Motion to Compel – Page 124 – Electronic Discovery Law

Wachtel v. Health Net, Inc., 2006 WL 2506771 (D.N.J. Aug. 29, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs’ appeal of magistrate’s order and would permit plaintiffs to raise evidentiary objections to certain evidence at trial, notwithstanding terms of pretrial order which required in limine motions to be filed by certain date, since defendants’ tardy production of hundreds of responsive emails and/or non-compliance with discovery orders made it impossible for plaintiffs to raise those objections as motions in limine

Nature of Case: Beneficiaries of employment benefit health plans asserted class action claims under ERISA

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Lewis v. Sch. Dist. #70, 2006 WL 2506465 (S.D. Ill. Aug. 25, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel further response to overbroad request for all emails, finding that defendants’ production of all existing emails sent to or from plaintiff, or pertaining to plaintiff’s performance during relevant time period was a reasonable attempt to provide responsive information; court further rejected plaintiff’s motion for an order to show cause regarding possible spoliation, concluding that it was not reasonable for defendants “to have foreseen that all e-mails would be relevant to plaintiff’s situation”

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email

OKI Am., Inc. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 2006 WL 2547464 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 31, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court denied party’s motion to compel financial data in searchable electronic format in part because moving party had itself refused to produce its financials in searchable electronic format

Nature of Case: Patent litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Financial materials produced on CD in unsearchable “TIFF” format

Arista Records, LLC v. Tschirhart, 2006 WL 2728927 (W.D. Tex. Aug. 23, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court entered default judgment as discovery sanction where forensic evidence showed that defendant deliberately used ?wiping? software to permanently remove data from her hard drive and stated: “The sanction in the present case is to deter other defendants in similar cases from attempting to destroy or conceal evidence of their wrongdoing.”

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

Plasse v. Tyco Elecs. Corp., 448 F. Supp. 2d 302 (D. Mass. 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Where forensic inspection of plaintiff?s laptop and disks showed evidence of tampering, including: deleted files, system date and time manipulations, access histories showing that various relevant documents were accessed after court?s order and before plaintiff?s second deposition, and other fragments of relevant documents and emails that had not been produced, and plaintiff’s explanations “verge[d] on the absurd,” court found that plaintiff had engaged in an egregious pattern of misconduct, dismissed complaint with prejudice, and invited defendant to submit an application for costs and attorneys? fees

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop; drafts of plaintiff’s resume

Patmont Motor Werks, Inc. v. CSK Auto Inc., 2006 WL 2591042 (D. Nev. Sept. 8, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s renewed motion for sanctions where plaintiff had failed to satisfy local meet and confer requirement; parties had previously engaged in meet and confer during recess and agreed on search methodology for responsive documents and emails

Nature of Case: Trademark and copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheet; email

Bank One, N.A. v. Echo Acceptance Corp., 2006 WL 2564262 (S.D. Ohio Sept. 1, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court ordered that, to the extent the information kept in database was not duplicative of hard copy complaints produced, defendants must produce customer dispute information (including related information dealing with investigations and results) available through defendants’ computer databases dealing with disputes by certain consumers

Nature of Case: Breach of indemnification agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Databases used to manage customer accounts

United States ex rel. Englund v. Los Angeles County, 2006 WL 1490641 (E.D. Cal. May 26, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court ordered defendant to complete a diligent search of all documents subject to its control, including electronic documents, and to produce all documents by certain date; court further ordered defendant to certify, in writing, that it had performed a diligent search, including of its electronic files, to locate documents responsive to plaintiff’s document requests

Nature of Case: False Claim Act

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents

Malletier v. Dooney & Burke, Inc., 2006 WL 2109472 (S.D.N.Y. July 20, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Where plaintiff sought a fuller production of email communications from the servers of a wide variety of DB personnel, and DB represented that it searched all pertinent email files and had no other responsive emails, court ruled: “Under these circumstances, the only avenue open to [plaintiff] on this matter is to pursue the question of the scope of e-mail use and retention through depositions.”

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Kay S. v. Mark S., 142 P.3d 249 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Appellate court found there was appearance of impropriety which warranted trial judge’s disqualification; on remand, new judge to consider, among other things, mother’s request for production of hard drive from father’s work computer

Nature of Case: Divorce proceedings

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

Tag:Motion to Compel