October 2021 – Electronic Discovery Law

Doe v. Wesleyan University (D. Conn. 2021)

Oct 08 2021

Key Insight: Plaintiff was expelled from Wesleyan University after being accused of cheating on her exams. Defendant alleged that plaintiff accessed a computerized learning management system, “Moodle”, while taking her exams. Plaintiff claimed the Moodle logs upon which her expulsion was based were faulty. Plaintiff moved to compel discovery, including ESI relating to Moodle regarding the installation, implementation and administration of Moodle at the college. The court found plaintiff was entitled to explore discovery on how the Moodle system logs and registers time. The discovery was relevant to defendant’s affirmative defense that plaintiff cheated and determining the time zone settings of the Moodle log was relevant to Plaintiff’s contention that Moodle was accessed hours before Plaintiff was taking the exams in question.

Nature of Case: Negligence

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic Devices

Case Summary

O’Donnell/Salvatori Inc. v. Microsoft Corp. (W.D. Wash. 2021)

Oct 01 2021

Key Insight: Plaintiff moved the court to compel defendant to produce all non-privileged documents hitting on the agreed ESI search terms, regardless of whether they were relevant to a claim or defense in the case. Defendant had conducted a relevance review and withheld emails, such as employees joining or leaving the team, technical issues, and buying a new boat. The court denied plaintiff’s motion, finding that although there is little case law on the issue, “the courts that have addressed it have almost uniformly found that a relevance review, and the withholding of irrelevant documents, is appropriate.” Thus, the court ultimately held that “a party’s agreement to run search terms does not waive its right to review the resulting documents for relevance so long as the review can be done in a reasonably timely manner.”

Nature of Case: Copyright Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Case Summary

Archive - October 2021