Archive - December 1, 2012

Key Insight: Court declined to impose spoliation sanctions where plaintiff was unable to support her allegation that additional relevant emails existed that were not produced and where, despite a violation of the duty to preserve ?personnel or employment records? pursuant to federal law, the only copies of relevant emails that were proven to exist had been provided to plaintiff and plaintiff provided no evidence that the emails (that were not preserved in violation of federal law) were destroyed in bad faith or other than in the normal course of business

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Key Insight: Where relevant documents were discovered upon forensic examination and evidence indicated they had been modified, but not what the modifications were, the court reasoned that the documents had not been destroyed (because they were discovered on the hard drive) and that Plaintiffs did not dispute defendant?s argument that the modifications could have been the result of merely saving the documents?without making other alterations?and thus declined to grant plaintiffs motion for spoliation sanctions

Nature of Case: Emploment Litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Where relevant documents were discovered upon forensic examination of a relevant hard drive and evidence indicated they had been modified, but not what the modifications were, the court reasoned that the documents had not been destroyed (because they were discovered on the hard drive) and that Plaintiffs did not dispute Defendant?s argument that the modifications could have been the result of merely saving the documents?without making other alterations?and thus declined to grant plaintiffs’ motion for spoliation sanctions

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Where employee ?at the heart of Plaintiff?s claims of discrimination and harassment? ?misunderstood the requirements of the litigation hold? and continued his practice of deleting all emails every day but claimed that he never received or erased any emails related to plaintiff?s lawsuit and that all of his sent emails were preserved (as were the emails sent to him from his managers because of their compliance with the litigation hold), court found the deletions were negligent and ordered an instruction that the emails were destroyed and would have been favorable to plaintiff?s case

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Key Insight: Where court found no evidence that defendant had instituted any litigation hold or any evidence surrounding its collection efforts and where defendant failed to preserve potentially relevant hard drives despite the knowledge that the emails potentially contained thereon could not be retrieved from the company?s backup tapes, the court found that defendant had acted with gross negligence and imposed monetary sanctions but declined to impose more severe sanctions where there was no evidence of ?bad faith or egregious gross negligence? or that plaintiff had been prejudiced by the loss

Nature of Case: Breach of contract and various tort claims

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, hard drives

Key Insight: Where video surveillance tape was destroyed in contravention of duty to preserve, the court nonetheless denied plaintiff?s motion for sanctions (an adverse inference) where it determined that there was no prejudice to plaintiff because defendants identified the three officers/employees who processed plaintiff on the night of the allegedly wrongful arrest and because defendants conceded that the initial booking processes indicated that plaintiff was not the person sought by the relevant warrant

Nature of Case: Violation of civil rights (wrongful arrest) and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Video surveillance