Motion for Sanctions – Page 86 – Electronic Discovery Law

Grubb v. Board of Trustees of the Univ. of Illinois, 2010 WL 3075517 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 4, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff?s ?workaday use? of the laptop at issue unknowingly resulted in the destruction of usable data and where the laptop did not belong to the plaintiff, was later returned to its third-party owner, and was then wiped clean, the court denied defendant?s motion for sanctions against plaintiff upon finding that there was insufficient evidence of plaintiff?s control of the laptop or that he knew the laptop would be wiped and, more importantly, where the court found that plaintiff?s destruction of data by using the laptop occurred before he knew it would have such a result

Nature of Case: Violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Electronic Data Involved: Contents of laptop

Coburn v. PN II, Inc., 2010 WL 3895764 (D. Nev. Sept. 30, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where forensic investigation of plaintiff?s home computer revealed use of CCleaner only days before the investigation was scheduled, court denied motion for sanctions where the evidence indicated it was unlikely that relevant documents were destroyed and where in light of plaintiff?s denial that she ran or directed someone else to run CCleaner, there was not clear and convincing evidence of a violation of the court?s Forensics Order; court denied sanctions despite existence of thousands of ?non-standard? files containing keyword hits which indicated files that had been deleted where plaintiff presented evidence that such files could have been created in the normal use of the computer and where the relevance of the files could not be established for purposes of a spoliation analysis; court denied sanctions for plaintiff?s deletion of emails from her work account where the emails were saved to her personal computer and produced and where defendant?s protests that more emails should have been produced were insufficient to establish intentional spoliation; for plaintiff?s admitted and intentional destruction of audio tapes, the court imposed a $1500 monetary sanction

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, ESI

CE Design Ltd. v. Cy?s Crabhouse North, Inc., 2010 WL 3327876 (N.D. Ill Aug. 23, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court vacated prior order designating contents of relevant hard drive confidential where good cause was not established by the proffered reasons for the designation; addressing defendant?s motion to disqualify plaintiff?s counsel and bar its expert for failure to timely supplement discovery by producing a relevant hard drive, the court ruled that defendant failed to offer new information that would justify such a sanction (because this issue was previously considered) where the newly-discovered documents (on the late-produced hard drive) did not change the court?s analysis as to numerosity and certification of the class and where the expert was given the opportunity to supplement his report

Nature of Case: Violation of Telephone Consumer Protection Act

Diocese of Harrisburg v. Summix Dev. Co., 2010 WL 2034699 (M.D. Pa. May 18, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court ordered adverse inference in favor of defendant where plaintiff failed to preserve backup tapes which ?may have contained emails with evidence to support defendants? claims?, despite a duty to do so

Electronic Data Involved: Backup tapes

In re Hecker, 2010 WL 654151 (Bankr. D. Minn. Feb. 23, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where debtor committed numerous discovery violations including making misrepresentations to the court regarding his possession of relevant ESI and the completeness of his productions, among other things, and where debtor ?intentionally withheld relevant, admissible evidence in order to delay and obfuscate?, court granted plaintiff?s motion for default judgment after finding that ?no lesser sanction would result in defendant?s compliance?

Nature of Case: Adversary proceeding in bankruptcy

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Xiao Yang Chen v. Fischer, 901 N.Y.S.2d 682 (N.Y. App. Div. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff ?contumaciously defied discovery orders? by deleting materials from her hard drive that she had been directed to produce, trial court ?improvidently exercised its discretion? by failing to dismiss all of plaintiff?s claims; appellate court reversed and entered order dismissing plaintiff?s remaining claims

Nature of Case: Personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: ESI on hard drive

Makowski v. SmithAmundsen LLC, 2010 WL 3172236 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 11, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendants were unable to produce an electronic version of an interview summary available in hard copy and where the creator of the summary testified that after printing the summary, she could not find the electronic version on her computer and hypothesized that perhaps it had inadvertently been saved in a temporary file, the court could not find that the duty to preserve had been willfully breached or that defendant had been prejudiced by the loss, particularly where a second summary of the same interview was produced and where the person who was interviewed was available for deposition and trial, and denied plaintiff?s motion for sanctions

Nature of Case: Violations of Title VII and the Family and Medical Leave Act

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic version of document produced only in hard copy

Rockwood v. SKF USA, Inc., 2010 WL 3860414 (D.N.H. Sept. 30, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court denied a motion for spoliation sanctions for loss of records following foreclosure on plaintiffs? company where plaintiff made a reasonable effort to ensure preservation of relevant data after the foreclosure, including requesting the data?s preservation and permission to copy relevant records, and where ultimately some (but not all) records were obtained via subpoena from the third-party purchaser of plaintiff?s former assets and defendant was unable to establish prejudice; court denied a motion for spoliation sanctions for plaintiffs? replacement of two crashed hard drives where the court could not conclude the plaintiffs intentionally or carelessly permitted the destruction, particularly in light of their attempts to recover some data with limited success; court denied spoliation sanctions for plaintiffs? use of CCleaner absent evidence that any data was actually deleted; despite the lack of prejudice resulting from one plaintiff?s admitted deletion of allegedly personal documents in light of those documents existence in hard copy, court imposed an ?adverse inference against [plaintiff?s] credibility as a witness? at trial citing the purpose of deterring similar misconduct in future

Nature of Case: Claims arising from failed business relationship

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, ESI

Gutman v. Klein, 2010 WL 4975554 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 29, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court denied defendants? motion for sanctions for allegedly ?producing a non-business-related hard drive in place of a hard drive they were supposed to produce? where defendants delayed too long in bringing the motion by waiting more than four years after the events in question and nearly two years after the court invited such a motion; addressing briefly the merits of defendants? claims, the court found the argument to be ?flawed? where defendants mischaracterized the court?s order for production and plaintiff?s testimony regarding the computers in his office

Nature of Case: Accusations of fraud

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives

Medcorp, Inc. v. Ponpoint Tech., Inc., 2010 WL 2500301 (June 15, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where special master determined spoliation was ?willful in the sense that ?Plaintiff was aware of his responsibilities to preserve relevant evidence and failed to take necessary steps to do so? and thus ordered an adverse inference and for each party to bear half of defendant?s attorneys? fees and costs, magistrate judge affirmed the adverse inference upon determining it was the least harsh sanction that would provide an adequate remedy but vacated the award of half of defendant?s fees and, upon determining a reasonable amount, ordered plaintiff to pay the amount of $89,395.88

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives

Tag:Motion for Sanctions