Key Insight: Citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(c)(i) and (ii), court denied defendant?s motion to compel production of plaintiff?s hard drive where defendant admitted that it had not yet exhausted less intrusive or burdensome means of discovering the information sought
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive
Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel production of post-suit privileged and work product documents, despite defendant?s assertion of the affirmative defense of reliance on advice of counsel and its prior production of pre-suit privileged and work product documents, where the analysis of the willfulness of the infringement focused on pre-litigation activities and where, per a prior court order, defendant had not been segregating or logging such documents and so production would be a significant burden
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Privileged ESI
Key Insight: Court adopted Special Master?s Report and Recommendation requiring plaintiffs to respond to questions regarding the scope of their efforts with regard to the restoration of backup tapes upon finding that such information was not protected by the attorney-client privilege
Nature of Case: Antitrust litigation
Electronic Data Involved: Backup tapes, ESI
Key Insight: Where defendant performed electronic search ?without plaintiff?s input? and then refused to produce its search terms claiming attorney work product, court cited Victor Stanley, Inc. v. Creative Pipe, Inc., 250 F.R.D. 251, 262 (D.Md.2008), for the proposition that ?the party performing the search had a duty to demonstrate that its methodology was reasonable? and, noting that ?a thorough explanation of the search terms and procedures used would be a large step in that direction,? granted plaintiff?s motion to compel; court granted Plaintiff?s Motion to Resolve a Disputed Claim of Privilege Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5)(B) finding the documents at issue were not subject to protection and need not be returned to defendant
Nature of Case: Class action involving “interpretation fo the term ‘actual damages’ in a supplemental cancer insurance policy”
Electronic Data Involved: Search terms
Key Insight: Court reversed and remanded grant of summary judgment on the issue of the adequacy of the government?s search in response to plaintiff?s FOIA request where a material fact existed as to whether the DOI intentionally destroyed the requested material before undertaking its search which would prevent a finding that the search was adequate
Nature of Case: Freedom of Information Act / FOIA
Electronic Data Involved: Performance appraisal
Key Insight: Court granted defendants? motion for the return of privileged documents where the documents were inadvertently produced following a ?multi-layered? review, where defendants promptly requested the return of the documents within three days of learning of their disclosure, and where ?fairness would not be offended by restoring immunity to [the] documents;? some documents subject to defendants? motion were determined not to be privileged and thus were not subject to return
Nature of Case: Violation of antitrust laws by tying sales of light tubes to sales of Accurus cassettes, predatory pricing
Electronic Data Involved: Emails
Key Insight: Court granted motion to modify subpoena and rejected defendants arguments it was overly broad and unduly burdensome where the court found the evidence sought to be relevant and material and where defendants failed to present evidence of the actual costs of production, the size of their operations and there capacity to handle those costs, or that such costs would be unduly burdensome
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, harcopy
Key Insight: Where forensic examination of defendant?s hard drive revealed the deletion of electronic evidence using wiping software and where at the time of the deletion defendant was subject to a duty to preserve, court declined to impose default judgment but ordered an adverse inference and monetary sanctions in an amount to be determined
Nature of Case: Claims of fraud, misappropriation of confidential and proprietary information, breach of fiduciary duties, and breach of contract
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, contents of hard drive
Key Insight: Addressing whether certain of plaintiff?s requests were unduly burdensome relative to the likely benefit of production, court granted in part and denied in party plaintiff?s motion to compel upon determining that certain requests were unduly burdensome in light of the estimated time and effort to respond
Nature of Case: Violations of Telephone Consumer Protection Act
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, mirror image drives
Key Insight: Court granted Motion to Quash Subpoena Duces Tecum to Non-party upon finding the subpoena ?overly broad on its face? where the subpoena failed to describe the documents sought with any particularity and would have essentially required the large third-party corporation ?to search its entire database of records to produce every document which refers or relates in any way to the named defendants and to [a former employee]?
Nature of Case: Discrimination in violation of Fair Housing Act
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
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