Archive - August 2013

Logtale, Ltd. v. IKOR, Inc., No. C-11-05452 CW (DMR), 2013 WL 3967750 (N.D. Cal. July 31, 2013)

Plaintiff sought to compel Defendants’ production of all responsive documents and also sought sanctions, including attorneys’ fees and an order requiring Defendants “to retain an e-discovery vendor to conduct a thorough and adequate search for responsive electronic documents.”  Acknowledging that it shared Plaintiff’s concerns “about the inadequacy of Defendants’ search for responsive documents,” the court granted Plaintiff’s motion to compel and also granted the request for attorneys’ fees (although at a reduced rate).  The court declined to order the retention of an e-discovery vendor “at this time,” but warned that such an order would be entered if problems with Defendants’ document production continued.

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Sekisui Am. Corp. v. Hart, —F. Supp. 2d—, 2013 WL 4116322 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 15, 2013)

Previously in this case, the Magistrate Judge declined to impose spoliation sanctions for Plaintiff’s deletion of emails and other ESI belonging to two important custodians absent a showing that the defendants were prejudiced by the destruction.  Upon Defendants’ objections, the district court reversed the denial of sanctions and imposed an adverse inference and monetary sanctions.  In doing so, the court reasoned that prejudice was presumed because the evidence was destroyed intentionally and explained that no showing of malice was required.

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Barrette Outdoor Living, Inc. v. Michigan Resin Representatives, No. 11-13335, 2013 WL 3983230 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 1, 2013)

For Defendant’s bad faith failure to preserve his cellular phone and his deletion of 270,000 files from his personal laptop using scrubbing software, the district court adopted the recommendations of the Magistrate Judge and ordered monetary sanctions equaling $35,000 and an irrefutable adverse inference that the phone and deleted files would have contained information unfavorable to the defendant, including that Defendant was involved with the company allegedly created for the “pass-through” scheme on which Plaintiff’s claims were based.

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