Custom Hardware Eng?g & Consulting, Inc. v. Dowell, No. 4:10CV00653 ERW, 2011 WL 10496 (E.D. Mo. Jan. 3, 2012)

Key Insight: Relying heavily on Ameriwood Industries v. Liberman, No. 4:06CV524-DJS, 2006 WL 3825291 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 27, 2006), court ordered the discovery of ESI on defendant?s computers in accordance with three-step procedure: 1) imaging of hard drive by forensic expert, 2) recovery of ESI from that image, 3) defense counsel?s review and production of responsive non-privilege information; upon parties? disagreement regarding search terms to be utilized in step three, court rejected defendant?s arguments that plaintiff?s proposed terms would result in an ?unreasonable number of irrelevant results? and the production of privilege information and also rejected defendant?s proposed search terms as too narrow, where defendant proposed that only exact matches, including in capitalization and phrasing, be considered

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement, trade secret misappropria-tion, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and other related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Contents of hard drive