December 2010 – Page 23 – Electronic Discovery Law

Holland v. Barfield, 35 So.3d 953 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Appellate court granted writ of certiorari and quashed lower court?s order compelling petitioner?s production of her hard drives and SIM card for inspection by respondent where there was no evidence of destruction of data or threat of destruction sufficient to support such an order, where the order did not protect petitioner against disclosure of confidential or privileged materials because petitioner was provided no opportunity to review materials prior to production, and where there were less intrusive means to acquire the data sought

Nature of Case: Wrongful death

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives, cell phone (SIM card)

Arista Records LLC v. Doe 3, 604 F.3d 110(2nd Cir. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Rejecting defendant?s First Amendment arguments, court affirmed rulings of the lower courts denying defendant?s motion to quash a subpoena seeking disclosure of his identity where defendant was suspected of copyright infringement online, namely unlawfully sharing copyrighted materials

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement (file sharing)

Electronic Data Involved: Name of ISP subscriber

Eurand, Inc. v. Mylan Pharm., Inc., 266 F.R.D. 79 (D. Del. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Evaluating the adequacy of plaintiff?s search for a specific category of information, the court noted that the test to determine the appropriateness of a search is whether the search ?could?have been expected to produce the information requested?, determined that the information sought was likely to be found in the emails of the inventors of a specific patent, and ordered plaintiff to search the emails of the relevant inventors within a date range prescribed by the court; opinion included brief discussion of keyword searching and noted, “[n]either lawyers nor judges are generally qualified to opine that certain search terms or files are more or less likely to produce information than those keywords or data actually used or reviewed.”

Nature of Case: Patent litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Shlala v. Catholic Health & Human Servs., 2010 WL 1655869 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Apr. 23, 2010)(Unpublished)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Trial court did not err in dismissing plaintiff?s claim of fraudulent concealment arising from the destruction of the hard drive plaintiff utilized while employed by defendant where plaintiff failed to specifically request the preservation or production of the computer?s contents until three years after he was terminated (despite filing a complaint and requesting discovery) and where plaintiff failed to establish any of the five elements necessary to support an action for fraudulent concealment, including failing to establish defendants? duty to preserve, the materiality of the evidence destroyed, and the inability to obtain the evidence from another source, among other things

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI on hard drive utilized by plaintiff while employed by defendant

Alpert v. Riley, 2010 WL 1556566 (S.D. Tex. Apr. 19, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant previously stored privileged materials on the computer of a third-party business partner and where the relationship later soured, defendant inadvertently waived claim of privilege as to privileged ESI by failing to take prompt steps to protect the privileged materials following clear notice that the protections he had placed (passwords, etc.) were no longer in place and by persisting in that failure to protect the material for a number of years thereafter

Nature of Case: Alleged improper excercise of authority by trustee

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents

In re IKB Deutsche Industrie Bank AG, 2010 WL 1526070 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 8, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Denying third-party corporation?s motion to quash a subpoena, court rejected corporation?s claims of undue burden where the discovery sought was relevant to the foreign litigation and where the support for claims of burden was conclusory and failed to sufficiently identify the basis for the corporation?s objection or ?connect a dollar amount to the particular tasks that would be necessary to provide the requested information? and thus, the court was ?effectively prevented from making a meaningful determination as to whether the financial costs is unreasonable?

Nature of Case: Foreign litigation claiming $1.5 billion in damages arising from “Put Option Agreement”

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Merck Eprova AG v. Gnosis S.P.A., 2010 WL 1631519 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 20, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court found defendants were ?at least? grossly negligent for failing to issue a written litigation hold and ordered defendants to pay the costs of plaintiff?s motion to compel as well as a $25,000 fine; in devising its sanction, the court considered defendants other conduct, including defendants? deficient search for responsive documents, defense counsel?s lack of meaningful supervision in the discovery process, and defendants? decision to withhold certain documents deemed insufficiently important, among other things

Nature of Case: Lanham Act/ mislabeled ingredients

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Palm Bay Int., Inc. v. Marchesi Di Barolo S.P.A., 2010 WL 1688203 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 26, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff failed to produce 15 emails (which were discovered in a productions from third parties), court declined to find that plaintiff had waived its objections to defendant?s request but ordered plaintiff to file an affidavit from a representative with first hand knowledge of how the search was undertaken providing ?a specific explanation of what information was discovered concerning how and why the email at issue were not picked up during the course of that search? and noted that defendant was free to raise the failure to produce those emails with the witnesses at trial

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Global Naps, Inc. v. Verizon New England d/b/a Verizon Mass., 603 F.3d 71 (1st Cir. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: District court did not abuse discretion in ordering default judgment as sanction for discovery violations where evidence indicated that defendants lied to the court regarding its record keeping practices and the timing of their alleged ?loss? of financial records and withheld and destroyed financial records, including intentionally wiping relevant evidence from a hard drive using scrubbing software

Nature of Case: Litigation arising from defendants’ failure to pay access charges for services provided

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

State v. Durham, 2010 WL 1254355 (Ohio App. Ct. Apr. 1, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant appealed his conviction and argued the State?s failure to preserve videotape depicting a struggle between police and defendant was a violation of due process, court found the videotape was not subject to production pursuant to Brady absent evidence that it contained ?materially exculpatory evidence?, and that absent evidence of bad faith, defendant could not show a due process violation arising from the destruction of ?potentially useful? evidence

Nature of Case: Criminal

Electronic Data Involved: Surveillance video

Archive - December 2010