Archive - August 2006

Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Davis, 2006 WL 2092581 (E.D. Pa. July 26, 2006)

In an earlier opinion (Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Davis, 234 F.R.D. 102 (E.D. Pa. 2005), summarized here), the court denied summary judgment but concluded that an adverse inference sanction was warranted based upon defendant’s spoliation of evidence. In this opinion, the court sets out its findings of fact and conclusions of law from the subsequent bench trial, and decides the case in favor of Paramount.

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On Time Aviation, Inc. v. Bombardier Capital, Inc., 2006 WL 2092075 (D. Conn. July 26, 2006)

In this order, the district court overruled defendant’s objections to certain discovery rulings made by the magistrate judge. Defendants had argued that plaintiff’s consultant and expert witness (Schuller) must have deliberately concealed relevant information, since he had not produced a particular email. Rejecting defendants’ argument, the court noted that they had proffered no evidence that Schuller deliberately deleted the email, and that Schuller had stated he believed he never received it because all his other emails from that time period were printed out in chronological order, and the email was not there. The court further noted that the email in question did not contain Schuller’s email address, “so there is no confirmation that it was sent to or received by him.”

The court further overruled defendants’ objections to the magistrate’s finding that plaintiff had satisfied its discovery obligations by providing affidavits from two other witnesses which stated that they generally did not use email, did not have in their possession any such messages related to the case, and that any messages they had sent to or received from Schuller were already produced by Schuller.