Key Insight: Preliminary injunction prohibiting former employee from using or disclosing any of employer’s business information and directing her to return employer’s property, equipment, documents and business and quality control records (including computer records)
Nature of Case: Employer sued former employee for breach of fiduciary duty and related torts
Electronic Data Involved: Emails and computer records
Key Insight: Plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction granted; defendants enjoined from destroying, erasing or altering any of its computer-stored information that concerns any of plaintiff’s claims against them
Nature of Case: Trademark infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Computer data
Key Insight: EPA violated preliminary injunction that prohibited destruction of potentially responsive documents by reformatting hard drives and erasing or overwriting backup tapes containing potentially responsive email; EPA held in civil contempt and ordered to pay plaintiff’s reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred as a result of EPA’s contumacious conduct
Nature of Case: FOIA action
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives and email stored on backup tapes
Key Insight: Confident that defense counsel would advise their clients of preservation duty and admonish them of dire consequences of violating same, court denied plaintiff’s motion to preserve evidence in absence of some proof that evidence may be lost or destroyed without it
Nature of Case: Drug products liability
Electronic Data Involved: Discoverable information in paper or electronic format
Key Insight: Court provided direction to parties for implementing injunction, ordering among other things: (1) defendant to obtain new computers of its choice and at its expense to replace all existing computers and servers; (2) defendant to choose which files would be transferred to new computers; (3) plaintiff?s expert to observe copying and transfer, and examine new computers to confirm they do not contain plaintiff?s data; (4) after transfer, defendant?s old computers to be stored and kept available for forensic discovery, the cost of which would be borne 75% by defendant and 25% by plaintiff, except that plaintiff?s expert fees to date to be divided evenly between plaintiff and defendant
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of proprietary information
Electronic Data Involved: 30 computers and 2 servers of defendant
Key Insight: Sanctions in form of preliminary injunction preventing defendant from contacting MPCT clients granted, after defendant violated preservation order by deleting documents from laptop and defragmenting hard drive, thus preventing the recovery of deleted data
Nature of Case: Enforcement of non-competition agreement
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents stored on laptop
Key Insight: Defendant’s discovery abuses and deletion of web site pages and other electronic information warranted entry of order enjoining spoliation and imposing monetary sanctions against defendant
Nature of Case: Breach of contract and related claims
Electronic Data Involved: Web site pages; log files and backup tapes of nonparty web hosting company
Key Insight: Court allowed limited expedited discovery to enter and obtain mirror images of defendants’ computer equipment containing electronic data relating to alleged hacking attacks on plaintiff’s server; discovery was limited to information related to alleged attacks, and assistance of computer forensic expert was required
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets and related torts
Electronic Data Involved: Evidence of computer hacking
Key Insight: Court denied motion for default judgment but granted motion for an adverse inference instruction and $20,000 in monetary sanctions where, in advance of court-ordered inspection, defendants deleted from their computers numerous electronic files which had been copied from former employer’s computer systems prior to their resignations, and, after the inspection, defendants failed to comply with court’s order that they delete all of plaintiffs’ files from their computers
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets and related torts
Electronic Data Involved: Proprietary information in electronic form
Key Insight: In related action, court granted defendant’s ex parte application to allow its consultants to create mirror images of plaintiff’s computer hard drives, backup tapes and other storage media, in light of allegation that critical document and email were fabricated; after granting unopposed motion to dismiss, court awarded defendant $24,845.99 in fees and costs, including computer consultant fees of $5,650
Nature of Case: Alleged breach of lease agreement
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives and other storage devices
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