Archive - 2006

Nat’l Econ. Research Assocs., Inc. v. Evans, 2006 WL 2440008 (Mass. Super. Ct. Aug. 3, 2006)

In this litigation between a consulting firm and its former employee, the court considered the firm’s motion to compel the production of attorney-client privileged communications. Plaintiff sought production of emails sent and received via the employee’s personal, password-protected email account, which were saved in a temporary Internet file on the employee’s company-issued laptop and retrieved through forensic means after his departure from the firm.

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Thyroff v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 460 F.3d 400 (2d Cir. 2006)

The plaintiff in this case is an insurance agent formerly associated with the defendant insurance company. Plaintiff and defendant had executed an Agent’s Agreement, and defendant had required that plaintiff lease an agency office-automation system (“AOA”), including hardware and software, from defendant. During the 21 years he was an agent of defendant, plaintiff’s office operations were very much dependent on the AOA. Plaintiff and his staff entered business data and information onto the hard drives of the AOA system on a daily basis, and defendant then uploaded that information on a nightly basis from plaintiff’s computers onto defendant’s computers. In the process, defendant also uploaded plaintiff’s personal information.

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Delta Fin. Corp. v. Morrison, 2006 WL 2403437 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Aug. 17, 2006)
This case involved breach of contract and fraud claims stemming from an exchange of assets between some of the parties, which took place in August 2001. The opinion resolves the parties’ dispute relating to three categories of electronic documents sought by one of the defendants (“LLC”) from the plaintiff (“DFC”): 1) non-email electronic documents which LLC claimed were not captured by DFC’s search process; 2) emails which LLC claimed were not captured by DFC’s ninety-day back-up tapes; and 3) emails from January 1, 1999 through July 12, 2000.

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United States v. Magnesium Corp. of Am., 2006 WL 2350155, (D. Utah Aug. 11, 2006)

In this decision, the court considered the government’s motion for an order requiring certain defendants "to maintain documents in their possession that are relevant to this case throughout all phases of the litigation." In making the request, the government indicated that it has no reason to believe that the defendants were destroying documents, but also noted that Phase III of the litigation could occur as late as 2009. Since the government did not know whether the defendants had a policy that limits the time that documents are retained, it wanted to ensure that relevant documents were not inadvertently destroyed as part of the defendants’ document retention policy. Read More

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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