Key Insight: if sanctions can be granted for inconsistent and incomplete response from opposing party
Nature of Case: violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the New York Labor Law
Electronic Data Involved: initial interrogatories and verifications
Keywords: spoliation, sanctions, default judgment, defunct business, unreachable party
Key Insight: Court of Appeals of Kansas found no abuse of discretion by the district court for failing to order sanctions related to the recycling of the laptop computer used by appellant during his employment, as the district court did not issue an order to preserve and there is no statutory or common-law duty to preserve evidence in Kansas; court further found no abuse of discretion by the district court for excluding evidence of recycling the computer; court also found that a chat log was relevant, material, and probative and the appellant was protected from prejudice because the district court only allowed the redacted version of the chat log into evidence.
Nature of Case: Employment
Electronic Data Involved: Laptop; Chat Log
Key Insight: The Magistrate Judge denied Advantor?s motion for sanctions against DRS for intentional bad faith spoliation of evidence, finding that sanctions were not warranted because there was no showing that the destroyed evidence was critical to litigate the case issues. DRS had a duty to preserve the contents of a laptop that was used by an employee who was hired away from Advantor and subsequently fired by DRS after receiving notice from Advantor that litigation was reasonably anticipated. Despite having a duty to preserve the contents of the laptop, DRS reformatted the laptop and erased files that were potentially proprietary to Advantor and in violation of their Nondisclosure Agreement. However, Advantor failed to show that the files contained relevant information critical to the case or that DRS was aware the files were on the laptop. Despite the unexplained reformatting of the laptop, sanctions were not granted.
Nature of Case: Employment
Electronic Data Involved: Hard Drive
Key Insight: Plaintiff moved for spoliation sanctions after Defendant stated in deposition they took accident scene photographs, but did not provide the photographs and stated all accident photographs had been provided. Plaintiff claimed Defendant?s sole possession was circumstantial evidence Defendant acted affirmatively in destroying the photographs. However, Court would not infer bad faith because it was possible ?the photographs were lost or destroyed haphazardly,? and concluded circumstantial evidence cannot prove bad faith ?without any evidence that the loss or destruction of the photographs was, or could only be, due to a deliberate, intentional act of Defendant or its agent.?
Nature of Case: Personal Injury
Electronic Data Involved: Photographs of slip and fall scene
Key Insight: Where inspection by court-appointed specialist revealed that plaintiff deleted emails, failed to institute a litigation hold, and delayed completing a comprehensive search of its electronic files, events which defendant and the court would not have known about but for the inspection, the court said plaintiff was subject to sanctions for failing to secure relevant emails and for prejudicial delay in production of discoverable material and that the court would instruct jurors that they may, but are not required to, assume the contents of deleted emails would have been adverse to the plaintiff, but the court would also allow for plaintiff to put on rebuttal evidence showing ?an innocent explanation of its conduct.? Additionally, the court ordered plaintiff to pay one-half of the reasonable costs of the inspection and to pay defendant?s reasonable attorneys? fees associated with bringing the sanctions motion.
Nature of Case: Insurance Coverage Dispute
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, database contents
Key Insight: Where Plaintiff?s agent deleted an original voicemail from his phone by way of a factory reset but had produced a copy and also claimed to have transferred the voicemail to his new phone and where Defendants sought sanctions and argued that the deletion would prevent them from showing the voicemail was fabricated, as they suspected, the court declined to impose sanctions for the alleged fabrication, despite evidence the presentation of evidence that could lead to that conclusion, but did order that Plaintiff be prevented from using the voicemail at trial as a sanction for spoliation, reasoning that although the voicemail was not on one of Plaintiff?s phones (but rather on its agent?s), it ?likely? had a duty to preserve the evidence and that Plaintiff did not attempt to provide access to the phone or provide notice of the voicemail?s possible destruction
Nature of Case: Enforcement of Restrictive Covenants
Electronic Data Involved: Voicemail
Key Insight: Plaintiffs in this collective action sought spoliation sanctions for Defendants? failure to produce certain relevant evidence, including payroll records, W-2s, cashier sheets, etc. Defendants objected to the motion on the grounds that ?all of their books, records and computers were seized? pursuant to the court?s order in a different case and that there was no time to make any copies or back ups. Accordingly, the court reasoned that Defendants had not destroyed their records and found that ?[u]nder the specific circumstances of this case ? Defendants did not have an obligation to copy their books and records before complying with the court?s order.? Plaintiffs? motion for sanctions was denied.
Nature of Case: Fair Labor Standards Act
Electronic Data Involved: Employment records (payroll, W-2s etc.)
Key Insight: Where plaintiffs intentionally destroyed all paper and electronic copies of relevant financial information despite a duty to preserve citing the burden of storage, the court found that the destruction was in bad faith, but that the prejudice was minimal where other sources of evidence provided sufficient information to support Defendant?s defenses and thus ordered an adverse inference at trial; where one plaintiff was a Certified Public Accountant, court considered her professional capacity when considering the willfulness of the destruction, noting that it ?strains credulity? that an accountant would throw away all financial documents because of ?storage space?
Nature of Case: Breach of Contract
Electronic Data Involved: ESI (financial data)
Key Insight: Finding plaintiff responsible for his prior counsel?s deficient Facebook production, saying he ?voluntarily chose his prior counsel and cannot avoid the consequences for his attorney?s discovery failures? and also responsible for his current counsel?s deficient Twitter production, district court granted Motion for Sanctions filed by defendants in part and ordered plaintiff to produce the entirety of his Twitter profile with redactions for privilege and relevance and to produce a log for any social networking information withheld and to pay the reasonable expenses and attorney?s fees associate with the discovery dispute.
Nature of Case: Civil Rights
Electronic Data Involved: Social media postings
Key Insight: Where Plaintiffs bad discovery behaviors included hiring a computer technician to work on her computer before producing it for inspection, including using C Cleaner to delete files; deleting several .pst files; and producing a seemingly incomplete set of documents from Facebook, the court called it ?an exceedingly close case? but, because of the lack of meaningful prejudice, declined to impose terminating sanctions and ordered an adverse inference and other evidentiary sanctions and that Defendants were entitled to recoup their fees related to the sanctions motion
Nature of Case: Claims arising from alleged sexual harassment on the job
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email, Facebook (social network)
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