Court Orders Forensic Examination of Plaintiff’s Computers Absent Denial that “Responsive Emails May have Existed at One Point”
Adhi v. Twp. of W. Pikeland, 2010 WL 1047894 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 16, 2010)
In this zoning dispute, defendant moved to enforce a prior order of the court and, essentially, compel more complete responses to discovery, including the production of electronically stored information (“ESI”), specifically emails. Plaintiff indicated that even if responsive emails had existed, they were deleted in the ordinary course of business. Accepting defendant’s assertions that “the mere deletion of an email does not make it lost forever”, however, the court ordered plaintiff to allow defendant’s “e-Discovery expert” to inspect plaintiff’s computers to determine if any responsive information was still contained on the hard drives or the servers. In so ordering, the court reasoned that this would “allow Defendant to conduct discovery on information to which it is entitled without burdening Plaintiff with the expense of hiring a discovery expert.”