Early Conference/Discovery Plan – Page 7

G2 Prod., LLC v. Does 1-83, 2010 WL 253336 (D.D.C. Jan. 21, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted Motion for Leave to Take Expedited Discovery for the purpose of discovering the identities of defendants, including their true name, address, phone number, etc. because good cause existed for such discovery where identification of the defendants was necessary for the case to progress; court ordered subpoenaed ISPs to notify the subscribers in question to provide an opportunity to quash, but ordered ongoing preservation of the subpoenaed information until resolution of any such motion

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Name of ISP subscribers

Veolia Transp. Servs., Inc. v. Does I-VII, 2010 WL 5151323 (D. Ariz. Dec. 13, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted motion to conduct pre-service discovery for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of the Doe defendants and, upon the parties agreement, ordered that a third-party expert conduct the discovery

Electronic Data Involved: Identity of Doe defendants

U.S. Bank Nat?l Assoc. v. Parker, 2010 WL 559135 (E.D. Mo. Feb. 10, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Considering both the ?good cause? standard and the ?preliminary injunction-style analysis? court determined plaintiff was not entitled to expedited discovery to conduct forensic examination of defendant?s cell phone, PDA, and personal computer where defendant assured the court the relevant data would be preserved and where plaintiff failed to show the potential for spoliation or resulting prejudice

Nature of Case: Breach of a Confidentiality and Non-Solicitation Agreement, tortious interference with Plaintiff’s relationships with its clients and misappropriation of Plaintiff’s trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Camesi v. Univ. Pittsburgh Med. Ctr., 2010 WL 2104639 (W.D. Pa. May 24, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: In an order addressing a number of discovery concerns, court ordered the parties to meet and confer to resolve ESI disputes and ordered defendants to ?at a minimum? ensure that all files stored in electronic format were produced in a ?searchable? format and to re-produce ESI in native format absent a showing of undue hardship or expense; court ordered defendants to produce metadata and indicated willingness to excuse plaintiff?s failure to request it earlier in light of plaintiff?s ?repeated, good faith requests to meet and confer?

Nature of Case: Fair Labor Standards Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Solarbridge Tech., Inc. v. Doe, 2010 WL 3419189 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 27, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted leave to subpoena internet service providers to obtain information to reveal the identify of defendant John Doe where plaintiff adequately identified defendant Doe as an individual that accessed and disclosed plaintiff?s confidential information to a competitor; identified its steps to identify the defendant in another fashion (including attempting to contact defendant doe at the email address from which the confidential materials were sent, searching public records, contacting competitors, etc.); established to the court?s satisfaction that its suit could withstand a motion to dismiss; and showed a reasonable likelihood that the discovery would lead to the information necessary to I.D. the defendant and make service possible

Nature of Case: Violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Electronic Data Involved: Identity of ISP subscriber

In re Stern, 321 S.W.3d 828 (Tex. Ct. App. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: On petition for a writ of mandamus, the Supreme Court held that the trial court abused its discretion in ordering petitioner to produce communications between himself and nearly forty individuals where such discovery was not narrowly tailored to avoid the inclusion of ?tenuous information irrelevant to the establishment of jurisdiction? (the subject of petitioner?s special appearance) and held that the trial court abused its discretion in appointing a special master to conduct a forensic examination of petitioner?s hard drive where there was no showing that petitioner had defaulted in his discovery obligations, where there was no showing that a search of the hard drive would recover relevant information (particularly in light of petitioner?s use of web-based email), where the special master was appointed without following the procedures called for by the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, where the special master?s broad authorization to search the hard drives (including the authority to choose search terms) amounted to an ?impermissible fishing expedition?, and where the trial court required no showing of the feasibility of retrieving the data by the party requesting the search

Nature of Case: Defamation

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, hard drive

Trusz v. USB Realty Investors LLC, 2010 WL 3583064 (D. Conn. Sept. 7, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff accused defendant of a ?document dump? in the wake of its production of 4,004,183 pages of documents and where defendants argued that the high volume was a result of plaintiff?s overbroad discovery requests, the court reasoned that the issue could have been avoided had counsel conferred to refine search terms and ordered the parties to confer in good faith to reach agreement regarding reducing the volume of discovery and that absent agreement, a special master would be appointed

Nature of Case: Claims arising from alleged concealment of overvaluing real estate investments

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Cornered, Inc. v. Does 1-2177, 2010 WL 4259605 (D.D.C. Oct. 22, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiff?s motion for leave to seek discovery prior to the Rule 26(f) conference for the purpose of identifying the unknown Doe defendants by allowing plaintiff to serve Rule 45 subpoenas on the relevant Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but required the ISPs to provide written notice to the subscribers in question to provide them an opportunity to move to quash

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Names of ISP subscribers

Patrick Collins, Inc. v. Does 1-1219, 2010 WL 5422569 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 28, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted motion for expedited discovery to allow plaintiff to serve subpoenas on certain Internet Service Providers to obtain information identifying the Doe Defendants so that plaintiff could complete service of process

Nature of Case: Copyright Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Name of ISP subscriber

Achte/Neunte Boll Kino Beteiligungs GMBH & Co. v. Does 1-4577, 736 F. Supp. 2d 212 (D.D.C. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Noting that “courts have held that Internet subscribers do not have an expectation of privacy in their subscriber information as they already have conveyed such information to their Internet Service Providers,” court denied motion to quash subpoena seeking identifying information from relevant ISPs

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Names and contact information for ISP subscribers

Tag:Early Conference/Discovery Plan