Motion to Compel – Page 83 – Electronic Discovery Law

Mitchell Eng?g. v. City of San Francisco, 2010 WL 2951856 (N.D. Cal. July 27, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff offered to produce hard copy ?job files? for non-city projects as an alternative to conducting key word searching of 25 custodians to identify emails related to non-city projects but where defendant objected that hard copy was less searchable and would not contain all relevant emails, court denied defendant?s motion to compel keyword searching and production of ESI citing the more than two month delay since the issue was first raised, the close proximity of trial, and the court?s inability to determine the relevance of the 188 proposed search terms and ordered plaintiff?s production of hard copy files

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, ESI, hard copy

Habtegiorgis v. OIC of Washington, 2010 WL 2232142 (E.D. Wash. June 2, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Finding plaintiff?s requests ?reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence,? court granted plaintiff?s motion to compel and ordered defendants to produce certain ESI and to allow plaintiffs to search defendant?s server and network using the terms of plaintiff?s choosing and ordered that defendant provide information regarding the creation of backup disks and other evidence; court granted plaintiff?s motion for the costs of bringing the motion

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Jannx Med. Sys., Inc. v. Methodist Hosps., Inc., 2010 WL 4789275 (N.D. Ind. Nov. 17, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where absent a specific request for native production plaintiff produced ESI in .pdf format and where defendant objected that .pdf format was not in compliance with Rule 34 because it was not produced in the ?fully searchable and manipulable? format in which it was normally maintained, the court acknowledged that ?there are circumstances in which .pdf format may satisfy discovery obligations? but found that plaintiff had converted the ESI into a more burdensome format in contravention of Rule 34 and granted the motion to compel ?to the extent that Defendants? request that Plaintiff produce responsive information in an electronic database format that allows the information to be reasonably usable, i.e., fully searchable and manipulable, with the connections between the data fields intact?

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic database data

Team Mktg. USA, Corp. v. Energy Brands, Inc., 913 N.Y.S.2d 874 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff requested that defendant produce documents ?in the form and in the same order which in each file in which they existed prior to production? and where defendant then produced email in PDF format, the court denied plaintiff?s request to compel reproduction of the emails upon finding that plaintiff?s request did not constitute a request for a particular format and because the documents had already been produced in ?a reasonably usable format?

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Swendra v. Comm?r Pub. Safety, 2009 WL 660770 (Minn. Ct. App. Jan. 13, 2009)(Unpublished)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court did not abuse discretion in denying defendant?s motion for discovery of Intoxilyzer 500 EN source code where defendant stipulated that test was administered properly and appeared to be in working order and where production would be unduly burdensome absent a showing of relevance beyond speculation

Nature of Case: Driver’s license revocation

Electronic Data Involved: Source code

Viacom Int?l, Inc. v. YouTube Inc., 2009 WL 102808 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 14, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court granted defendants? motion to compel production of third party?s materials related to plaintiffs despite objections where documents sought were relevant and where the alleged burden was insufficient in light of probable reimbursement to third party by plaintiffs, plaintiffs? performance of the necessary privilege review, and third party?s prior success in reducing the volume of responsive documents; where defendants sought third party material unrelated to plaintiffs, court ordered defendants and third party to meet and confer regarding scope of production and ordered defendants to bear the cost; court also ordered meet and confer regarding format of production, including specific consideration of granting defendants access to Kroll database where documents were stored

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Gamby v. First Nat?l Bank of Omaha, 2009 WL 127782 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 20, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendant repeatedly violated its discovery obligations, including making misrepresentations of unavailability despite later revelations that documents were available from shared electronic source, and in light of explanations ?entirely unworthy of credence,? among other things, court struck answer of defendant and ordered judgment by default to plaintiff on issue of liability

Nature of Case: Claims arising from the Fair Credit Reporting Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

State v. Ross, 2009 WL 118958 (Ohio Ct. App. Jan. 20, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where transcript of online chat was erased from law enforcement hard drive following ?computer problems? but where there was no evidence of bad faith, appellate court affirmed denial of defendant?s motion for production of the hard drive and reasoned that State could authenticate the printed transcripts by offering testimony from personal knowledge that the document was what it was claimed to be pursuant to ER 901(B)(1) or through the presentation of ?evidence describing a process or system used to produce a result and showing that the process or system produces an accurate result? pursuant to ER 901(B)(9)

Nature of Case: Attemtped unlawful sexual conduct with a minor

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive, online chat transcripts

Casual Living Worldwide v. Lane Furniture Idus. Inc., 2009 WL 37162 (W.D. Ky. Jan. 6, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court ordered defendant to produce email sent to a foreign supplier despite objection that email was privileged where foreign supplier did not have the required commonality of interest to preserve the privilege i.e., ?a shared legal interest? but rather, only a possible ?common business interest?namely, that the Defendant be allowed to continue to produce the alleged infringing furniture??

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Knights Armament Co. v. Optical Sys. Tech., Inc., 2009 WL 331608 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 10, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Finding that defendant?s delay in producing a privilege log and the insufficiency of the entries therein supported a finding of waiver, court nonetheless declined to impose the ?extreme sanction? of waiver as to the actual privileged communications but held that defendants had failed to establish that the attached ?preexisting business records? were privileged or protected and ordered the them produced

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement, false advertising, unfair competition, and other claims

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Tag:Motion to Compel