Format Of Production – Page 30 – Electronic Discovery Law

Gupta v. Walt Disney World Co., 2007 WL 4165934 (11th Cir. Nov. 27, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District court did not abuse its discretion when it denied, without holding an evidentiary hearing, plaintiff?s motion to compel discovery about work schedules that plaintiff alleged were forged, where plaintiff provided no support for his allegation that Walt Disney removed his name from the work schedules produced and Walt Disney presented evidence that records produced were copies of electronically maintained records, kept in the usual course of business, and were printed off the computer in the form in which they were maintained

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Work schedules

In re ATM Fee Antitrust Litig., 2007 WL 1827635 (N.D. Cal. June 25, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where, at the start of the litigation, parties agreed to production of ESI in a particular format (?TIFF? files subject to a scanning process known as ?OCR?), court declined to compel defendants to comply with amended Rule 34 for future document productions, commenting: ?An amendment to the civil rules-nearly two year after the filing of the lawsuit, and long after the parties established a system for propounding electronic discovery-does not justify the abdication of the parties’ agreement, especially given the security concerns raised by Defendants about maintaining the confidentiality of electronic documents. Of course, if the parties can stipulate to the production of some materials in native electronic format, they are free to do so. Otherwise, the Court orders that production of additional materials shall proceed in accordance with the parties’ prior agreement.?

Nature of Case: Antitrust

Electronic Data Involved: Unspecified ESI

Amersham Biosciences Corp. v. PerkinElmer, Inc, 2007 WL 842038 (D.N.J. Mar. 15, 2007) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration of that portion of its January 31, 2007 order adopting magistrate judge’s finding that plaintiff had waived any privilege that may have applied to the 37 Non-Lotus Notes Documents

Nature of Case: Patent litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged email

ISO Claims Servs., Inc., ACI Div. v. Appraisal.com, Inc., 2007 WL 809684 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 15, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where plaintiff argued that it was willing to produce documents that were the subject of defendant’s motion to compel, but had been waiting for a response from defense counsel as to how to best produce electronic documents (which formed the bulk of the production), court set date for production and expressed hope that “the parties will be able to work out how best to produce documents contained in electronic format on their own”

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic data

Beardsley v. All Am. Heating, Inc., 2007 WL 869959 (W.D. Wash. Mar. 20, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered defendant to answer certain interrogatories regarding customers and projects and to produce “a complete unedited electronic copy of Defendant’s database” which contained the requested information

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Database

Armament Sys. & Procedures, Inc. v. IQ Hong Kong Ltd., 2007 WL 895836 (E.D. Wis. Mar. 21, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered plaintiff to produce mirror image copies of hard drives at location of defendants’ computer forensics expert, since court saw no reason to treat such discovery differently than traditional (paper) discovery, any privacy concerns were addressed in the protocol proposed by defendants, and it was less burdensome than forcing defendants’ experts to conduct their testing at the site of plaintiff’s experts

Nature of Case: Patent litigation involving claims of forgery and fraud

Electronic Data Involved: Mirror image of hard drive

ICE Corp. v. Hamilton Sundstrand Corp., 2007 WL 4239453 (D. Kan. Nov. 30, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel production of “electronic versions of all documents produced in discovery, including metadata,” since plaintiff failed to comply with local procedural requirements for motion and because plaintiff never specified electronic format in original discovery requests but instead merely asked defendants for such production subsequently

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, unjust enrichment, misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic versions of all documents produced in discovery, including metadata

Koninklijke Philips Elecs. N.V. v. KXD Tech., Inc., 2007 WL 879683 (D. Nev. Mar. 20, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered defendants to organize and label documents to correspond with discovery requests, or provide an index, and to submit declarations by qualified computer technicians or forensic experts setting forth specific details of any lost or destroyed data or damaged hard drives; court reserved the option to appoint a neutral computer forensic expert as a special master to investigate and assess any claim by defendants that their computer servers or hard drives were damaged during the seizures or that electronic records were lost or destroyed

Nature of Case: Infringement litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents, hard drives

Garcia v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co. of Am., 2007 WL 3407376 (D. Colo. Nov. 13, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Finding that all emails on DVD appeared to constitute “crucial evidence” in the case, court ordered their production notwithstanding plaintiff’s claimed burden and expense to review them and even though some of them may prove to be irrelevant to the dispute; court rejected plaintiff’s counsel’s claim of technical incompetence, finding that once he was on notice of potential problems he was obligated to seek competent professional assistance to ascertain the truth about the contents of DVD

Nature of Case: Plaintiff alleged bad faith breach of insurance agreement

Electronic Data Involved: DVD containing email sent or received by plaintiff through University of Denver email account

Global Compliance, Inc. v. Am. Labor Law Co., 2006 WL 1314171 (Cal. Ct. App. May 15, 2006) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Appellate court affirmed discovery sanctions imposed on two defendants for resisting production of electronic documents on CD, noting: “A CD is simply a copy of the electronic data on the computer. Just as photocopying is proper for copying a document in paper form, downloading computer files onto a CD is an appropriate means for copying the electronic data on a computer’s hard drive.”

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: CD-ROMs containing electronic documents

Tag:Format Of Production