Key Insight: Discovery had been completed in September 2016. In February 2017, at deposition, additional on-going claims were presented. Court specified search terms to use against 3 custodians for the additional time frame.
Nature of Case: American with Disabilities; Employment Discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: E-mail
Keywords: Search Terms, Supplemental Production; Additional Discovery
Key Insight: Limiting the scope of discovery requests for full social media account history
Nature of Case: personal injury
Electronic Data Involved: Facebook account history
Keywords: social media, Facebook, proportionality, burdensome discovery
Key Insight: Discovery of these things was blocked, since they were ruled to be only marginally relevant compared to the time and expense it would take to produce them.
Nature of Case: Employment Discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: emails and text messages
Keywords: relevance, marginal relevance, time and expense
Key Insight: whether production of a random sample is appropriate when full review unduly burdensome
Nature of Case: False Claims Act
Electronic Data Involved: patient records
Keywords: random sample, undue burden, statistical sample, prejudice, TAR
Key Insight: Security footage was overwritten before notice of lawsuit, so no spoliation; no intent to deprive found.
Nature of Case: Prisoner civil rights
Electronic Data Involved: Security video footage, audio recording, medical records
Keywords: video footage, deleted footage, spoliation sanctions
Key Insight: Court denied Defendant?s motion for protective order shifting the costs of producing inaccessible data as part of agreed upon sample set where Defendant failed to adequately establish the justification for cost-shifting by submitting broadly stated affidavit that provided no explanation re: source of affiant?s knowledge of his assertions or any explanation of what the term ?inaccessible? was meant to apply to (e.g., digitized records v. hard copy) and where affiant offered no justification for estimates re: required man hour or hourly rates; court indicated that even if Defendant had established its burden, application of the Zubulake factors re: cost-shifting favored Plaintiff
Nature of Case: FCDPA
Key Insight: Among other things, court denied motion for protective order upon finding that Plaintiffs were ?entitled to obtain basic information sufficient to determine whether searches were reasonably conducted and the results properly verified? even without ?evidence that specific documents were destroyed or withheld? and reasoned that ?the fact that [Defendant?s] attorney(s) conducted or supervised the searches does not protect such non-privileged information from disclosure?
Electronic Data Involved: Information re: efforts to preserve, search
Key Insight: The Court granted Defendant?s Motion for a Protective Order and held that under limited circumstances, a party may seek to share reasonable costs related to reviewing documents prior to their production. The Court considered vendor fees to be a valid target for cost-sharing under the facts of this case: discovery spanned more than a decade, the costs currently under review were a small fraction of the costs incurred by Defendant in discovery and there were no concerns that cost shifting would deter Relators or others. Further, Defendant showed that ?almost the entirety of its requested costs were incurred in attempting to respond to Relators? discovery requests, and not incurred as a result of a self-interested privilege review.?
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic mortgage loan files
Key Insight: Motion for protective order granted where requested information was not relevant to claims or defenses plead and thus was outside of the scope of discovery
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of Trade Secrets
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, database
Key Insight: Court denied Plaintiff?s motion to compel the production of emails containing Plaintiff?s name as a search hit and granted in part Defendant?s motion for a protective order where Defendant established that the emails were not reasonably accessible in light of the time and minimum costs of production, estimated at $45,825, and where the court also found they were not proportional to the needs of the case; although the court found Plaintiff?s proposed terms overbroad (her name) the court disagreed with Defendant?s time limitation on its own search for emails where prior discriminatory acts, even if not actionable, could be used as background evidence and ordered the parties to meet and confer regarding appropriate search terms to be used to search the accounts of 3 custodians over a 4 year period
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Emails
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