nature of Case: Tobacco litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Wilson v. Sundstrand Corp., 2003 WL 21961359 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 18, 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: As sanction for discovery abuse and tardy production of “smoking gun” email, court precluded defendant from opposing the admission in evidence of various emails and records, and ordered defendant to pay plaintiffs’ reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred in connection with motion and related discovery

Nature of Case: Airline crash litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Catagory:Case Summaries