Author - kgates

Malibu Media, LLC v. Tashiro, No. 1:13-cv-00205-WTL-MJD, 2015 WL 2371597 (S.D. Ind. May 18, 2015)

In this copyright infringement case, the court found that Defendants “spoiled evidence, committed perjury, and failed to discharge their duties to conduct discovery reasonably and in good faith” and recommended default judgment.  Notably, in addition to more familiar issues surrounding the topic of spoliation, the court’s opinion addressed the question of whether spoliation occurs when information is still recoverable (yes) and the propriety of imputing an agent’s bad acts in discovery where, as in this case, Defendant Wife “left it to her agent—her husband—to respond to Plaintiff’s document requests.”

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United States ex rel. Carter v. Bridgepoint Educ., Inc., 305 F.R.D. 225 (S.D. Cal. 2015)

In this case, the court addressed Plaintiffs’ demands that Defendants restore ESI contained on disaster recovery backup tapes for production in native format and produce active emails in native format with metadata.  Upon finding the backup tapes inaccessible, the court undertook the relevant cost-shifting analysis and determined that if Plaintiffs wanted production of the contents of the backup tapes in native format, they would be responsible for the cost.  The court also determined that TIFF images were a reasonable format for production and declined to compel production of active emails in native format or production of metadata.  Accordingly, “Plaintiffs’ requests for the production of Backup Databases, the Active Emails in Native, and the Metadata” were denied without prejudice.

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Corning Optical Commc’ns Wireless Ltd. v. Solid, Inc., No. 5:14-cv-03750-PSG, 2015 WL 1726749 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 14, 2015)

In this patent infringement case, the court addressed the “classic chicken-and-egg” problem of requiring initial disclosures regarding damages where “[t]o provide meaningful calculations, patentees need lots of information from accused infringers. But the expense of producing lots of information can only be justified by a meaningful calculation suggesting that substantial dollars are actually at stake.”  The court explained that despite significant discovery in the present case, including the exchange of “reams of data,” “neither side ha[d] any firm sense of whether this [was] a $1 case or a case worth billions.”  Moreover, the court explained, “the parties here are not unusual.  For years it has been the norm in patent cases to bludgeon first and value second.”  In granting Defendant’s motion to compel, the court acknowledged that the information sought was not only important to the defendant, but also to the court, stating: “Proportionality is part and parcel of just about every discovery dispute.”

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Procaps S.A. v. Patheon, Inc., No. 12-24356-CIV, 2015 WL 1880346 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 24, 2015)

In this opinion, the court addressed Defendant’s motion to take the deposition of the court-appointed, neutral, computer forensic expert who conducted a forensic analysis of Plaintiff’s electronic media and discovered a number of deletions. Plaintiff and Defendant differed regarding the meaning of the expert’s report and filed competing summaries. Accordingly, Defendant sought to conduct a deposition of the expert. The court granted the motion, noting the importance of the deposition in assisting the court to understand the issues before it and ordered a specific deposition protocol, including that the Special Master conduct a portion of the questioning.

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Crews v. Avco Corp., No. 70756-6-I, 2015 WL 1541179 (Wash. Ct. App.  Apr. 6, 2015)

In this case, the trial court held Defendant in contempt and ultimately imposed a “death penalty order” for discovery violations, including the failure to produce relevant information.  Notably, the trial court rejected Defendant’s reliance on its document retention policy as an explanation for why the information was unavailable.  On appeal, the appellate court affirmed the imposition of sanctions but remanded for amendment of the final judgment to reflect any offsets authorized by statute.

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Perez v. Metro Dairy Corp., No. 13 CV 2109(RML), 2015 WL 1535296 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 6, 2015)

Plaintiffs in this collective action sought spoliation sanctions for Defendants’ failure to produce certain relevant evidence, including payroll records, W-2s, cashier sheets, etc.  Defendants objected to the motion on the grounds that “all of their books, records and computers were seized” pursuant to the court’s order in a different case and that there was no opportunity to make any copies or back ups.  Accordingly, the court reasoned that Defendants had not destroyed their records and found that “[u]nder the specific circumstances of this case … defendants did not have an obligation to copy their books and records before complying with the court order.”  The court also reasoned that even if Defendants did have an obligation to preserve, there was no evidence of Defendants’ requisite culpable state of mind.  Plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions was denied.

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Blue Sky Travel & Tours, LLC v. Al Tayyar, —Fed. Appx.—, 2014 WL 1451636 (4th Cir. Mar. 31, 2015)

In this case, a magistrate judge imposed severe sanctions for Defendants’ failure to preserve “all documents” once litigation began.  Specifically, the magistrate judge held that “once litigation began, [Defendants] had a duty to stop its document retention policies ‘and to preserve all documents because you don’t know what may or may not be relevant.’ (Emphasis added.)”  The sanction was upheld by the district court and resulted in a $10 million award for lost profits damages.  On appeal, however, the Fourth Circuit found that the “standard applied by the magistrate judge constituted an abuse of discretion, because a party is not required to preserve all its documents but rather only documents that the party knew or should have known were, or could be, relevant to the parties’ dispute.”  Accordingly, the circuit court vacated the lower court’s profit-based damages award and remanded the case for a determination regarding: 1) when Defendants should have known that the at-issue evidence  (original invoices) could be relevant; 2) when the at-issue evidence was destroyed; and 3) whether a new trial on lost profits damages was necessary.

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