Key Insight: Discovery sanctions motion.
Nature of Case: Workplace discrimination.
Electronic Data Involved: Employment records including personnel files of supervisors and documents regarding performance of other employees.
Keywords: Failure to preserve, search terms, motion to compel.
Key Insight: Plaintiff failure to produce relevant and discoverable information.
Nature of Case: Insurance coverage litigation.
Electronic Data Involved: Email produced by a third party.
Keywords: Motion to compel. Specificity. Failure to specify.
Key Insight: Magistrate recommended sanctions for defendants’ willful failure to comply with his discovery order. No finding of bad faith.
Nature of Case: Breach of contract.
Electronic Data Involved: Defendant emails and text messages.
Keywords: “Strong circumstantial evidence” that the defendants had concealed documents. Adverse inference instructions and legal costs imposed by court.
Key Insight: New trial is ordered when city intentionally withholds or inadequately searches for police recordings.
Nature of Case: use of excessive force by police
Electronic Data Involved: police dispatcher recording
Keywords: OMEC record, traffic stop, police dispatch, zone 6 audio
Key Insight: Where Special Master declined to recommend spoliation sanctions but recommended $1,855,255.09 in monetary sanctions ?to compensate Plaintiffs for the additional time and expenses that they have incurred as a result of Delta?s failure to comply with discovery obligations,? including Defendant?s delayed identification and production of relevant evidence (including backup tapes and other ESI), the District Court agreed that monetary sanctions were appropriate but found that a higher amount was warranted and thus increased the monetary sanctions to $2,718,795.05
Nature of Case: Antitrust (Bag fees)
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, backup tapes
Key Insight: Citing its broad discretion to manage discovery and the limitations posed by Rule 26(b)(2)(C), court granted in part and denied in part Plaintiffs? motion to compel Defendant to identify additional custodians and utilize additional search terms and ordered that Plaintiffs would be allowed to choose up to 10 additional custodians and that Defendant must apply the four disputed search terms proposed by Plaintiffs
Nature of Case: Securities Class Action
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court declined to impose sanctions, despite Defendant?s failure to issue a litigation hold, where Plaintiff could not show that evidence was actually lost or destroyed and where, although the court acknowledged that Defendant?s record keeping appeared ?slipshod,? Plaintiff could not show bad faith (?in no case in the Third Circuit cited by Plaintiff, or found by this Court, has a court granted a spoliation inference on nothing more than a failure to institute a litigation hold?)
Nature of Case: [A]lleged constitutional violations arising out of the building permit approval process
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email
Key Insight: For Defendants? discovery violations, including failure to adequately search for responsive evidence, failure to designate a 30(b)(6) representative for deposition, and admitted deletion of emails despite a duty to preserve, the court found that sanctions were warranted and imposed serious sanctions, including monetary sanctions, exclusion of evidence, and ?enforcing the judgement of the Taiwanese court? against Defendant, where Defendant?s litigation misbehavior may have rendered Plaintiff unable to prove its contractual claim in court
Nature of Case: Breach of contract
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email
Key Insight: For defendant?s failure to preserve and produce relevant evidence, copies or versions of which were discovered on a third party?s hard drive (e.g. correspondence between Defendant?s employee and the third party that were not preserved and produced by the defendant), the court found that Plaintiff ?suffered some prejudice? and thus sanctioned Defendant by taking it as ?established fact? that Defendant had similar communications with all of its ?Order Entry Retailers? (of which the relevant third party was one) of the same ?substantive type and quantity? as those discovered on the third party?s hard drive
Nature of Case: FTC Investigation: TCPA
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email
Key Insight: Where Plaintiff sought forensic examination of email accounts not searched by Defendants, the court acknowledged the ?expense and difficulty? of such examinations and reasoned that ?mere skepticism? that relevant information has not been produced is insufficient to warrant such drastic measures and thus denied the request; court reasoned Defendant had failed to reveal the search terms utilized to identify responsive documents in searches of three other email accounts and that Plaintiffs had established the relevancy of all of the requested accounts and ordered the parties to meet and confer as to an appropriate search methodology for all accounts
Nature of Case: Insurance litigation: bad faith
Electronic Data Involved: Forensic examination of email accounts
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