Archive - August 2006

Lawrence E. Jaffee Pension Plan v. Household Int’l, Inc., 2006 WL 1898151 (N.D. Ill. July 6, 2006)

In this securities fraud class action, plaintiffs sought to compel production of documents relating to Household’s litigation database. During the class period, Household’s Office of the General Counsel collected and maintained information regarding all litigation that was being prosecuted, defended, or supervised by attorneys in that department. The purpose of the database was to assist Household’s counsel in understanding, managing and providing legal advice to management about each lawsuit. According to Household, attorneys or staff under their direction added comments to the database reflecting the attorneys’ mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, and strategies. Household further claimed that it implemented strict controls to protect the confidentiality of these records, and that the database has never been disclosed to Household’s outside auditors or any other third party.

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E.E.O.C. v. Lexus Serramonte, 2006 WL 2329510 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 9, 2006)

In this decision, the court ruled upon plaintiff’s motion to compel defendants to respond to the following:

(1) Interrogatory No. 9 “IDENTIFY each PERSON employed by YOU at YOUR Lexus of Serramonte Facility during the REQUESTED TIME PERIOD providing the following information for each: name, gender, hire date, last date employed if currently laid off, residence addresses, telephone numbers, social security number, and employment position.”; (2) Request No. 17 “An electronic database file, in Quattro Pro readable format, IDENTIFYING YOUR CURRENT employees in the Serramonte Facility including each employees’ name, gender, hire date, last date employed if currently laid off, residence addresses, telephone numbers, social security number, and employment position.”; and (3) Request No. 18 “An electronic database file, in Quattro Pro readable format, IDENTIFYING all female employees that worked with or under the supervision of Roderick V. Helaire, Francis Chang, Yan Epshtein and Bob Fraley from 2000 to the present, including each employee’s name, hire date, last date employed if currently laid off, residence addresses, telephone numbers, social security number, and employment position.”

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Phoenix Four, Inc. v. Strategic Res. Corp., 2006 WL 2135798 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 1, 2006)

In a follow up to an earlier decision granting in part and denying in part plaintiff’s motion for sanctions, Phoenix Four, Inc. v. Strategic Res. Corp., 2006 WL 1409413 (S.D.N.Y. May 23, 2006), the court evaluated plaintiff’s petition for attorneys’ fees and costs associated with the motion. Plaintiff sought $60,216 in fees and costs, and the SRC Defendants argued that plaintiff was to a maximum amount of only $17,658. The court found plaintiff had included time for reviewing 172 boxes of documents produced late by the SRC Defendants, and that this time was improper since plaintiff’s counsel would have had to review these documents anyway. Since the firm’s use of block billing made it impossible to identify the work specifically related to the motion, and separate it from unrelated work, the court reduced the requested total of $60,215.76 by 25 percent. Accordingly, the court granted Phoenix’s request for attorney’s fees and costs associated with bringing the motion for sanctions in the sum of $45,161.82, to be paid equally by the SRC Defendants and their law firm, Mound Cotton. The court further ruled that the SRC Defendants’ share “may not be borne by their insurance carriers.” Apparently, Mound Cotton was free to seek reimbursement from its insurance carrier if there was coverage for such.

Petersen v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 2006 WL 2054365 (C.D. Ill. July 21, 2006)

In this opinion, the magistrate judge overruled defendant’s objections to certain discovery requests, reminding the parties: “Remember, we are talking discovery, not admissibility at trial.” One of the disputed requests for production sought defendant’s document retention policy:
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Lockheed Martin Idaho Techs. Co. v. Lockheed Martin Advanced Envtl. Sys., Inc., 2006 WL 2095876 (D. Idaho July 27, 2006)

In this diversity case, the federal district court awarded the prevailing party its costs under 28 U.S.C. § 1920(4) in three areas: (1) $4.6 million in costs for creating a litigation database; (2) $600,000 in costs for trial evidence presentation; and (3) $200,000 in costs for copies.

The court evaluated the request as follows:

Turning to the first category, the litigation database was necessary due to the extreme complexity of this case and the millions of documents that had to be organized. While the creation of the database is expensive, it is not unreasonably so, and it saved immense time for counsel who otherwise would have to sift through the documents by hand. Given these circumstances, the Court finds that these costs are recoverable under § 1920(4).

With regard to the trial evidence presentation costs, the Court required counsel to put the trial evidence in electronic format. It was important that the evidence presentation be efficient and of high quality. The Court cannot find these costs unreasonable. The Court will likewise approve the third category, the coping costs.