Archive - 2006

Flynn v. Oakland County, 2006 WL 950282 (E.D. Mich. Apr. 12, 2006)

In this civil rights case, plaintiffs moved to compel the production of “declassified” discovery. The parties had stipulated to a protective order regarding discovery, issued by the court on January 6, 2006, mandating that certain documents produced during discovery would be kept confidential. The protective order defined “confidential material,” and set out a procedure through which a party could challenge a document’s “confidential” designation. The protective order stated that confidential material could be submitted to the court, but that it must be filed under seal. It also delineated a process to protect confidential material during depositions and file handling. Read More

Serra Chevrolet, Inc. v. Gen. Motors Corp., 446 F.3d 1137 (11th Cir. 2006) GM appealed the decision of the District Court for the Northern District of Alabama which found that GM had violated discovery orders and imposed $700,000 in monetary sanctions and struck certain of GM’s affirmative defenses. A summary of the lower court’s decision and a copy of its order are available here. Read More

Static Control Components, Inc. v. Lexmark Int’l, Inc., 2006 WL 897218 (E.D. Ky. Apr. 5, 2006)

In this patent and copyright infringement case, plaintiff requested the production of customer communications regarding defendant’s purported “Prebate agreement” for a toner cartridge that was in issue. According to plaintiff, defendant had claimed that there were as many as 60,000 records on its “pre-sale customer inquiry database” that could be responsive to the request. In its motion to compel, plaintiff requested that defendant “back up” the database containing the requested documents and produce the database to plaintiff, with plaintiff to bear the burden of extracting any data so as to eliminate any undue burden on defendant. Read More

In re BP Prods., N. Am., Inc., 2006 WL 648816 (Tex. Ct. App. Mar. 13, 2006)

In this opinion, a Texas appellate court denied the petition for a writ of mandamus filed by BP Products North America, Inc., which complained that the trial judge abused her discretion by compelling BP to produce, by March 17, 2006, “all e-data derived from backup tapes and maintained on computer hard drives under BP’s control” that were responsive to the plaintiffs’ steering committee’s request, as identified in the court’s February 6, 2006 order and in the manner specified in the order. The appellate court had previously denied BP’s request for emergency relief requesting a stay of the February 6, 2006 order. Read More

Liturgical Publ’ns, Inc. v. Karides, 2006 WL 931892 (Wis. Ct. App. Apr. 12, 2006) (Unpublished)

In this case, plaintiff asserted claims for employee disloyalty, misappropriation of trade secrets and computer theft against two former employees and their competing company. The trial court dismissed several claims on summary judgment, including the computer theft claim. After a jury trial on the remaining claims resulted in a defense verdict, plaintiff appealed. In conjunction with arguing that the trial court erred in dismissing its claim for computer theft, plaintiff argued that the trial court erroneously exercised its discretion by denying its motion to compel additional discovery on the issue. Read More

ACS Consultant Co., Inc. v. Williams, 2006 WL 897559 (E.D. Mich. Apr. 6, 2006)

In this case, plaintiff was in the business of providing information technology and management consultant services, principally to health care providers. Defendants were former employees and a company in which one of the former employees was a principal. After discovering evidence that the individual defendants had violated the terms of their employment contracts, plaintiff terminated them and filed an 11 count verified complaint seeking injunctive and other relief. Plaintiff obtained a TRO enjoining the defendants from violating the terms of their employment agreements, and also sought a preliminary injunction. Following a hearing during which the court took evidence regarding the alleged wrongful acts by defendants, the court granted a preliminary injunction enjoining defendants, among other things: Read More

Rodriguez v. City of Fresno, 2006 WL 903675 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 7, 2006)

In this civil rights action stemming from plaintiffs’ arrest, the court granted in part and denied in part plaintiffs’ motion to compel production of documents and responses to interrogatories. Among other things, plaintiffs sought the production of electronic documents relating to the arrest and detention of plaintiffs. With little discussion of particulars (including what constituted “Exhibit K” referenced below), the court ruled as follows: Read More

Creative Sci. Sys., Inc. v. Forex Capital Mkts., LLC, 2006 WL 870973 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 4, 2006) (Unpublished)

In this case involving copyright infringement and related claims, plaintiff moved for sanctions, claiming that defendant had not complied with the court’s Preservation Order. Plaintiff sought monetary sanctions, an adverse inference instruction, and an order barring defendant from presenting a particular defense. Ultimately, the court denied the non-monetary sanctions, ordered the defendant to cover the cost of plaintiff’s expert’s forensic analysis of certain computer servers, and imposed monetary sanctions for defendant’s failure to preserve an employee’s notebook. Read More