Key Insight: When the productions of underlying information (exact Excel formulas in this case) may disclose proprietary information, a supplemental disclosure explaining the underlying reasons may be a suitable replacement
Nature of Case: Automobile insurance coverage
Electronic Data Involved: Excel spreadsheet formulas
Keywords: Excel, formulas, moot, metadata, award of sanctions, expenses, fees
Key Insight: Plaintiff failure to produce relevant and discoverable information.
Nature of Case: Insurance coverage litigation.
Electronic Data Involved: Email produced by a third party.
Keywords: Motion to compel. Specificity. Failure to specify.
Mathew Enter., Inc. v. Chrysler Grp. LLC, No. 13-cv-04236-BLF, 2016 WL 2957133 (N.D. Cal. May 23, 2016)
The rules governing parties’ duties to preserve data do not demand perfection. Only when a party should have preserved electronically stored information “in the anticipation or conduct of litigation” and when that party “failed to take reasonable steps to preserve it” may a court order corrective measures. The standard is an attainable one.
Applying newly-amended Rule 37(e) (which “now provides a genuine safe harbor for those parties that take ‘reasonable steps’ to preserve their [ESI]”) the court concluded that Defendant was prejudiced by Plaintiff’s failure to preserve customer communications and imposed curative measures.
Key Insight: cant compel production of overseas medical records not in plaintiff’s possession
Nature of Case: medical malpractice, failure to warn
Electronic Data Involved: medical documents
Keywords: UAE patient cant get lien records from overseas entities
Key Insight: Plaintiff alleges Defendant accessed personal email on her former work computer. Court only allowed Stored Communications Act claim to move forward to discovery.
Nature of Case: Federal Wiretap Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,
Electronic Data Involved: Personal Email Account on Work Computer, Stored Communications Act
Keywords: email access; personal email
Key Insight: The Village did not preserve the facebook posts or text messages despite having that duty. Court ruled that severe sanctions were warranted including an adverse inference and legal fees.
Nature of Case: discrimination; zoning
Electronic Data Involved: Facebook posts and text messages
Keywords: adverse inference; facebook, texts
Key Insight: Deletion of emails at recommendation of email provider is not deletion with intent to destroy evidence, therefore terminating sanctions are overbroad
Nature of Case: Antitrust
Electronic Data Involved: Deleted emails
Keywords: Theatres, Cinemark, terminating sanctions, Bryan Cranston
It seems that predictive coding may be catching on in the UK. Not long ago, the English High Court approved the use of predictive coding for the first time in Pyrrho Investments Ltd v MWB Property Ltd [2016] EWHC 256 (Ch). In that case, the parties agreed to the use of predictive coding software and merely sought approval from the court. Now, The Lawyer (registration required) reports that the High Court has once again weighed in on the issue, this time to approve the use of predictive coding despite the apparent objection of at least one party. This is the first time such an order has been granted. While the details of the order and underlying disagreement have yet to be revealed, the result bodes well for parties seeking to rely on such technology in future.
Stay tuned to this space for more information as it becomes available.
Key Insight: Plaintiff threatened legal action, but failed to have it’s vendor stop automatic deletion and did not preserve recrods when email system changed. Defendant was prejudiced by this spoilation. Court allowed witnesses to testify to spoilation and potential contents of those communications.
Nature of Case: incentive programs and Robinson-Patman Act violations
Electronic Data Involved: internal and external communications
Keywords: spoilation; vendor
FiTeq Inc. v. Venture Corp., No. 13-cv-01946-BLF, 2016 WL 1701794 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 28, 2016)
In this case, the court denied Plaintiff’s motion to “instruct jurors that they may presume Venture carried out or allowed the destruction of relevant evidence favorable to FiTeq” despite an executive’s deletion of potentially relevant emails where the messages were eventually recovered and produced and where Plaintiff failed to prove that other responsive documents existed or to establish that the ESI was not restored or replaced.
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