Lack of Cooperation / Inaccurate Representations – Page 58

Anderson v. Crossroads Capital Partners, LLC, 2004 WL 256512 (D. Minn. Feb. 10, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Plaintiff’s use of Cyberscrub data wiping software prior to court-ordered inspection of her computer and after agreeing on the record that she would not purge her hard drive or delete any documents, and her misrepresentations about age of hard drive, were not sufficiently egregious to warrant dismissal but did warrant an adverse inference instruction

Nature of Case: Sexual harassment and whistleblower claims by former employee

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive of plaintiff’s personal computer

Hentsch Henchoz & Cie v. Gubbay, 97 P.3d 1283 (Utah 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Where defendant shipped all of its documents, records, and computer hard drives from Utah to Spain in defiance of trial court’s orders requiring defendant to comply with discovery requests, and trial court granted summary judgment in favor of plaintiff, Supreme Court of Utah held that defendant?s appeal of the summary judgment ruling could be dismissed by appellate court based upon defendant?s contumacious conduct, but Supreme Court would first allow defendant an opportunity to bring itself into compliance with trial court?s orders within 30 days, including those orders requiring defendant to comply with discovery and to return all requested documents and evidence to Utah

Nature of Case: Investor sued financial services company for fraud, conspiracy, breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drives

Premier Homes & Land Corp. v. Cheswell, Inc., 240 F. Supp. 2d 97 (D. Mass. 2002)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: In related action, court granted defendant’s ex parte application to allow its consultants to create mirror images of plaintiff’s computer hard drives, backup tapes and other storage media, in light of allegation that critical document and email were fabricated; after granting unopposed motion to dismiss, court awarded defendant $24,845.99 in fees and costs, including computer consultant fees of $5,650

Nature of Case: Alleged breach of lease agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives and other storage devices

YCA, LLC v. Berry, 2004 WL 1093385 (N.D. Ill May 7, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court denied defendant’s motion to strike the testimony of plaintiff’s computer expert (who recovered “plethora” of deleted documents from defendant’s old YCA computer) since any delay in disclosing the expert and the recovered material was justified given defendant’s failure to disclose that his old computer might contain relevant evidence

Nature of Case: Breach of nondisclosure agreement, tortious interference

Electronic Data Involved: Deleted documents, computer hard drive

Network Computing Servs. Corp. v. Cisco Systems, Inc., 223 F.R.D. 392 (D.S.C. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Concluding that plaintiff’s discovery abuse warranted sanctions, district court ruled that appropriate sanction would be to inform the jury about plaintiff’s misconduct, since monetary sanctions previously imposed had not deterred further misconduct and extreme sanction of dismissal was not warranted by the facts

Electronic Data Involved: Breach of distributorship agreement, fraud, unfair trade practices and related torts

Arista Records, Inc. v. Sakfield Holding Co. S.L., 314 F. Supp. 2d 27 (D.D.C. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Since defendant had destroyed electronic records and failed to produce the very records that would provide evidence of its contacts within D.C., even after being ordered by court to do so, court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction; court declined to impose any sanctions, but said plaintiff could bring a motion in the future

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic information on servers

In re Heritage Bond Litig., 223 F.R.D. 527 (C.D.Cal. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Where defendants “deliberately and willfully” failed to produce responsive documents, court concluded that defendants had not substantially complied with its prior discovery order and awarded civil contempt sanctions against defendants in the amount of plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees and costs

Nature of Case: Securities litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Documents on individual defendant’s personal computer

QZO, Inc. v. Moyer, 594 S.E.2d 541(S.C. Ct. App. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

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

Peter Rosenbaum Photography Corp. v. Otto Doosan Mail Order Ltd., 2004 WL 2973822 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 30, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court ordered nonparty to comply with subpoenas seeking electronic records, imposing monetary sanctions for nonparty’s unsupported argument that bankruptcy court’s automatic stay prevented it from having to comply with the subpoenas and ordering nonparty and plaintiff to meet and confer on means for compliance

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic records, including email

Black & Veatch Int’l Co. v. Foster Wheeler Energy Corp., 211 F.R.D. 641 (D. Kan. 2002)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Plaintiff failed to comply with court order by making various misrepresentations about whether all original input files were produced and whether software program changed over time it was used; sanction in form of attorneys’ fees and costs warranted

Nature of Case: Construction litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Software program and input files used to make design calculations

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