Motion for Sanctions – Page 93 – Electronic Discovery Law

East Coast Brokers and Packers, Inc. v. Seminis Vegetable Seeds, Inc., 2009 WL 361281 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 9, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court denied defendant?s motion for sanctions arising from plaintiff?s alleged spoliation of ?pack data? (related to the number of tomatoes picked and packaged) where the alleged spoliation consisted of plaintiff?s entry of additional information to the ?pack data? following commencement of litigation but where the court found that no spoliation had occurred because the source of the newly added information was preserved, because the data was ?added as opposed to changed,? and because defendant had the right of cross examination at trial

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Purdee v. Pilot Travel Centers, LLC, 2009 WL 430401 (S.D. Ga. Feb. 19, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion to compel, despite acknowledgement that requested information could ?slightly bolster plaintiff?s claims,? where the requests were either ?overly broad, unnecessarily cumulative, or plainly irrelevant? and where plaintiff did not indicate the information was necessary to survive the pending motion for summary judgment; court also denied motion for spoliation sanctions for destruction of certain data and surveillance video where plaintiff did not show resulting prejudice, but left open the possibility of an adverse inference instruction if defendant chose to reference the allegedly spoliated information at trial

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, surveillance tape

Continental Group, Inc. v. KW Prop. Mgmt., LLC, 2009 WL 1098461 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 22, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendant accessed relevant files after being placed on notice of litigation and thus spoliated metadata, but where defendant?s testimony regarding her lack of knowledge that accessing the files would destroy metadata was credible and where plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of showing bad faith, plaintiffs? motion for adverse inference was denied

Nature of Case: Violations of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, breach of restrictive covenant contracts, tortious interference with customer relationships, among others

Electronic Data Involved: Metadata

In Re Nat?l Century Fin. Enters., Inc. Fin. Inv. Litig., 2009 WL 2169174 (S.D. Ohio July 16, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court granted in part and denied in part a motion for sanctions based on multiple plaintiffs? alleged delay and spoliation, including a failure to preserve relevant evidence, and ordered sanctions including excluding certain plaintiffs from affirmatively using late produced documents and allowing the moving party to proffer evidence at trial that it believed would give rise to an adverse inference and entitle it to an adverse jury instruction

Nature of Case: Consolidated actions arising from the collapse of National Century Financial Enterprises, Inc.

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Oracle USA v. SAP AG, 264 F.R.D. 541 (N.D. Cal. 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Pursuant to the authority granted by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 37 and 16, court granted defendants? motion to preclude plaintiffs? presentation of evidence of certain damages where plaintiffs failed to timely inform defendants of their vastly expanded damages claims (despite their ability to do so) and failed to timely supplement their initial disclosures accordingly, and where such expansion would prejudice the defendants in light of the volume of information to be analyzed and the attendant cost; court?s analysis relied in part upon the extensive discovery that had already been undertaken

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Evidence of expanded damages claims

Nutramax Labs. Inc. v. Theodosakis, 2009 WL 2778388 (D. Md. June 8, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court denied defendants? motion for summary judgment and permitted additional discovery by plaintiffs as sanction for defendants? spoliation of its website where defendant removed relevant language from the site after learning of plaintiffs? lawsuit; addressing defendants argument that because plaintiff was able to preserve a copy of the site before the language was removed, there was no prejudice, the court indicated that defendants? ?questionable conduct? suggested that ?there may be other evidence relevant to this summary judgment that has yet to surface? and denied defendants? motion and allowed additional discovery ?to level the evidentiary playing field and to sanction defendants? improper conduct?

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Website

In re Atl. Marine Prop. Holding Co., Inc., 2009 WL 1211399 (S.D. Ala. Apr. 29, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where court ordered company to obtain waivers from employees allowing their personal email providers to release certain communications for production but where the email providers indicated their inability to provide those communications, court declined to order adverse inference where there was no evidence to indicate company acted in bad faith or purposefully lost or destroyed the emails

Electronic Data Involved: Email from employees’ personal accounts

Jones v. Hawley, 255 F.R.D. 51 (D.D.C. Jan. 12, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where plaintiffs did not deny their failure to preserve relevant documents previously in their possession, did not deny their failure to search for documents demanded, save one plaintiff who limited search to what he described as ?reasonably accessible? information, did not deny their failure to supplement their responses to interrogatories as promised, and did not deny providing contradictory answers regarding documents in their possession, court rejected arguments that sanctions were unnecessary because of a lack of resulting prejudice and arguments that the documents were ?barely relevant? and ordered an adverse inference instruction in favor of defendants

Nature of Case: Violation of Aviation and Transportation Security Act and Privacy Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Clearvalue, Inc. v. Pearl River Polymers, Inc., 560 F.3d 1291 (Fed. Cir. 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: In an opinion providing an extensive discussion of the court?s authority to sanction pursuant to Rule 37 and its inherent authority, the appellate court confirmed the trial court?s imposition of monetary sanctions finding that appellant-plaintiffs acted in bad faith by failing to produce relevant test results as evidenced by the content of several emails produced for the sanctions hearing (and other evidence) but overturned the trial court?s sanction of striking plaintiff?s claims pursuant to its inherent authority upon finding that plaintiffs? discovery abuses were not sufficiently egregious to warrant such sanctions; appellate court also found trial court?s reliance on inherent authority to strike plaintiffs? pleadings was misplaced in light of the applicability of Rule 37

Nature of Case: Patent Infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Test results

Chirdo v. Mineral Techs., Inc., 2009 WL 2195135 (E.D. Pa. July 23, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court denied motion for spoliation sanctions for alleged destruction of emails where the emails were destroyed pursuant to defendant?s document retention policy five months prior to defendant?s receipt of plaintiff?s EEOC charge at a time when there was no duty to preserve and where plaintiff only vaguely alleged the contents of the documents and their relevance; human resources representative?s comment that plaintiff?s review was ?evidence in support of any future litigation? did not trigger duty to preserve because ?that is the primary purpose for the retention of human resource records? and because she did not know that the time of the statement that plaintiff would be terminated, let alone file a lawsuit

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Tag:Motion for Sanctions