Motion for Sanctions – Page 44 – Electronic Discovery Law

Spotted Horse v. BNSF Ry. Co., 350 P.3d 52 (Mont. 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where district court abused its discretion when it declined to impose a meaningful sanction on railroad for allowing destruction of accident scene video footage during its pre-litigation investigation, the Court remanded for a new trial and ordered the district court to fashion a sanction that would satisfy the remedial and deterrent goals of sanctions for the spoliation of evidence, but the Court also said that district court?s refusal to grant injured machinist?s request for a default judgment as an evidentiary sanction for spoliation was not an abuse of discretion because it was not possible to know if the destruction was intentional or inadvertent

Nature of Case: Workplace injury

Electronic Data Involved: Digital video surveillance recording

Malibu Media v. Ricupero, No. 2:14?cv?821 2015, 2015 WL 4273463 (S.D. Ohio July 14, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court denied motion for sanctions where plaintiff?s failure to preserve emails, and its failure to implement any uniform or centralized plan to preserve data or the various devices used by the key players in the transaction, demonstrated gross negligence which gave rise to a rebuttable presumption that the spoliated documents were relevant, but plaintiff rebutted the presumption by demonstrating that the defenses available to defendant all necessarily turned on communications to or with them, not plaintiff?s internal communications.

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive

AJ Holding Grp. v. IP Holdings, 129 A.D.3d 504 (N.Y. App. Div. 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Nature of Case: Breach of Contract

Electronic Data Involved: Email

F & J Samame, Inc. v. Arco Iris Ice Cream, SA?13?CV?365?XR, 2015 WL 4068575 (W.D. Tex. Jul. 2, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court granted in part plaintiff?s motion for attorneys? fees, where defendant had used software to wipe a PC and a laptop, deleting and overwriting more than 62,000 files, and violated a court order, and stalled the discovery process. Court denied in part plaintiff?s motion for sanctions, however, instead granting leave for new depositions, saying that while its order ?does not address the loss of evidence that may establish willful infringement,? the alleged infringing materials ?are available for the jury to assess whether infringement has incurred or not.?

Nature of Case: Trade dress and Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email and ESI on hard drive

H.M. Elecs., Inc. v. R.F. Techs., Inc., No. 12cv28840-BAS-MDD, 2015 WL 4714908 (S.D. cal. Aug. 7, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: For multiple discovery violations by Defendant and counsel, including improper certification of discovery responses pursuant to Rule 26(g), failure to issue a litigation hold or appropriately supervise discovery, and intentional deletion of responsive materials and delayed production, the court imposed multiple discovery sanctions, including attorneys? fees and costs, issue sanctions, and an adverse inference; notably, the court indicated sanctions would have been imposed under New Rule 37(e), because the court found that the at-issue ESI was lost with the intent to deprive Plaintiff of the information?s use in the litigation; Update: Compensatory sanctions vacated by District Court upon determination that parties? settlement mooted the issue of compensatory sanctions (—F.Supp.3d—, 2016 WL 1267385 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 15, 2016))

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement, false designation of origin, trade dress infringement, trade libel, unfair competition and interference with prospective economic advantage

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Parsi v. Daioleslam, 778 F.3d 116 (D.C. Cir. 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Appellate court affirmed in part and reversed in part the District Court?s imposition of monetary sanctions for Plaintiff?s many discovery violations, including repeated violation of the court?s orders resulting in belated production of relevant evidence, and found no abuse of discretion for awarding expenses related to Defendants? third motion to compel Plaintiff?s production of relevant hardware, expenses related to the forensic imaging of Plaintiff?s hard drive, expenses related to the redeposition of Plaintiff?s officers (after delayed production of relevant evidence), and litigation expenses as a sanction for withholding emails

Nature of Case: Defamation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI (calendar items, database contents, other)

Younes v. 7-Eleven, Inc., —F. Supp. 3d—, 2015 WL 8543639 (D.N.J. Dec. 11, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Finding defendant and counsel in violation of Rule 26(g) for failing to adequately search for discovery (and for their misrepresentations about those efforts), court instructed that ?Rule 26(g) should not be treated like the proverbial stepchild? and that ?Lawyers should not act like ?potted plants? and accept implausible representations from clients . . . .? and also found that sanctions were warranted pursuant to Rule 37(b)(2) for defendant?s violation of the court?s order to produce; accordingly the court imposed sanctions and admonished defendant and counsel for their violation of Rule 26(g) and awarded Plaintiff their fees and costs incurred to obtain the discovery

Nature of Case: Claims arising from alleged plan to terminate franchise agreements

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, hard copy

Nuvasive, Inc. v. Madsen Med., Inc., No. 13cv2077 BTM(RBB), 2015 WL 4479147 (S.D. Cal. July 22, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: For Defendant?s failure to preserve its employees? text messages, court imposed an adverse inference.

Electronic Data Involved: Text messages

DeCastro v. Kavadia, —F.R.D.—, 2015 WL 4619914 (S.D.N.Y. July 6, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: For defendant?s intentional deletion of emails using cleaning software and misrepresentations intended to cover up the same as well as defendant?s failure to produce documents over which he was found to maintain control and misrepresentations related to the same, the magistrate judge recommended a permissive adverse inference and that defendant and counsel, who ?exacerbated? the effects of defendant?s misconduct through incomplete or misleading representations to the court, be jointly and severally liable for plaintiff?s attorneys fees and costs incurred in bringing the motion for sanctions; district court rejected objections to the recommendations and adopted them in full

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, ESI

Bruno v. Bozzuto?s, Inc., No. 3:09-CV-00874, 2015 WL 5098952 (M.D. Pa. Aug. 31, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: On motion for reconsideration of three discovery orders, the court found no error in the lower court?s determination that Plaintiff?s admitted contemplation of litigation was sufficient to trigger her obligation to preserve, noting the lower court?s reliance on case law that ?the knowledge of a potential ? claim is deemed sufficient to impose a duty to preserve evidence?; court indicated that evidence contradicting Plaintiff?s claim that a third party still maintained the at-issue records was sufficient to allow the court to revisit the issue and to find that plaintiff acted in bad faith and also noted that in the Third Circuit, bad faith was not required to impose an adverse inference; addressing prejudice, court dismissed the proposition that Defendant?s access to at-issue evidence years earlier was sufficient to undercut any prejudice, noting that Defendant?s experts had not had access to the evidence; court found no clear error in the imposition of monetary sanctions for spoliation of evidence prior to trial

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Tag:Motion for Sanctions