Key Insight: Defendant’s skepticism that plaintiff had not produced copies of all responsive documents did not entitle defendant to conduct physical inspection of plaintiff’s hard drives
Nature of Case: Breach of contract and quantum meruit claim
Electronic Data Involved: Computer and disc drives
Key Insight: Motion to compel production of computer printouts denied as to those constituting work product, granted as to those that were not prepared in anticipation of litigation
Nature of Case: Inmates sued for intentional discrimination in assignment of housing, programs, and administration of discipline
Electronic Data Involved: Computer printouts showing analysis of work locations and ethnicity of inmates
Key Insight: Court created its own eight-factor test by adding one more factor to the Zubulake seven-factor test, and determined that cost-shifting was appropriate (responding party 25% and requesting party 75%)
Nature of Case: Sexual harassment
Electronic Data Involved: Email stored on backup tapes
Key Insight: Order memorialized parties’ agreement regarding motion to compel: defendants agreed to produce all emails that exist in printed form, but would not conduct search of electronic database to retrieve emails since it would be cost prohibitive; defendant understood it would be precluded from offering evidence at trial that was not properly disclosed in discovery
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Zenith’s motion to compel granted, requiring production in usable form of SAS data sets, constituting final refined forms of data used to compute final results; court criticized government’s inordinately restrictive interpretation of its discovery obligations: “To say that the data sets into which the computer tapes were transferred are not governed by an order speaking of computer tapes is as if someone had said at the dawn of the era of typewriters that typed documents are not governed by a court order speaking of ‘writings.'”
Nature of Case: Proceeding to review Dept. of Commerce’s review of antidumping duty order regarding television sets
Electronic Data Involved: Data sets
Key Insight: Plaintiffs’ motion for on-site inspection of computer records granted and defendant ordered to pay all plaintiffs’ expenses and legal fees unnecessarily expended due to defendant’s failure to make an accurate disclosure of its computer capabilities in December 1998
Nature of Case: Trademark infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Computerized information re purchase of goods bearing plaintiffs’ trademarks
Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel defendants to allow experts to perform physical inspection of their computer equipment and files, since full disclosure of email had been provided by defendants and inspection was likely to be unduly burdensome
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Defendant’s computer equipment and files
Key Insight: Granting motion to compel contact list printed out from defendant’s contact management software program which was not timely included on defendant’s privilege log, court rejected “frivolous” argument that the contact list technically did not exist until it was printed: “For more than thirty years, Fed.R.Civ . P. 34(a) has included data stored on electronic media as being subject to a Rule 34 request. The fact that the data has not been printed out does not mean that the document does not exist. Indeed, if BH’s argument were meritorious, any party could avoid producing damaging documents through the simple expedient of storing them on electronic media and never printing them out.”
Nature of Case: SEC enforcement action
Electronic Data Involved: Email, spreadsheets and contact list
Key Insight: Employer entitled to discover, at its own expense, copies of database on computer disk, code books and user manual created by EEOC’s expert from information produced by employer to allow for effective cross-examination of EEOC’s expert; in addition, employer to pay “fair portion of the fees and expenses incurred” in the past by EEOC for the expert’s work in encoding the requested data and formulating the database
Nature of Case: Consolidated Title VII action brought by individual and EEOC
Electronic Data Involved: Database created by EEOC’s expert from information produced by employer
Key Insight: Court found that local Patent Rule 3-4(a) requires production of source code and granted Plaintiff?s motion to compel
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Source Code
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