Archive - 2016

Fulton v. Livingston Fin., LLC, No. C15-0574JLR, 2016 WL 3976558 (W.D. Wash. July 25, 2016)

In this opinion, the court imposed sanctions for counsel’s misrepresentations of law and fact, including his citation to caselaw analyzing outdated standards under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), which was substantially affected by the December 2015 amendments. Calling counsel’s reliance on caselaw applying outdated standards “inexplicable” and “inexcusable” where the “December 1, 2015 amendments to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) ‘dramatically changed’ what information is discoverable,” the court ultimately imposed monetary sanctions (payment of Plaintiff’s fees and costs for defending the at-issue motion) and ordered counsel to supply “senior members” of his firm with the “offending brief” with the explanation that “the court is entering sanctions . . . for quoting provisions of the civil rules that are badly out of date, and also making direct misrepresentations to the court.”  Declining to also require the attorney to report the sanction on future pro hac vice applications, the court did order that if a federal court threatened or imposed sanctions on the attorney at any time in the next five years, the attorney must “immediately disclose to that court the sanctions imposed by this court by providing that court with a copy of this order and the offending briefing.”

Read More

In re a Warrant to Search a Certain E-mail Account Controlled & Maintained by Microsoft Corp., No. 14-2985 (2d Cir. July 14, 2016)

In this case, Microsoft Corporation appealed orders from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York denying its motion to quash a warrant issued under § 2703 of the Stored Communications Act and holding Microsoft in contempt for “refusing to execute the Warrant on the government’s behalf.”  The warrant directed Microsoft to “seize and produce the contents of an e-mail account that it maintains for a customer who uses the company’s electronic communications services.” Although Microsoft produced the relevant customer’s non-content information which was stored in the United States, it refused to access and import data that was stored and maintained in Ireland.

Read More

Labrier v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., No. 2:15-cv-04093-NKL, 2016 WL 2689513 (W.D. Mo. May 9, 2016)

Upon Defendant’s refusal to provide Plaintiff with a list of data fields from two proprietary databases or to allow remote access, the Special Master ordered Defendant to respond to written interrogatories meant to provide the information sought by Plaintiff regarding putative class members and damages.  Addressing Defendant’s objection that the discovery (i.e., responding to written interrogatories) was not proportional to the case, the District Court determined that the Special Master had not abused his discretion, reasoning in part that “[a] litigant cannot keep its own system secret and then refuse to gather the information itself.”

Read More