2017 – Page 6 – Electronic Discovery Law

Charles v. City of New York, No. 12-CV-6180 (SLT)(SMG), 2017 WL 530460 (E.D.N.Y., Feb. 8, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff lost the phone containing relevant video footage of the incident leading to plaintiff?s arrest when she attended a ?gala? carrying a ?really small purse? and thus had to hand-carry or lay down her phone and where she failed to call the banquet hall to determine if her phone was recovered (although she apparently did call her phone?s service provider and a relevant cab company in furtherance of her recovery efforts), the court declined to find that the loss was intentional and reasoned that the evidence suggested ?at most mere negligence? and that because there was a ?genuine issue of material fact regarding what transpired during the videotaping, the court [could] not find that the lost videotape was likely to favor Defendants? and thus denied the motion for sanctions without prejudice to renewal at trial if ?Defendants could adduce evidence ? that the lost video recording was likely to be favorable to them?; notably, court applied common law spoliation analysis for loss of the phone, recognizing that the common law applied, ?except in cases involving electronically stored information?

Nature of Case: Constitutional claims arising from arrest following alteration with police while Plaintiff recorded police activities

Electronic Data Involved: Lost phone containing video footage of incident leading to arrest

Rutledge-Plummer v. SCO Family of Servs., No. 15-CV-2468 (MKB) (SMG), 2017 WL 570765 (E.D. N.Y. Feb. 13, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: Plaintiff also sought production of all emails between 8 named individuals dating from August 1, 2013 to the present (December 2016). The court found the scope of this request (lacking any search terms or subject matter restrictions) was too burdensome when weighed against the potential benefit of production. Plaintiff narrowed her request to docs that related to her and limited the date range during oral argument, however the court found that this was still too broad and too close to the close of discovery to be permitted. Furthermore, Defendant had already produced emails relating to Plaintiff from most of the 8 custodians and had written to Plaintiff suggesting she propose search terms if she sought additional discovery. Plaintiff?s counsel, whose representation started after Defendant?s letter to Plaintiff, did not review Defendant?s earlier discovery responses and waited 10 months before requesting the additional discovery (using the overbroad parameters). The court denied Plaintiffs request except for certain documents referenced in depositions that were not produced. The court also denied Plaintiffs overly broad request for ?all documents pertaining to policies, procedures, and guidelines related to Defendant?s computers, computer systems, electronic data and electronic media? as too burdensome.

Nature of Case: Motion to Compel in employment discrimination action

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Organik Kimya, San. ve. Tic. A.S. v. Int?l Trad Comm?n, 848 F.3d 994 (Fed. Cir. 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: Court affirmed the sanction of default judgment imposed in 2014 by the International Trade Commission for Appellant?s egregious spoliation of evidence in bad faith and in violation of the Administrative Law Judge?s orders (including, among other things, repeatedly overwriting files, backdating a computer?s internal clock to affect metadata, running CCleaner)

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Edelson v Cheung, No. 2:13-cv-5870 (JLL)(JAD), 2017 WL 150241 (D.N.J. Jan. 12, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff sought spoliation sanctions for Defendant?s deletion of emails and argued that Defendant intended to keep the at-issue account hidden and deleted emails after it was discovered through another party?s production and that those emails revealed Defendant?s intent to keep the at-issue account hidden and other elements of Plaintiff?s claims, the court found that the deletions were ?intended to deprive Plaintiff of the information? contained within and reasoned that Defendant?s claim that he deleted the emails because of computer performance lacked credibility, but declined to impose default judgment absent a sufficient degree of prejudice and instead ordered that a permissive adverse inference instruction would be given to the jury

Nature of Case: Breach of contract and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email

CP Salmon Corp. v. Pritzker, —F. Supp. 3d.—,No. 3:16-cv-00031-TMB, 2017 WL 744022 (D. Alaska Feb. 24, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: Applying Fed. R. Evid. 502, court found Defendants? inadvertent inclusion of privileged information in the Administrative Record did not waive privilege where declarations of persons with ?sufficient personal knowledge? established the inadvertence of the inclusion where, in light of the multiple levels of review of the documents and the relevant circumstances including the ?sheer number of pages and compressed timeframe,? the court found Defendant had undertaken reasonable steps to prevent disclosure, and where Defendants took action to rectify the error within three weeks of the disclosure

Nature of Case: Administrative law

Electronic Data Involved: Administrative Record

B&R Supermarket, Inc. v. Visa, Inc., No. 16-cv-01150-WHA (MEJ), 2017 WL 235182 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 19, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: Court found requested data was relevant to class certification but, where Defendant indicated that Plaintiff?s requests ?encompass [ ] tens of millions of transactions and weekly data for each of the more than 6 million merchants that accept American Express? that ?is scattered over at least 6 databases at American Express,? court agreed with Defendant that the requested discovery created an ?enormous burden? and therefore ordered sampling, in a size to be agreed upon by the parties at a court-ordered meet and confer

Nature of Case: class action

Electronic Data Involved: Chargeback-related data (ESI)

Rockman Co. (USA), Inc. v. Nong Shim Co., Ltd., No. 13-cv-04115-WHO, 2017 WL 275405 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 19, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: In US litigation, court found no duty to preserve was triggered by Korean Fair Trade Commission?s investigation of price-fixing in Korean markets absent case law establishing such a possibility (i.e., that a foreign investigation of domestic markets could trigger a duty to preserve in the US because litigation could someday be commenced) or any related complaints or lawsuits filed in the US or evidence that the price fixing conspiracy was directed at the US or that the KFTC?s investigation extended to impacts in the United States

Nature of Case: Antitrust

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Knight Capital Partners Corp. v. Henkel AG & Company, KGaA, No. 16-12022 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 30, 2017).

Nov 30 2017

Key Insight: German defendant objected to discovery on basis of German Data Protection Laws. Court ruled that legal claim outweighed data protection.

Nature of Case: Tortious interference with business, breach of non-disclosure

Electronic Data Involved: German Business Records

Keywords: foreign company, data protection

View Case Opinion

Holick v. Burkhart ( No. 16-1188-JTM (D. Kan. Nov. 30, 2017), 2017)

Nov 30 2017

Key Insight: Plaintiff did not specify whether any documents were being withheld in the course of making objections to discovery motions

Nature of Case: libel, assault, slander

Electronic Data Involved: documents and communications posted or stored on social media, e-mails

Keywords: “facially overbroad”, “anti-abortion”, “nearly two-decade time frame”, “provide any responsive information for the past seven (7) years”

View Case Opinion

Coward v. Forestar Realty, Inc., 4:15-cv-0245-HLM (N.D. Georgia, Rome Division, 2017)

Nov 30 2017

Key Insight: Plaintiffs unable to access password protected video camera offered hard drive to Defendants; Court held inaccessible videos were spoliated.

Nature of Case: property damage claim

Electronic Data Involved: videos

Keywords: spoliation, prejudice, sanctions, adverse inference, attorney’s fees

View Case Opinion

Archive - 2017