Case Summaries – Page 421 – Electronic Discovery Law

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

Federal Court Issues Opinion On E-Discovery Sanctions and Evidence Preservation

Aug 21 2004

The federal district court for the Southern District of New York has issued another ruling (available here) relating to electronic discovery in the ongoing matter of Zubulake v. UBS Warburg.

The court’s most recent decision, issued October 22, 2003, addresses Zubulake’s motion for sanctions against UBS for its failure to preserve missing backup tapes and deleted emails. See Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, LLC, 2003 WL 22410619 (S.D.N.Y.). Although the court established no definitive guidelines regarding when backup tapes must be preserved, the decision discusses this issue at length, describing both situations where the tapes should be preserved, and situations where they need not be preserved.

After considering UBS’s failure to preserve the missing backup tapes and deleted emails, the court declined to grant an adverse inference instruction against UBS, or to impose on UBS the full cost of restoring certain backup tapes, but did order UBS to bear the plaintiff’s costs of re-deposing certain individuals concerning issues raised either by the destruction of evidence or by any newly-produced emails. Read More

Fero v. Excellus Health Plan, Inc., No. 6:15-cv-06569-EAW (W.D.N.Y. Jan. 19, 2018)

Jan 01 1918

Key Insight: Reconsideration of ruling that plaintiffs lacked standing. Expert affidavit shows substantial risk of identity theft and sale of PII and PHI on the dark web, establishing injury-in-fact.

Nature of Case: Class action arising out of a data breach and alleging identity theft.

Electronic Data Involved: Dark web evidence

Keywords: PII and PHI, dark web, identity theft, Joe Church, Digital Shield, X1 Social Discovery

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Catagory:Case Summaries