Tag:Backup Tapes

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Consol. Aluminum Corp. v. Alcoa, Inc., 244 F.R.D. 335 (M.D. La. 2006)
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Quinby v. WestLB AG, 245 F.R.D. 94 (S.D.N.Y. 2006)
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Inventory Locator Serv., LLC v. PartsBase, Inc., 2005 WL 6062855 (W.D. Tenn. Oct. 19, 2005)
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McCarthy v. Philips Elecs. N. Am. Corp., 2005 WL 6157347 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. June 9, 2005)
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Kaufman v. Kinko’s, Inc., 2002 WL 32123851 (Del. Ch. Apr. 16, 2002) (Unpublished)
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Kleiner v. Burns, 48 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 644, 2000 WL 1909470 (D. Kan. Dec. 15, 2000)
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Landmark Legal Found. v. EPA, 272 F. Supp. 2d 70 (D.D.C. 2003)
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Hagemeyer N. Am., Inc. v. Gateway Data Sci. Corp., 222 F.R.D. 594 (E.D. Wis. 2004)
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Long Island Diagnostic Imaging, P.C. v. Stony Brook Diagnostic Assoc., 728 N.Y.S.2d 781 (N.Y. App. Div. 2001)
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Madden v. Wyeth, 2003 WL 21443404 (N.D. Tex. Apr. 16, 2003)

Consol. Aluminum Corp. v. Alcoa, Inc., 244 F.R.D. 335 (M.D. La. 2006)

Key Insight: Court imposed monetary sanctions but not adverse inference instruction where defendant negligently failed to implement adequate litigation hold and preserve electronic evidence, but evidence was insufficient to show defendant acted in bad faith or with culpable state of mind or that plaintiff had suffered any prejudice

Nature of Case: Environmental litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email and backup tapes

Quinby v. WestLB AG, 245 F.R.D. 94 (S.D.N.Y. 2006)

Key Insight: Court applied Zubulake factors and granted in part defendant?s motion to shift costs, holding that defendant was entitled to recover 30 percent of the costs of restoring and searching backup tapes for responsive emails of one former employee, stating: “[I]f a party creates its own burden or expense by converting into an inaccessible format data that it should have reasonably foreseen would be discoverable material at a time when it should have anticipated litigation, then it should not be entitled to shift the costs of restoring and searching the data.”

Nature of Case: Gender discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email stored on backup tapes

McCarthy v. Philips Elecs. N. Am. Corp., 2005 WL 6157347 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. June 9, 2005)

Key Insight: Where plaintiff?s affidavit in support of motion stated that emails were used routinely in the course of defendants’ business, described defendants? backup process, and asserted that he was able to run a search on Lotus Notes folders he maintained, resulting in production by him to defendants of 5,000 emails, and defendants provided little information except to state that backup tapes were routinely overwritten and that deleted emails could not be recovered, court noted that defendants? efforts to preserve evidence or lack thereof could be an issue in the case and allowed plaintiff to designate IT expert to inspect hard drives and backup media identified in discovery demands; court further directed defendants to provide access, subject to inspection protocol and confidentiality stipulation to be submitted by parties for court approval

Nature of Case: Disability discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, hard drives

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

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

Kleiner v. Burns, 48 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 644, 2000 WL 1909470 (D. Kan. Dec. 15, 2000)

Key Insight: Granting motion to compel disclosure of all relevant computerized data under former Rule 26(a)(1), court observed: “As used by the advisory committee, ‘computerized data and other electronically-recorded information’ includes, but is not limited to: voice mail messages and files, back-up voice mail files, e-mail messages and files, backup e-mail files, deleted e-mails, data files, program files, backup and archival tapes, temporary files, system history files, web site information stored in textual, graphical or audio format, web site log files, cache files, cookies, and other electronically-recorded information.”

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement (posting of copyrighted photographs on web site)

Electronic Data Involved: All voice mails, email, web sites, web pages, and other relevant electronic data

Landmark Legal Found. v. EPA, 272 F. Supp. 2d 70 (D.D.C. 2003)

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

Hagemeyer N. Am., Inc. v. Gateway Data Sci. Corp., 222 F.R.D. 594 (E.D. Wis. 2004)

Key Insight: Adopting Zubulake and McPeek approaches, court ordered defendant to restore a sampling of five backup tapes selected by the plaintiff; parties would thereafter be required to make additional submissions addressing whether the burden or expense of satisfying the entire request was proportionate to the likely benefit

Electronic Data Involved: Email stored on backup tapes

Long Island Diagnostic Imaging, P.C. v. Stony Brook Diagnostic Assoc., 728 N.Y.S.2d 781 (N.Y. App. Div. 2001)

Key Insight: Trial court erred in not dismissing defendants’ counterclaim and third party complaint as sanction for spoliation of evidence — contrary to court’s orders, defendants purged databases and produced backup tapes that were compromised and unusable

Nature of Case: Plaintiff sought declaratory judgment that it was not in default of license agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Computer databases and backup tapes

Madden v. Wyeth, 2003 WL 21443404 (N.D. Tex. Apr. 16, 2003)

Key Insight: Confident that defense counsel would advise their clients of preservation duty and admonish them of dire consequences of violating same, court denied plaintiff’s motion to preserve evidence in absence of some proof that evidence may be lost or destroyed without it

Nature of Case: Drug products liability

Electronic Data Involved: Discoverable information in paper or electronic format

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