December 2021 – Electronic Discovery Law

Gunter v. Alutiiq Advanced Security Solutions, LLC (D. Md. 2021)

Dec 28 2021

Key Insight: Defendant alleged that Plaintiff altered the wording of text messages and fabricated a series of text messages. Plaintiff also failed to produce relevant text message and falsely testified that such messages did not exists which was proved by a later forensic review. The Court had serious doubts regarding the text messages at issue. Plaintiff has no explanation for why his cellphone contains some text messages but not others. For these reasons, the Court ruled the text messages could not be used as evidence and the cost of the forensic review of the cell phone would be shifted to Plaintiff. However, the case would not be dismissed as there was not the “clear evidence necessary to conclude that Plaintiff fabricated the text messages.”

Nature of Case: Employment Discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Text Messages

Case Summary

Fourth Dimension Software v. Der Touristik Deutschland GmbH (N.D. Cal. 2021)

Dec 15 2021

Key Insight: Plaintiff moved for sanctions against defendant alleging that it had a duty to preserve usage records for the software at issue in its breach of contract claim. The court found that defendant had a duty to preserve the usage records, it violated the duty by deleting the records, the deletion prejudiced plaintiff and defendant acted with intent to deprive plaintiff of the records’ use. The duty to preserve the records arose before the litigation was filed since (1) plaintiff gave notice to defendant of both license overuse and third-party use claims; (2) the parties proceeded to attempt to negotiate a settlement of the claims for nearly a year; and (3) plaintiff sent a letter in August 2018 stating that it intended to file a complaint. Shortly after receiving notice that plaintiff intended to file suit, defendant destroyed the records, supporting an inference that defendant intentionally destroyed the usage records. The court ordered that an adverse jury instruction would be an appropriate sanction for defendant’s conduct.

Nature of Case: Breach of Contract

Electronic Data Involved: Usage Records

Case Summary

Axis Ins. Co. v. American Specialty Ins. & Risk Servs., Inc. (December 2021)

Dec 06 2021

Key Insight: The court affirmed the Magistrate’s order granting (in part) plaintiff’s motion to compel discovery to produce documents, to correct metadata issues and to pay expenses plaintiff incurred in pursuing the motion to compel. Defendant only objected to the Magistrate’s order on the fee request. The court adopted the magistrate judge’s order granting a provisional award of fees and costs. It found that the defendant’s opposition to the motion to compel discovery was not substantially justified under FRCP 37(a)(5)(A).

Nature of Case: Breach of Contract

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Case Summary

Archive - December 2021