United States v. Philip Morris USA Inc., 327 F. Supp. 2d 21 (D.D.C. 2004)

Key Insight: Finding it “astounding” that defendant’s employees failed to follow court’s preservation order and defendant’s own document retention policies, court rejected plaintiff’s request for adverse inference but imposed monetary sanction of $2,750,000 and barred testimony from at least 11 witnesses who failed to comply with defendant’s own internal document retention program

Nature of Case: Tobacco litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email