Key Insight: Where there were gaps in plaintiff’s production of email, administrative law judge granted motion to compel production of email from plaintiff’s backup tapes but ordered parties to share the costs of such production
Nature of Case: Case before the U.S. International Trade Commission
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Concluding that plaintiff’s discovery abuse warranted sanctions, district court ruled that appropriate sanction would be to inform the jury about plaintiff’s misconduct, since monetary sanctions previously imposed had not deterred further misconduct and extreme sanction of dismissal was not warranted by the facts
Electronic Data Involved: Breach of distributorship agreement, fraud, unfair trade practices and related torts
Key Insight: Plaintiff denied access to hard drives of computers acquired by defendant after alleged torts took place
Nature of Case: Tortious interference, misappropriation of trade secrets, defamation
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives (to locate email)
Key Insight: Government’s motion for “protective order clarifying that it may produce email in response to discovery requests by producing from paper records of email messages rather than from backup tapes and may overwrite backup tapes in accordance with Departmental directives” denied as inappropriate given history of dispute; plaintiffs awarded attorneys’ fees and costs associated with motion
Nature of Case: Suit against the government alleging mismanagement of Indian trust funds
Electronic Data Involved: Email stored on backup tapes
Key Insight: Where defendant withheld computerized data and defense expert subsequently used data in rebuttal report, court allowed plaintiffs the opportunity to respond to defendants’ rebuttal expert report, and ruled that defendants would not be allowed opportunity to reply to plaintiffs’ response to the withheld information
Nature of Case: Antitrust
Electronic Data Involved: Computerized transaction data
Key Insight: Where evidence showed there was no feasible and economic electronic means by which certain data could be produced, court ruled that, to the extent defendants intended to introduce evidence related to such data at trial, defendants would be required to produce all such evidence, documentary, electronic or otherwise, upon which they intend to rely
Nature of Case: Class action
Electronic Data Involved: Information regarding damages, offsets and class member eligibility
Key Insight: In light of defendant’s previous attempt to delete incriminating email and documents from his company laptop, court entered order requiring all parties to preserve and protect evidence
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of corporate opportunity and related claims
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents and mail
Key Insight: EPA violated preliminary injunction that prohibited destruction of potentially responsive documents by reformatting hard drives and erasing or overwriting backup tapes containing potentially responsive email; EPA held in civil contempt and ordered to pay plaintiff’s reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred as a result of EPA’s contumacious conduct
Nature of Case: FOIA action
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives and email stored on backup tapes
Key Insight: Declining to determine whether its May 13, 2003 order contemplated the production of deleted files, court overruled defendant’s objections to special master’s order denying request for production of deleted files, finding that defendant’s request was untimely and that “the process of recovering deleted files at this late stage of litigation would be an undue burden on Medtronic and is based, the court’s opinion, on mere speculation that relevant deleted files could be recovered”
Nature of Case: Intellectual property litigation
Electronic Data Involved: Deleted files
Key Insight: Granting summary judgment for defendants, court noted that pursuant to an earlier order, plaintiffs’ expert was given unrestricted access to the hard drives of Pharmatrak’s computer servers over one-month period, and stated that plaintiffs characterization of its expert’s search of Pharmatrak’s computer servers as a “partial” inspection was unsupported by the record and failed to raise an issue of fact
Nature of Case: Class action alleging that defendants secretly intercepted and accessed plaintiffs’ personal information and browsing habits through unlawful use of cookies and other devices
Electronic Data Involved: Inspection of computer servers
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