Tag:Discoverability Scope, Including FRCP 26(b)(1) Scope (Prior to Dec. 1, 2015)

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Dziadkiewicz v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of R.I., 2004 WL 2418308 (D.R.I. Oct. 13, 2004)
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Stallings v. Daniels, 583 S.E.2d 428 (Table, Text in WESTLAW), 2003 WL 21791751 (N.C. App. Aug. 5, 2003) (Unpublished)
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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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Georgia Emission Testing Co. v. Reheis, 602 S.E.2d 153 (Ga. Ct. App. 2004)
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State v. City of Clearwater, 863 So.2d 149 (Fla. 2003)
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Williams v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 665 F.2d 918 (9th Cir. 1982)
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Glover v. Standard Fed. Bank, 2001 WL 34635710 (D. Minn. Nov. 9, 2001)
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Times Publ’g Co. v. City of Clearwater, 830 So.2d 844 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2002)
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In re Grand Jury Subpoena Duces Tecum Dated Nov. 15, 1993, 846 F. Supp. 11 (S.D.N.Y. 1994)
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Toledo Fair Hous. Ctr. v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 703 N.E.2d 340 (Ohio 1996)

Dziadkiewicz v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of R.I., 2004 WL 2418308 (D.R.I. Oct. 13, 2004)

Key Insight: Since defendant failed to timely produce database dictionary and did not produce all of its expert’s relevant email, court granted motion to compel production of expert’s email; court further granted plaintiff’s request to reconvene expert’s deposition and would allow plaintiff’s expert to review additional material produced and modify his conclusions accordingly

Nature of Case: ERISA litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email and database dictionary

Stallings v. Daniels, 583 S.E.2d 428 (Table, Text in WESTLAW), 2003 WL 21791751 (N.C. App. Aug. 5, 2003) (Unpublished)

Key Insight: Appellate court reversed trial court’s dismissal of suit; backup tape of plaintiff’s earlier court proceeding was public record under state statute and defendants were required to permit plaintiff to examine and inspect the backup tape

Nature of Case: Suit to compel disclosure of public records

Electronic Data Involved: Backup tape containing sound recording of a hearing in a separate lawsuit

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

Georgia Emission Testing Co. v. Reheis, 602 S.E.2d 153 (Ga. Ct. App. 2004)

Key Insight: Trial court abused its discretion in ordering parties to share costs of requested discovery equally, and should have ordered the requesting party to bear full cost where requested information should have been available in the requesting party?s own records, and the request involved the creation of a report that otherwise did not exist, and had to be specially created by a nonparty contractor at significant cost

Nature of Case: Suit to recover fees improperly assessed pursuant to Motor Vehicle Emission Inspection and Maintenance Act

Electronic Data Involved: Special report extracted from massive database of information

State v. City of Clearwater, 863 So.2d 149 (Fla. 2003)

Key Insight: City employees? personal email not subject to disclosure under public records law because it fell outside the state’s statutory definition of public records; mere placement of such email on government-owned computer system does not transform such email into a “public record”

Nature of Case: Suit by newspaper to access city employees’ emails under public records law; issue was certified to Florida Supreme Court as “question of great public importance”

Electronic Data Involved: Personal email stored on government-owned computers

Williams v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 665 F.2d 918 (9th Cir. 1982)

Key Insight: Court did not abuse discretion in denying request for computer tapes where requesting party already possessed all information from tapes on wage cards and were not deprived of any data

Electronic Data Involved: Computer tapes containing wage information

Glover v. Standard Fed. Bank, 2001 WL 34635710 (D. Minn. Nov. 9, 2001)

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

Times Publ’g Co. v. City of Clearwater, 830 So.2d 844 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2002)

Key Insight: Email stored in government computers does not automatically become public records by virtue of that storage; private or personal email fell outside the statutory definition of “public records”

Nature of Case: Newspaper sued city to release as public record all email sent from or received by two city employees

Electronic Data Involved: Email

In re Grand Jury Subpoena Duces Tecum Dated Nov. 15, 1993, 846 F. Supp. 11 (S.D.N.Y. 1994)

Key Insight: Grand jury subpoena demanding production of all computer hard drives and disks of specified individuals (as opposed to specified categories of information) quashed because it was unreasonably broad

Nature of Case: Grand jury proceedings

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drives and floppy diskettes

Toledo Fair Hous. Ctr. v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 703 N.E.2d 340 (Ohio 1996)

Key Insight: Requiring insurer to create programs to retrieve and put in usable form information from its databases at its own expense, court stated: “[A] party cannot avoid discovery when its own recordkeeping system makes discovery burdensome. If a party chooses to store information in a manner that tends to conceal rather than reveal, that party bears the burden of putting the information in a format useable by others.” However, court did order that request for computer-generated reports be narrowed.

Nature of Case: Minority homeowners brought civil rights action alleging that insurer engaged in redlining to avoid minority neighborhoods

Electronic Data Involved: Insurer’s databases and computer-generated reports

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