Key Insight: Plaintiffs allowed to serve appropriately-worded subpoenas on certain third parties for limited purpose of giving notice of action and placing them under duty to preserve relevant evidence
Nature of Case: Securities fraud
Electronic Data Involved: Unspecified electronic data of third parties
Key Insight: Mandamus relief granted; “run” from database to be narrowed to retrieve only falling-merchandise incidents within geographic and temporal limits set forth by trial court
Nature of Case: Negligence, premises liability
Electronic Data Involved: Run from computer database
Key Insight: Defendant ordered to produce crash test data, but plaintiff to share in cost
Nature of Case: Product liability
Electronic Data Involved: Crash test data
Key Insight: Following additional briefing by parties on attorneys’ fees and adverse inference instruction, magistrate awarded plaintiff $563,843 in fees and $2,998 in costs for its counsel’s efforts on sanctions motion and to secure discovery and crafted jury instruction based upon that adopted in Zubulake V
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Plaintiff ordered to produce portions of database relied upon by its expert for 24 customers at issue in the litigation; but plaintiff need not produce or disclose remainder of 790-customer database unless otherwise ordered by the court
Nature of Case: Business litigation
Electronic Data Involved: Customer data
Key Insight: Order memorialized parties’ agreement regarding motion to compel: defendants agreed to produce all emails that exist in printed form, but would not conduct search of electronic database to retrieve emails since it would be cost prohibitive; defendant understood it would be precluded from offering evidence at trial that was not properly disclosed in discovery
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) depositions re computer systems and data allowed to precede merits discovery
Nature of Case: Antitrust class action
Electronic Data Involved: Information re data, hardware, software of each defendant
Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel as to particular request for production where plaintiff offered to provide defendant a set of portable computer disks (at a cost of $40,000) that contained all the documents that plaintiff produced in separate litigation; since defendant had specifically requested these documents, court would not require plaintiff to cull documents that were responsive to another (more narrow) request
Nature of Case: Dispute over defendant’s credit rating of plaintiff
Electronic Data Involved: Computer disks
Key Insight: Where, after months of discovery disputes, reports upon which defendant urged plaintiff to rely in lieu of full database turned out to be inaccurate, court denied plaintiff’s motion for entry of default judgment for discovery abuse and instead postponed trial so that defendant could produce accurate information; however, court imposed monetary sanctions against defendant representing plaintiff’s legal and expert fees for time spent working with inaccurate data
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Database, reports, electronic data
Key Insight: Supreme Court of Wisconsin quashed as overbroad a “John Doe” subpoena seeking all digital computer information or data maintained by the legislature’s technology services bureau, stored by or on behalf of certain named elected officials, any person who had ever been employed in their offices, as well as anyone who had ever been employed in the legislative caucuses for both parties or, in the alternative, the backup tapes from December 15, 2001, for the entire legislative branch of government
Nature of Case: Criminal investigation relating to political caucuses and actions of certain legislators
Electronic Data Involved: All digital computer information or data, and backup tapes for the entire legislative branch of government
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