Key Insight: Where husband consented to discovery of financial matters but resisted plaintiff’s broad request for access to all documents on all computers, court set out detailed protocol for the copying and review of computer data with oversight by court-appointed referee
Nature of Case: Divorce proceeding
Electronic Data Involved: Data on hard drives
Key Insight: Where insurer, in course of attempting to comply with discovery order, realized it had no electronic mechanism to retrieve case files based on whether a class was certified, but it could sort files by amount expended, court modified discovery order because it would have inflicted a substantial burden upon the insurer and the information produced would almost certainly be irrelevant
Nature of Case: Park operator alleged insurer failed to provide adequate counsel to defend a class action discrimination suit
Electronic Data Involved: Case file data
Key Insight: Court denied individual defendant’s motion for reconsideration of default judgment entered against her and other defendants for continued destruction of evidence and continued possession of plaintiff’s proprietary files; although there was no evidence that individual defendant personally engaged in wrongful acts, she was not insulated by simply leaving compliance with court orders to other defendant; further, individual had numerous opportunities to disavow knowledge of misconduct or detail what efforts she personally took to comply with court orders but never did so
Nature of Case: Misapproriation of trade secrets and related torts
Electronic Data Involved: Proprietary information in electronic form
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
Key Insight: DA’s application to compel witnesses to answer questions granted: attorney/client privilege did not preclude attorneys representing individuals connected to events surrounding homicide from answering questions about laptop that was instrumentality of crime
Nature of Case: Grand jury proceedings investigating homicide
Electronic Data Involved: Laptop
Key Insight: Affirming jury award for plaintiff, where plaintiff had been permitted to add claim for negligent destruction of evidence based on defendant’s failure to preserve electronic records and computer hard drive, court found no error in allowing plaintiff to introduce at trial evidence of defendant’s discovery misconduct. Court further concluded that strong statements of disapproval of defendant’s discovery abuses did not require trial judge’s recusal.
Nature of Case: Breach of contract suit between former partners
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive
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
Key Insight: Since plaintiff elected not to conduct its own inspection of defendant’s hard drives, it could not avoid summary judgment on misappropriation of trade secrets claim by merely speculating about the presence of trade secret material on defendant’s computers, when defendant?s (admittedly cursory) inspection turned up no trade secret material
Nature of Case: Trademark infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, contract breach
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives
Key Insight: Plaintiffs’ motion for on-site inspection of computer records granted and defendant ordered to pay all plaintiffs’ expenses and legal fees unnecessarily expended due to defendant’s failure to make an accurate disclosure of its computer capabilities in December 1998
Nature of Case: Trademark infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Computerized information re purchase of goods bearing plaintiffs’ trademarks
Key Insight: Negative inference instruction warranted where six gigabytes of music were downloaded onto hard drive the night before the computer was to be turned over for inspection
Nature of Case: Manufacturer sued former employees and their new competing company for misappropriation of trade secrets
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive
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