September 2017 – Electronic Discovery Law

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Sep 30 2017

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Catrinar v. Wynnestone Communities Corp., et al., No. 14-11872 (E.D. Mich. Sept. 30, 2017)

Sep 30 2017

Key Insight: Plaintiff produced two versions of email (both dated before filing). Defendant argued one was fake and an attempt to bolster Plaintiff’s claim. Court deemed that dismissal was too harsh a sanction and denied dismissal sanction request.

Nature of Case: Family Medical Leave Act Violations

Electronic Data Involved: E-Mails

Keywords: Duplicate E-mail; Dismissal Sanction

View Case Opinion

Title Capital Mgt. v. Progress Residential (S.D. Fla., 2017)

Sep 29 2017

Key Insight: The onset of the duty under Rule 37(e) does not have to say which exact kind of litigation that will occur. Prejudice was not found, but the question of intent was pushed to later.

Nature of Case: Contract, copyright

Electronic Data Involved: records, documents, and logs of the company

Keywords: Spoliation, intent to deprive, sanctions, prejudice

View Case Opinion

Archer v. York City School Dist. (3rd Cir., 2017)

Sep 27 2017

Key Insight: Was the email account in question deleted with prejudice? Court found no prejudice, standard practice of deletion plus deletion was done a year before notice of legislation. Opinion however does not cite Rule 37(e)

Nature of Case: School charter renewal dispute/constitutional

Electronic Data Involved: Email account

Keywords: spoliation, sanctions

View Case Opinion

The William Powell Co. v. National Indemnity Co. (S.D. Ohio, 2017)

Sep 26 2017

Key Insight: To what extent does disclosure of privileged documents to third parties waive privilege?

Nature of Case: Litigation for bad faith (Ohio law)

Electronic Data Involved: e-mails, deskfiles, and relevant shared e-documents

Keywords: Accidental waiver, third party disclosure, protected relationships

View Case Opinion

Carpenter v. Gregg Scott (C.D. Ill., 2017)

Sep 26 2017

Key Insight: Court analyzed sanction request without determining if the footage was ESI, and without citing37(e). Court states that no spoliation occurred because there is no bad faith or notice of imminent legislation.

Nature of Case: 1983 legislation

Electronic Data Involved: Prison video surveillance

Keywords: spoliation, video,

View Case Opinion

Moody v. CSX Transportation (W.D.N.Y. , 2017)

Sep 21 2017

Key Insight: failure to take reasonable steps to preserve data, prejudice to other party, intent to deprive

Nature of Case: personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: event recorder data: .dat file

Keywords: reasonable steps, adverse inference, relevance of data, event recorder, black box, laptop crash, prejudice, inferred intent to deprive

View Case Opinion

Mitcham v. Americold Logistics, LLC, No. 17-cv-00808-WJM-NYW (D. Colo. Sept. 20, 2017)

Sep 20 2017

Key Insight: Plaintiff had kept a journal which was scanned and provided. Original Hard Copy was then destroyed. Judge granted motion for additional deposition time, but denied adverse inference instruction.

Nature of Case: Employment Discrimination; Wrongful Termination

Electronic Data Involved: Hard Copy of Scanned Journal

Keywords: Sanctions, Adverse Inference, Scanned Copy, Hard Copy

View Case Opinion

United States v. New Mexico State University (D. N.M., 2017)

Sep 19 2017

Key Insight: Should deficient search terms be supplemented using court appointed terms? And how closely should counsel work together on electronic searches?

Nature of Case: Workplace discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: e-mails, documents of complaints and communication about complaints

Keywords: Keywords, Cooperation,

View Case Opinion

In re Cook Medical, Inc., IVC Filters Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation (S.D. Ind., 2017)

Sep 15 2017

Key Insight: Can private social media and metadata be compelled into discovery?

Nature of Case: Bellwether products liability

Electronic Data Involved: Social media

Keywords: Metadata, social media, private data, public data, privacy

View Case Opinion

Archive - September 2017