Metadata – Page 9 – Electronic Discovery Law

MC Asset Recovery LLC v. Castex Energy, Inc., NO. 4:07-CV-076-Y, 2012 WL 12919263 (N.D. Tex. April 26, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court acknowledged that the parties could have communicated better to resolve the issue, but granted Plaintiff?s motion to compel re-production of ESI in .tiff format with a summation load file (including metadata) where Plaintiff indicated issues with Defendant?s production but where Defendant failed to timely follow up and then voluntarily re-produced ESI but not in a format that included metadata; the court also noted the strong showing that the metadata would be useful in the case and Plaintiff?s willingness to substantially narrow the number of documents sought, thus reducing the burden of production

Electronic Data Involved: ESI with metadata

Pacific Coast Marine Windshields Ltd. v. Malibu Boats, LLC, No. 6:12-cv-33-Orl-28DAB, 2014 WL 10817204 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 30, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where defendant?s contractor produced CAD files with incorrect creation dates and was subsequently ordered to produce his computer for inspection in an unaltered state, but ran a file-deletion or ?computer cleaning/wiping? program named ?CCleaner? the night before delivering the computer for inspection, court found that sanctions were appropriate to keep defendant from benefitting from contractor?s intentional conduct and to deter others from similar conduct in the future; contractor would not be allowed to testify at trial, all evidence that originated with contractor would be excluded, defendant would not be allowed to rely on contractor?s deposition testimony for summary judgment purposes or at trial, and defendant was required to pay plaintiff?s reasonable attorneys? fees and cost of forensic investigation conducted by plaintiff?s forensic expert

Nature of Case: Patent infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives of defendant’s contract CAD software operator; metadata and contents of CAD files

Commercial Law Corp., P.C., v. Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp., NO. 10-13275, 2012 WL 137835 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 18, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Finding metadata related to documents at issue was relevant to the action and that a forensic search of the computers used to generate the documents was ?an appropriate method to locate and extract that information,? but recognizing that at least one of the computers belonged to an attorney, court fashioned a protocol that allowed for forensic examination of the computers while simultaneously protecting potentially privileged information thereon

Electronic Data Involved: Metadata

Chen v. LW Restaurant, Inc., No. 10 CV 200 (ARR), 2011 WL 3420433 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 3, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Court imposed sanctions, including preclusion of evidence/witnesses, an adverse inference instruction (upon plaintiffs? request) and payment of attorney?s costs and fees for defendant?s discovery violations, including repeated failure to produce evidence despite court orders, and ?loss? of a flash drive and its contents under circumstances which supported a finding of gross negligence or intentional spoliation; court invited plaintiffs to seek sanctions against defense counsel, too, for counsel?s egregious violations of his duties, including failure to issue a litigation hold, failure to be candid regarding the loss of evidence, and failure to ensure compliance with client?s discovery obligations, among others

Nature of Case: Employment litigation (wages)

Electronic Data Involved: Flash drive containing original payroll records for purpose of analyzing metadata

Morris v Scenera Research LLC, No. 09 CVS 19678, 2011 WL 3808544 (N.C. Super. Ct. Aug. 26, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Court upheld clawback agreement between the parties which held that inadvertent production would not result in waiver; where parties entered into 26(f) agreement regarding what metadata need be produced but where plaintiff moved to compel production of additional fields because those provided did not allow him to search effectively or identify the source of particular documents, the court entered into an extensive analysis of the ?form? and ?organization? requirements in Rule 34 and withheld ruling until defendant could provide evidence regarding the burden of providing an index that could allow identification of the source of each document

Nature of Case: State employment claims

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, metadata

Corbello v. Devito, 2010 WL 4703519 (D. Nev. Nov. 12, 2010); 2011 WL 1466605 (D. Nev. Apr. 15, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where defendants had already produced ?hundreds of scripts and draft scripts? in .pdf format, a hardcopy notebook of page changes to the script, and the only two comments to the script made using the ?notes function? the Screenwriter software at issue, the court found that the production of scripts and drafts in .pdf was a reasonably usable format and that ?additional production of [the] materials in native format would be an unnecessary burden and unjustifiable waste of time and resources? and denied plaintiffs? motion to compel; in second opinion, court reconsidered prior approval or production in .pdf format and ordered production in native format

Electronic Data Involved: Native production of all changes made to the relevant script for all productions

Quality Inv. Props. Santa Clara, LLC v. Serrano Electric, Inc., No. C 09-5376 LHK (PSG), 2011 WL 1364005 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 11, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where parties failed to meet and confer Pursuant to Rule 26(f) and thus failed to agree on format of production, and where plaintiff?s production was not in the format maintained in the usual course of business or organized and labeled according to the categories in the discovery requests, court ordered re-production of plaintiff?s ESI in a format agreed upon by the parties

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Innis Arden Golf Club, Inc. v. O?Brien & Gere Eng?rs. Inc., No. CV106006581, 2011 WL 6117908 (Conn. Super. Ct. Nov. 18, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where plaintiff produced 64,350 pages of documents in electronic form without identifying what request the documents were responsive to, the court ordered the parties to cooperate to prepare a load file to assist in defendant?s review and ordered defendant to bear the cost and, where the court agreed with defendants that metadata was an ?important source for the defendants as part of the orderly production? of ESI, the court ordered the parties to cooperate ?in completing the metadata requested by the defendants in an appropriate format? and that ?outside costs, if any, other than copying costs for the metadata [would] also be borne by the defendants?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, metadata

Fleming v. Escort, Inc., 2010 WL 3833995 (D. Idaho Sept. 24, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff sought the unredacted source code of defendant?s allegedly infringing products, the court credited plaintiff?s expert testimony that because source code ?generally contains notes by the writer of that code ?that explain to others who come later what the [writer] of the code was trying to accomplish at that portion of the code??, all of the source code was necessary to ensure his correct understanding of all portions and ordered plaintiff to produce the source code pursuant to the parties protective order; in so holding, court noted that ?the dilemma? of having to produce source court for unrelated products was of defendant?s ?own making? because of its business practice of bundling the source code for all of its products together

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Source code

Romero v. Allstate, 2010 WL 4138693 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 21, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs? request for production of documents in native format and rejected defendants? arguments that plaintiffs must show a ?particularized need? for metadata where ?multiple courts? have held the burden falls to the objecting party to establish hardship or expense and where defendants failed to show how such a production would negatively impact them and noted that were such a showing necessary, plaintiff would have satisfied it; court ordered parties to meet and confer regarding the search terms, additional custodians, and other ?essential details about [defendants?] search methodology? going forward but declined to compel defendant to disclosure the methods utilized for past searching where such an order would result in undue burden to defendants; court declined to compel defendants to certify that they had complied with their discovery obligations absent evidence of spoliation

Nature of Case: Class action

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, metadata

Tag:Metadata