Motion for Sanctions – Page 101 – Electronic Discovery Law

Aecon Buildings Inc. v. Zurich N. Am., 253 F.R.D. 655 (W.D. Wash. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court imposed significant monetary sanction upon finding that defendant violated both the letter and spirit of discovery rules where defendant deliberately concealed existence of electronically stored information by making repeated misrepresentations regarding completeness of production and the existence of additional information and for defendant?s failure to produce the necessary privilege log

Nature of Case: Bad faith failure to defend or indemnify

Electronic Data Involved: Notes made in electronically stored case file

U.S. v. Bunty, 2008 WL 2371211, (E.D. Pa. June 10, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where government agents altered the ?last accessed? date of relevant files by opening the files to investigate their contents, court denied defendant?s motion for spoliation sanctions upon finding that 1) the agents used the least intrusive means of determining the content of the disks in good faith and 2) the defendant suffered ?minimal? prejudice as a result of the alteration

Nature of Case: Possession of child pornography

Electronic Data Involved: Last accessed data

S. Capitol Enters., Inc. v. Conseco Servs., Inc., 2008 WL 4724427 (M.D. La. Oct. 24, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Noting that ?perfection in document production is not required?, court denied plaintiffs? motion for sanctions or additional discovery orders where defendants offered valid reasons for the non-production of some data, performed a thorough search of their systems for the requested information, and explained that there were no other sources to search and where the burden of production outweighed the likely benefit; court indicated that ?experts can extrapolate and estimate from available data in order to perform calculations and provide opinions.?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Meccatech, Inc. v. Kiser, 2008 WL 6010937 (D. Neb. Apr. 2, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where the court found that defendants had ?intentionally destroyed or withheld? ESI, including by deleting relevant evidence or attempting to discard a relevant hard drive (which was instead saved by the technician defendant told to discard it), and where the destruction resulted in prejudice to the plaintiff, the court ordered default judgment against defendant and other evidentiary sanctions

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Option One Mortg. Corp. v. Universal Mortg. Group, Inc., 2008 WL 6928158 (D.S.C. Aug. 27, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Despite indicating concern regarding the cross-claim plaintiff?s deletion of employees? emails after firing them for inappropriate accounting, the court denied plaintiff?s motion for spoliation sanctions where plaintiff failed to identify evidence indicating that the emails would have contained relevant evidence and where fact discovery had been closed for more than a year and plaintiff ?appear[ed] to have presented what it view[ed] as a quite complete theory of the case using the voluminous evidence? available to it

Electronic Data Involved: Emails of fired employees

DE Techs., Inc. v. Dell, Inc., 2007 WL 128966 (W.D. Va. Jan. 12, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District judge modified magistrate’s December 4, 2006 sanctions order, allowing Dell to use the 57 disputed documents at trial since it concluded that Dell had provided the documents in a way that fulfilled all of its discovery obligations and DE had not moved to compel production of the documents in a different format

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents produced in searchable database

Friel v. Papa, 829 N.Y.S.2d 569 (N.Y. App. Div. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Appellate court reversed portion of lower court’s order that granted plaintiffs’ motion to strike defendant’s answer as sanction for spoliation of evidence based on destruction of defendant’s computer hard drive, since plaintiffs inspected the hard drive and obtained the relevant information prior to its destruction and did not demonstrate any prejudice

Nature of Case: Defamation and wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

Williams v. Sprint/United Mgmt. Co., 2007 WL 214320 (D. Kan. Jan. 23, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Upon remand from district court judge, magistrate set out various reasons why he denied plaintiffs’ motion to the extent it sought to impose sanctions for defendant’s alleged failure to produce all spreadsheet materials in native format, its failure to timely produce spreadsheet materials, and its conduct in re-producing spreadsheet materials in non-native format that had already been produced in native format

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheets

Reino de Espana v. Am. Bureau of Shipping, 2007 WL 210018 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 25, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied Spain’s motion to reconsider November 3, 2006 Opinion and Order rejecting the various reasons offered as support

Nature of Case: Litigation brought by the government of Spain arising from shipping casualty and oil spill

Electronic Data Involved: Email

NSB U.S. Sales, Inc. v. Brill, 2007 WL 258181 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 26, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Defendant?s failure to comply with magistrate?s orders compelling production of email and other responsive documents warranted monetary sanctions as follows: (1) $26,667 for legal fees incurred by plaintiff as result of defendant?s discovery misconduct; (2) separate fine of $25,000 for defendant’s contempt of court orders; and (3) separate fine of $5,000 on defense counsel?s law firm for defense counsel?s role in his client?s actions

Nature of Case: Breach of licensing agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Email and other responsive documents

Tag:Motion for Sanctions