Keyword Search – Page 20 – Electronic Discovery Law

Eckhardt v. Bank of Am., N.A., 2008 WL 1995310 (W.D.N.C. May 6, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where plaintiff established through deposition testimony that discoverable documents existed which had not been produced, but court found no bad faith, court declined to give adverse inference instruction and instead allowed plaintiff to seek missing documents from backup tapes and to corroborate substance of any missing documents from witnesses where documents themselves could be recovered

Nature of Case: Alleged violations of Americans with Disabilities Act

Electronic Data Involved: Email; backup tapes

3M Co. v. Kanbar, 2007 WL 2972921 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 10, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where responsive emails which had been inadvertently omitted from initial production as a result of human error in manual search were promptly produced after being mentioned in deposition, court ordered defendant to submit a declaration certifying that all non-privileged documents had been produced and detailing what defendants and their employees did to ensure a complete production

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Wingnut Films, Ltd. v. Katja Motion Pictures Corp., 2007 WL 2758571 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 18, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendant did not conduct a reasonably diligent search for numerous categories of documents that court ordered be produced, did not conduct a reasonably diligent search for ESI, and did not suspend its document destruction policy or otherwise take adequate steps to preserve documents, among other forms of relief court ordered defendant to retain at its own expense an outside vendor, to be jointly selected by the parties, to collect responsive ESI; court further indicated it would impose $125,000 in sanctions representing reasonable amount of attorneys’ fees expended by plaintiff as result of defendant’s discovery misconduct

Nature of Case: Licensing and distribution claims, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair competition, fraud

Electronic Data Involved: Email and other electronic documents

Vennet v. Am. Intercont’l Univ. Online, 2007 WL 4442321 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 13, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court granted motion to compel on variety of e-discovery topics and ordered defendant to allow plaintiffs? expert reasonable access to (1) phone system and backup system for purpose of recovering inadvertently overwritten phone logs and (2) appropriate personal computers or computer network in order to search for particular documents; plaintiffs further allowed to take Rule 30(b)(6) deposition concerning defendant?s computer network, phone system, and document retention and destruction practices

Nature of Case: Plaintiffs alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act

Electronic Data Involved: Email and other ESI

Haka v. Lincoln County, 246 F.R.D. 577 (W.D. Wis. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Balancing relevant factors, court ruled that fairness and efficiency required parties to proceed with search for ESI incrementally and limited initial search to emails stored on hard drives; court instructed plaintiff to narrow his search terms, and any additional searches would occur only by joint agreement or court order; parties to share equally the costs of performing initial keyword search, but defendant to pay full cost of privilege/relevance review

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email and other ESI

In re Kmart, 371 B.R. 823 (Bankr. N.D. Ill. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Kmart’s failure to implement litigation hold and “woefully insufficient” efforts to retrieve responsive information did not warrant spoliation sanctions on present record and would be denied without prejudice to creditor’s renewing it in the future should evidence support it; court awarded creditor portion of attorneys’ fees and costs and ordered Kmart, to the extent it had not already done so, to perform a systematic search of all files on certain drives and produce responsive material to counsel within 14 days of order

Nature of Case: Creditor asserted breach of contract and other claims against Chapter 11 debtor in possession

Electronic Data Involved: Email and other ESI

Sharma v. Vinmar Int’l, Ltd., 2007 WL 177691 (Tex. App. Jan. 25, 2007) (Not yet released for publication)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Appellate court affirmed trial court’s order granting temporary injunction protecting Vinmar’s trade secrets; evidence at hearing included testimony of neutral forensic computer analyst jointly hired by the parties pursuant to court order, who examined former employees? computers and located some 321,000 “hits” using keyword search “Vinmar,” which expert said translated into thousands of Vinmar documents on those computers, and found indications of possible spoliation

Nature of Case: Chemical trading company sued former employees to enforce confidentiality and non-compete agreements

Electronic Data Involved: Proprietary information, spreadsheets

Self v. Equilon Enters., LLC, 2007 WL 427964 (E.D. Mo. Feb. 2, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: In order issued after parties’ status hearing on production of electronic documents, court recounted history of discovery conferences and orders addressing defendants’ production, including court’s prior order directing defendants to produce all emails tagged by the search term “transfer price” whether deemed relevant or not after completing a privilege review, and concluded that, since plaintiffs had not shown that need for further electronic discovery outweighed burdens and costs of retrieving and producing such information, and had not shown that defendants were withholding or ?cherry picking? relevant emails, plaintiffs would bear the costs of all additional email searches, if any

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Rouse v. II-VI, Inc., 2007 WL 2907935 (W.D. Pa. Oct. 1, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Among other findings on plaintiff’s motion to compel, court concluded that keyword search performed by defendant was adequate given the circumstances of the case

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Cache La Poudre Feeds, LLC v. Land O’ Lakes, Inc., 244 F.R.D. 614 (D. Colo. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court concluded that defendants’ duty to preserve was triggered by filing of complaint, and not by earlier demand letters that were equivocal and “less than adamant”; court further denied most of the sanctions requested but imposed $5,000 monetary sanction for defendants? failure to preserve hard drives of departed employees and failure to confirm the accuracy and completeness of production; court further rejected plaintiff’s argument that Zubulake V created a new obligation for litigants to conduct “system-wide keyword searches”

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Tag:Keyword Search