Format Of Production – Page 28 – Electronic Discovery Law

Puckett v. Tandem Staffing Solutions, Inc., 2007 WL 7122747 (N.D. Ill. Jun. 27, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied motion for sanctions but, despite prior production of the information in hard copy, ordered defendant to restore and re-produce information from backup tapes where the information was ?reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence? and where defendant asserted that it?s ?documentation? was maintained in electronic form in the usual course of business, and ordered the parties to split the costs; court declined to compel defendant?s search of computers which ?may or may not have been utilized by plaintiff and his comparators? where requiring a search of an unknown number of computers in various offices with the possibility that no relevant individuals utilized them was unduly burdensome

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Backup tapes, computers

DE Techs., Inc. v. Dell, Inc., 2007 WL 128966 (W.D. Va. Jan. 12, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District judge modified magistrate’s December 4, 2006 sanctions order, allowing Dell to use the 57 disputed documents at trial since it concluded that Dell had provided the documents in a way that fulfilled all of its discovery obligations and DE had not moved to compel production of the documents in a different format

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents produced in searchable database

Pace v. Int’l Mill Serv., Inc., 2007 WL 1385385 (N.D. Ind. May 7, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendant had produced requested work orders in .pdf format and then in other electronic formats in attempts to resolve plaintiff’s complaints, court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel and for sanctions since plaintiff could not show that production request called for any specific format and court could not conclude that defendant had failed to meet such request

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Work orders

Williams v. Sprint/United Mgmt. Co., 2007 WL 214320 (D. Kan. Jan. 23, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Upon remand from district court judge, magistrate set out various reasons why he denied plaintiffs’ motion to the extent it sought to impose sanctions for defendant’s alleged failure to produce all spreadsheet materials in native format, its failure to timely produce spreadsheet materials, and its conduct in re-producing spreadsheet materials in non-native format that had already been produced in native format

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheets

Rafael Town Center Investors, LLC v. Weitz Co., LLC, 2007 WL 2261376 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 6, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ruled plaintiff was entitled to monetary sanctions arising from defendant’s document production, stating: “It is undisputed that the first two productions were essentially unusable, and that as a result, plaintiff’s law firm wasted a considerable amount of time attempting to organize the electronic documents. It was the responsibility of defense counsel to ensure that the document production complied with Rule 34(b)(i), and to oversee the work of defendant’s document management company.”

Nature of Case: Construction litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents

Whitney v. Wurtz, 2007 WL 521231 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 15, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered plaintiffs to provide a separate disk for each plaintiff’s responses to defendant?s request for production, and instructed (1) that ?electronic documents shall be produced as they are kept in the usual course of business or Plaintiffs shall organize and label the documents to correspond with Veriscape’s requests? and (2) that electronic documents be produced without the use of any compression software and in the format requested by defendant at the hearing

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, termination, and deceit

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents produced on computer disk

Polycom, Inc. v. Codian Ltd., 2007 WL 194588 (E.D. Tex. Jan. 22, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel production of defendants’ source code in native format to be maintained in confidence at Los Angeles office of plaintiffs’ counsel in light of security concerns and technical support issues raised by defendants, and since defendants had already produced an electronic version of the source code and plaintiffs’ consultants had been inspecting the code for several months at defense counsel’s Palo Alto office; court rejected plaintiff’s argument that current system intruded on plaintiff’s work product

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Source code

KnifeSource, LLC v. Wachovia Bank, N.A., 2007 WL 2326892 (D.S.C. Aug. 10, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendant stated it did not maintain physical copies of statements and that compliance with production request would impermissibly require it to create documents, court found that defendant had not shown requested information was “not reasonably accessible” and ordered production to the extent defendant maintained any of the requested information electronically

Nature of Case: Conversion

Electronic Data Involved: Customer account statements

In re Maura, 842 N.Y.S.2d 851 (N.Y. Sur. Ct. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered that non-party law firm’s hard drive be imaged, and that law firm (not plaintiff) would be entitled to select computer forensic expert to conduct cloning process; court further ordered parties to confer on details and set basic timeframe for cloning and review of material, and ruled that plaintiff would be responsible for costs associated with search and production

Nature of Case: Proceeding to determine the validity of a right of election

Electronic Data Involved: Law firm computer

Goss Int’l Ams., Inc. v. Graphic Mgmt. Assocs., Inc., 2007 WL 161684 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 11, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered Swiss defendants to produce all documents relating to their contacts with the United States, including email, and further ordered that such email and any attachments be produced in native format as specified in the request for production

Nature of Case: Patent litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email

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