Motion to Compel – Page 51 – Electronic Discovery Law

Lozoya v. Allphase Landscape Constr., Inc., No. 12-cv-1048-JLK, 2014 WL 222068 (D. Colo. Jan. 21, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: In case where defendants estimated: (1) production costs for discovery from computers and smart phones would run $35,000 to $45,000 for uploading and processing of data, and (2) plaintiffs’ potential recovery as between $10,350 to $29,700, court granted plaintiffs’ motion to compel finding that plaintiffs’ conduct was far more accommodating and professional than defendants’ and that production in Bates numbered .pdf format would not place undue burden on defendants

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, emails, texts

XL Specialty Ins. Co. v. Bollinger Shipyards, Inc., No. 12-2071, 2014 WL 295053 (E.D. La. Jan 27, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court rejected plaintiff’s complaints regarding format of defendant’s production of documents, because plaintiff failed to make any Rule 34(b)(2)(B) ESI specification in its discovery requests and defendant’s production of scanned images on OCR readable disc was a reasonably usable form; court ordered defendant to explain its document naming and numbering system to the extent it had not already done so, but denied any additional logistical relief, stating: ?Whatever burden XL and its counsel face in reviewing these materials that they themselves have requested is rightfully borne by them.?

Nature of Case: Insurance coverage

Electronic Data Involved: Database of more than 808,000 documents consisting of more than four million pages

In re Uehling, No. 1:14-mc-00009-LJO-BAM, 2014 WL 1577459 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 17, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied defendant’s motion to compel nonparty to answer deposition questions and produce documents, finding that nonparty’s burden of producing copy of external hard drive containing 9.47 gigabytes of information was substantial as the material would need to be reviewed for privilege and for potential redaction and withholding based on confidentiality, privacy and proprietary information purposes, the benefit of the documents to defendant was “minimal,” and defendant had an alternative source for the information sought (i.e., the plaintiff)

Nature of Case: Insurance coverage dispute

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive that non-party witness provided to DOJ in the course of the DOJ’s investigation of plaintiff

A & R Body Specialty & Collision Works, Inc. v. Progressive Cas. Ins. Co., No. 3:07CV929 (WWE), 2014 WL 4437684 (D. Conn. Sep. 9, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Magistrate judge denied as moot defendants’ request for plaintiffs’ consent to release emails stored with third party vendors Earthlink and AT&T in light of vendors? representations that, when an Earthlink.net or ATT.net user deletes an email from Outlook, the email simultaneously is deleted from the vendor’s server and cannot be recovered; magistrate judge also denied plaintiffs’ request for defendants to produce a merged data set, where one data set had 157 columns and was extracted from third-party provider?s system, and second set had more information but used different field identifiers, since a party cannot be compelled to create a document for its production and the creation of requested data compilation would inherently require the creation of a ?document,? and producing party is not required to produce ESI in more than one form

Nature of Case: Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email, data

M Seven Sys. Ltd. v. Leap Wireless Int?l, Inc., No. 12cv01424 CAB (RBB), 2014 WL 3942200 (S.D. Cal. Aug. 11, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion for an order to show cause why the defendants should not be held in contempt for failing to all historical versions of source code for each cell phone model at issue, finding that magistrate judge’s discovery order did not preclude more than one reasonable interpretation of its scope, that defendants reasonably interpreted and substantially complied with the order by producing every version of the source code that they possessed

Nature of Case: Plaintiff alleged misappropriation of trade secrets, copyright infringement, violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, violation of California Penal Code ? 502, unfair competition, civil conspiracy to misappropriate trade secrets, and civil conspiracy to unfairly compete

Electronic Data Involved: Various versions of source code

Johnson v. Allstate Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., No. C 14-5064, 2014 WL 7377198 (W.D. Wash. Dec. 29, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Addressing Defendant?s claims that the emails of thirty-four employees previously identified by Defendant as potentially having responsive information were not reasonably accessible, the court indicated that Defendant?s declaration in support of that claim was ?of limited value? where it made only broad claims regarding the potential time it could take to search each computer but failed to account for the actual time taken to search the computers of the four primary adjusters for a prior production but acknowledged it was ?extremely difficult? to conclude that all thirty-four employees had ?significant, relevant discoverable emails or documents? and thus ordered the search and production of one custodian revealed in deposition to have been involved in the at-issue denial of coverage and that Plaintiff could choose 10 additional employees? computers to be searched based on Defendant?s court-ordered description of each employees? job and the type of documents they were likely to maintain

Nature of Case: Insurance litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Robinson v. County of San Joaquin, No. 2:12-cv-2783 MCE GGH PS, 2014 WL 3845775 (E.D. Cal. July 31, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: A clearly exasperated court described the parties’ discovery efforts to date, highlighted the inconsistencies/incompleteness in response, “as well as the complete cacophony of the San Joaquin County e-mail systems and retrieval,” and issued one final, specific order to be followed by defendant lest serious sanctions issue; among other things, court ordered defendant to perform computer-by-computer search for all current employees in order that any emails relating to plaintiff’s discrimination claims or job performance from 2007 to present may be produced, acknowledging that substantial work would be required for compliance but that judge was “not responsible for the County’s email systems which apparently have been designed for individual control and with no concern for litigation responsibilities”

Skepkek v. Roper & Twardowsky, LLC, No. 11-4102-KHV, 2014 WL 289470 (D. Kan. Jan. 27, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Noting that discovery dispute was good example of one which could have been avoided had the parties adequately conferred at their Rule 26(f) conference regarding production of ESI, court found that defendants failed to comply with prior discovery order by failing to produce attachments to responsive emails and granted motion to compel production of attachments

Nature of Case: Contract dispute concerning attorney fee-sharing agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Attachments to e-mails

Audio Visual Innovations, Inc. v. Burgdolf, No. 13-10372, 2014 WL 505565 (E. D. Mich. Feb. 3, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Forensic examination of defendants’ electronic devices was appropriate given nature of case and allegations against individual defendants; court identified particular devices to be examined and provided specific guidelines for the examination and review of ESI, but denied plaintiff’s request for attorneys’ fees since defendants’ objections were reasonable; court further ruled that costs associated with obtaining the information from the devices would be borne by plaintiff

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: ESI on defendant’s electronic devices

McNabb v. City of Overland Park, No. 12-CV-2331 CM/TJJ, 2014 WL 1493124 (D. Kan. Apr. 16, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel defendant to produce additional 10,189 responsive emails where plaintiff did not identify any specific discovery request for which she sought to compel production, or any specific objection thereto that she claimed to be invalid, and defendant had already produced five categories of emails totaling over 36,000 documents; court advised that plaintiff must present something more than mere speculation that search of 14 custodians’ email files using 35 proposed search terms was likely to reveal additional responsive emails, and further noted that, on its face, search term list was overly broad and likely to capture many emails having nothing to do with issues in case

Nature of Case: Sexual discrimination, harassment, hostile work environment and retaliation claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Tag:Motion to Compel