Spoliation – Page 74 – Electronic Discovery Law

Streit v. Elec. Mobility Controls, LLC, 2010 WL 4687797 (S.D. Ind. Nov. 9, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant?s multiple attempts at starting plaintiff?s car following the underlying accident resulted in multiple ?blocks? of data being overwritten, the court denied sanctions absent evidence that the loss was intentional (where the imposition of sanctions required a showing of bad faith) and because the relevant ?event? data was also recorded in alternative source that was fully preserved and plaintiff offered no evidence that the relevant data was recorded only to the lost data blocks and not the available alternative source

Nature of Case: Personal injury/product liability

Electronic Data Involved: Black box data from automobile

IMRA Am., Inc. v. IPG Photonics Corp., 2010 WL 2812999 (E.D. Mich. July 15, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court imposed spoliation sanction and precluded plaintiff and its expert from offering opinion or evidence on any simulations relied upon in forming the basis of plaintiff?s Second Infringement Report where the input data upon which the simulations relied were lost in a computer crash and where plaintiff failed to timely disclose the destruction

Electronic Data Involved: Input data forming basis for expert’s report

United States v. Renzi, 2010 WL 1417475 (E.D. Mich. Apr. 7, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendants accused the government of spoliation of all disks (originals and copies) containing relevant data from a particular computer system and requested dismissal of the indictment against them as a result, court denied the motion for dismissal upon determining that defendants failed to establish the materiality of the data such that its destruction (intentional or otherwise) was a constitutional violation and where a complete copy of the data existed on a backup tape seized later in the investigation

Nature of Case: Criminal – Mail fraud

Electronic Data Involved: Data stored on JENKON system

Grubb v. Board of Trustees of the Univ. of Illinois, 2010 WL 3075517 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 4, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff?s ?workaday use? of the laptop at issue unknowingly resulted in the destruction of usable data and where the laptop did not belong to the plaintiff, was later returned to its third-party owner, and was then wiped clean, the court denied defendant?s motion for sanctions against plaintiff upon finding that there was insufficient evidence of plaintiff?s control of the laptop or that he knew the laptop would be wiped and, more importantly, where the court found that plaintiff?s destruction of data by using the laptop occurred before he knew it would have such a result

Nature of Case: Violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Electronic Data Involved: Contents of laptop

Kwon v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 2010 WL 571941 (D. Haw. Feb. 17, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted in part plaintiff?s motion in limine and imposed an adverse inference resulting from defendant?s failure to preserve surveillance video tape potentially containing footage of the underlying accident upon finding that defendant was aware of its duty to preserve but took no steps to prevent the footage from being automatically recorded over; court denied request for default judgment where such a drastic step was not warranted absent evidence of the ?requisite willfulness, fault, or bad faith?; court declined to impose monetary sanctions

Nature of Case: Personal injury/slip and fall

Electronic Data Involved: Video surveillance tape

HR Tech., Inc. v. Imura Int. U.S.A., Inc., 2010 WL 4792388 (D. Kan. Nov. 17, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff was required to produce its patent counsel?s relevant files and where its counsel retained hard copies of relevant emails but admitted to the destruction of electronic copies in accordance with the firm?s email policy, despite knowledge of the relevant dispute between plaintiff and defendant, the court denied a motion for sanctions where there was no evidence of bad faith in the destruction (because counsel acted pursuant to a ?general policy applying to all legal matters?) and where, because hard copies were preserved, there was no showing of prejudice to defendants

Nature of Case: Patent litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Antonio v. Sec. Servs. Of Am., LLC, 2010 WL 2858252 (D. Md. July 19, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant failed to preserve relevant computers during its consolidation of operations and failed to preserve data during conversion of it?s IT network, the district court overruled defendant?s objection to the magistrate judge?s finding that the spoliation was ?more than grossly negligent? and the imposition of an adverse inference but sustained defendant?s objections ?to the extent that the finding that the spoliation was more than grossly negligent [was] based on defendant?s limited production of emails, missing personnel record, and untimeliness in participating in discovery ? actions that ?do not indicated willful or intentional spoliation of evidence?

Electronic Data Involved: Computers/hard drives, ESI

Actionlink, LLC v. Sorgenfrei, 2010 WL 395243 (N.D. Ohio Jan. 27, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where issues of material fact existed as to the willfulness of defendant?s destruction of potentially relevant ESI and as to whether such destruction ?disrupted? plaintiff?s case, court denied defendant?s motion for summary judgment as to its claim of spoliation and denied plaintiff?s request for an adverse inference as to claims 1 through 4, but indicated its willingness to entertain a motion for an appropriate jury instruction at trial

Nature of Case: Breach of confidentiality agreement and related claims, independant cause of action for spoliation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

R.C. Olmstead, Inc. v. CU Interface, LLC, 606 F.3d 262 (6th Cir. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: District court did not abuse its discretion when it denied plaintiff?s motion for spoliation sanctions against remaining defendant where defendant was not responsible for the destruction of the relevant servers and the district court thus ?balanced the lack of any assertion of wrongdoing by [defendant] with the harm caused to [plaintiff?s] claims? and where Ohio law provided a remedy for a party injured by another party?s spoliation of evidence, namely a claim for the tort of spoliation (which plaintiff apparently asserted against the actual spoliating party)

Nature of Case: Copyright/trade secret infringement, intentional spoliation

Electronic Data Involved: Servers containing relevant ESI

Makowski v. SmithAmundsen LLC, 2010 WL 3172236 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 11, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendants were unable to produce an electronic version of an interview summary available in hard copy and where the creator of the summary testified that after printing the summary, she could not find the electronic version on her computer and hypothesized that perhaps it had inadvertently been saved in a temporary file, the court could not find that the duty to preserve had been willfully breached or that defendant had been prejudiced by the loss, particularly where a second summary of the same interview was produced and where the person who was interviewed was available for deposition and trial, and denied plaintiff?s motion for sanctions

Nature of Case: Violations of Title VII and the Family and Medical Leave Act

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic version of document produced only in hard copy

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