Archive - December 15, 2004

McPeek v. Ashcroft, 212 F.R.D. 33 (D.D.C. 2003)
After initial search of certain backup tapes was conducted, the parties offered the court differing views of the success of the search and the need for additional searches. Read More

Liafail, Inc. v. Learning 2000, Inc., 2002 WL 31954396 (D. Del. Dec. 23, 2002)

In action for contract breach and trademark infringement, and pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(1), Liafail identified its national sales manager as likely to have discoverable information; the sales manager was a former sales manager of defendant (“L2K”). In response to L2K’s discovery requests, the sales manager gave Liafail the L2K-issued laptop that he had used while gaining knowledge of the day-to-day operations of L2K. Read More

Residential Funding Corp. v. DeGeorge Fin. Corp., 306 F.3d 99 (2d Cir. 2002)

The litigation involved cross claims for, among other things, breach of contract stemming from events occurring in late 1998. At a discovery planning conference, the parties agreed that discovery would be completed by August 1, 2001, and the case would be ready for trial by September 1, 2001. Defendant’s discovery requests sought the production of email; plaintiff raised no objection to the requests and agreed to “work diligently” to produce the responsive email. 306 F.3d at 102. Read More

Cognex Corp. v. Electro Scientific Ind., Inc., 2002 WL 32309413 (D. Mass. July 2, 2002)

In this patent infringement case, plaintiff moved to compel a search of defendant’s backup tapes for documents responsive to its document request, offering to share the cost of the search, or even pay the entire cost. At issue were 820 backup tapes covering 1992 through 2001, which defendant said contained approximately four terabytes of information. It was estimated that, if printed, the tapes would yield almost three billion pages. Read More

Byers v. Ill. State Police, 2002 WL 1264004, 53 Fed.R.Serv.3d 740 (N.D. Ill. 2002)

Plaintiffs in sex discrimination suit moved to compel defendants to produce email stored on backup tapes created daily over an eight-year period. Based on the cost of the proposed search and plaintiffs’ failure to establish that the search would likely uncover relevant information, the court concluded that plaintiffs were entitled to the archived emails only if they were willing to pay for part of the cost of production. 2002 WL 1264004, at *12. Read More

Jones v. Goord, 2002 WL 1007614 (S.D.N.Y. May 16, 2002)

Prisoners brought class action suit challenging state’s program of housing two prisoners in a cell originally designed for one prisoner, arguing that the practice increased disease transmission and violence among the prisoners. After more than three years of discovery, plaintiffs sought the production of six different electronic databases. Read More

Tulip Computers Int’l B.V. v. Dell Computer Corp., 2002 WL 818061, 52 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1420 (D.Del. 2002)

Plaintiff brought a motion to compel and a motion for sanctions based on numerous discovery disputes relating to hard copy and electronic material. Plaintiff complained that, among other things, defendant had failed to produce any email or electronic documents for any senior employees. Defendant argued that it had circulated plaintiff’s document requests to over 300 employees, and all responsive documents had been produced. 2002 WL 818061, at *4. Read More

Antioch Co. v. Scrapbook Borders, Inc., 210 F.R.D. 645 (D. Minn. 2002)

Plaintiff sued former consultant and competing company for copyright infringement and unfair competition. Prior to any pretrial conference or entry of a scheduling order, and before any formal discovery had commenced, plaintiff moved for the entry of a preservation order, expedited discovery, and the appointment of a neutral computer forensics expert for the purposes of copying defendants’ hard drives. Read More

Stallings-Daniel v. N. Trust Co., 2002 WL 385566, 52 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1406 (N.D. Ill. 2002)

Employment discrimination plaintiff sought reconsideration of court’s order denying her use of an expert “to conduct so-called ‘electronic discovery’ of [defendant’s] e-mail system.” 2002 WL 385566, at *1. Materials had been produced by the defendant in hard copy form. Read More

In re Triton Energy Ltd. Sec. Litig., 2002 WL 32114464 (E.D. Tex. Mar. 7, 2002)

Plaintiffs complained that hundreds if not thousands of documents were produced after key depositions were taken, or on the eve of the depositions. Plaintiffs requested (1) that defendant be required to provide a log of all documents withheld from plaintiffs on any grounds; (2) that defendant produce a written certification to the court describing the efforts, if any, it has undertaken to comply with the court’s previous orders regarding the preservation and production of evidence and their obligations under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act; and (3) that plaintiffs be given access to defendant’s computer storage systems (including servers and hard drives) and those of all present and former members of the board of directors, and allow non-destructive testing of these systems to determine what documents and emails, if any, have been deleted and what, if any, of this information bears significantly on the subject matter of the lawsuit. Read More