Key Insight: Defendant’s skepticism that plaintiff had not produced copies of all responsive documents did not entitle defendant to conduct physical inspection of plaintiff’s hard drives
Nature of Case: Breach of contract and quantum meruit claim
Electronic Data Involved: Computer and disc drives
Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel defendants to allow experts to perform physical inspection of their computer equipment and files, since full disclosure of email had been provided by defendants and inspection was likely to be unduly burdensome
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Defendant’s computer equipment and files
Key Insight: Petition for writ of mandate denied; based on evidence that a business computer was used for accounting and nothing else, and that there was a risk the hard drive might be purged, trial court acted properly when it ordered the petitioner to produce the computer’s hard drive
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of funds
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive
Key Insight: Granting summary judgment for defendants, court noted that pursuant to an earlier order, plaintiffs’ expert was given unrestricted access to the hard drives of Pharmatrak’s computer servers over one-month period, and stated that plaintiffs characterization of its expert’s search of Pharmatrak’s computer servers as a “partial” inspection was unsupported by the record and failed to raise an issue of fact
Nature of Case: Class action alleging that defendants secretly intercepted and accessed plaintiffs’ personal information and browsing habits through unlawful use of cookies and other devices
Electronic Data Involved: Inspection of computer servers
Key Insight: No abuse of discretion for trial court to strike defendant’s answer and enter judgment for plaintiff on issue of liability, where defendant reformatted computer’s hard drive, effectively erasing any information the computer may have contained, a day before surrendering it for court-ordered inspection
Nature of Case: Dispute between former business partners
Electronic Data Involved: Laptop
Key Insight: Court granted emergency motion to compel, requiring defendants to appear for deposition and produce computers for inspection by plaintiff’s computer forensics expert; at subsequent bench trial, in light of defendants’ deletion of data from computers after litigation commenced, repeated defragmentation of hard drives prior to court-ordered inspections, and decision not to offer any testimony to explain same, court drew adverse inference; court awarded plaintiff $100,000 as royalty for defendants’ unauthorized use of trade secrets, and $150,000 in punitive damages for the willful and malicious misappropriation of trade secrets and attempted cover-up
Nature of Case: Manufacturer sued former employee and competitor for misappropriation of trade secrets and related torts
Electronic Data Involved: Software and databases containing sales and customer information
Key Insight: Government required to submit a proposed protocol for searching the contents of seized computer hard drive and disks before it could conduct any search; court observed that government essentially sought “a license to roam through everything in the computer without limitation and without standards,” and that such a request failed to satisfy the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment
Nature of Case: Suspected tax fraud
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive and computer disks
Key Insight: Brief reference to court’s granting plaintiff’s requested ex parte TRO and seizure order to seize computers and hardware, copy memory, and delete pirated software before returning items to defendant
Nature of Case: Copyright and trademark infringement, unfair competition
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives and memory devices (video game software)
Key Insight: Appellate court granted writ and quashed trial court’s order granting party’s motion for leave to inspect non-party’s computer system; remanded with directions to trial court to craft a narrowly-tailored order that sets parameters and limitations on the inspection
Nature of Case: Insurance bad faith
Electronic Data Involved: Computer system; records of payments to physicians
Key Insight: Order allowing plaintiff unrestricted access to defendant’s computer system quashed, because the order allowed plaintiff unrestricted access to defendant’s computer system, including all of his programs and directories, without protection for any privileged or confidential information and without safeguards or restrictions to minimize any potential harm to the computer system
Nature of Case: Breach of contract suit between former partners
Electronic Data Involved: Inspection of computer system to search for financial information
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