Key Insight: Undertaking the appropriate comity analysis and finding that only two of seven factors weighed in favor of plaintiffs and that every other favor weighed in favor of the non-party banks, court denied motion to compel production of banking records of non-party Chinese banks
Nature of Case: Trademark infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Banking records
Key Insight: Court granted in part motion to quash subpoena seeking forensic investigation of non-party?s personal computer and ordered the subpoena be modified to allow a forensic investigator to search for the singular piece of evidence at issue and related metadata and to allow the non-party to be present and to bring her own expert to observe during the forensic examination, among other things
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Hard Drive
Key Insight: Court granted motion for spoliation sanctions for defendant?s deletion of relevant computer files and ordered an adverse inference and payment of plaintiff?s attorney?s costs and fees but, because the extent of the prejudice could not be determined, indicated that the language of the inference would be withheld until defendant paid for a forensic examination of his computer to determine what, if any, evidence could be recovered and thus the extent of the prejudice suffered by the plaintiff
Nature of Case: Breach of employment contract, breach of fiduciary duties, and violation of Uniform Trade Secrets Act
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Where plaintiff failed to timely produce relevant evidence despite two court orders and then wrongly certified that the production was complete, the district court granted defendant?s motion to dismiss; on appeal, the circuit court affirmed the sanction (in a colorful opinion full of quotable quotes), holding that ?no one . . . should count on more than three chances to make good on a discovery obligation? and that the district court was within its considerable discretion in granting dismissal
Nature of Case: Breach of contract
Electronic Data Involved: Tax records
Key Insight: Computer printout of ?pawn database? properly admitted under ?Statements in Documents Affecting an Interest in Property? exception to hearsay where employee of police department?s pawnshop unit testified regarding the department?s pawnshop database and how it worked and where the document memorialized appellant?s transfer of ownership of the item at issue to the pawn shop such that the record fit within the stated exception
Nature of Case: Criminal
Electronic Data Involved: Database printout from police department’s pawnshop database
Key Insight: Court granted motion for expedited discovery allowing plaintiff to serve Rule 45 subpoenas on ISPs to obtain information sufficient to identify Doe defendants
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Names of ISP subscribers
Key Insight: Court outlined possible ways to authenticate an email and found that the emails at issue were properly authenticated and admitted where some came from an account bearing the defendant?s name, where many were signed by the defendant, where some contained identifying information, including defendant?s social security number and telephone numbers and other personal facts, and where an investigator recalled that at least two of the email addresses contained in the at-issue emails had been used on the computer of the victim, with whom defendant was staying before her death; per the court, possible ways to authenticate an email include: by ?use of the email address, which many times contains the same of the sender;? by ?[t]he signature or name of the sender or recipient in the body of the email;? by evidence ?that an email is a timely response to an earlier message;? and by presentation of the ?contents of the email and other circumstances? which may show authorship
Nature of Case: Murder
Electronic Data Involved: Emails
Key Insight: Where target indicated the requested discovery would require the expenditure of approximately 146 hours of employees? time and cost $4,360 and also argued that the requested discovery would invade employees? privacy and was minimally relevant, court found that the burden to Target did not outweigh the likely benefit, rejected defendant?s arguments regarding privacy and relevance, and granted plaintiff?s motion to compel
Nature of Case: Employment Litigation
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court granted motion for expedited discovery to issue subpoenas to relevant ISPs seeking information sufficient to identify Doe defendants
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Identifying information from ISP
Key Insight: Upon plaintiff?s showing of good cause, court granted motion for expedited discovery to issue a subpoena to the relevant ISP seeking identifying information regarding one unknown defendant (Doe 1) but denied the motion as to the remaining 100 Does because of improper joinder
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Identifying information for ISP subscriber
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