eDiscovery Import – Page 114 – Electronic Discovery Law

Cute v. ICC Capital Mgmt., Inc., No. 6:09-cv-1761-Orl-22DAB, 2011 WL 3222133 (M.D. Fla. July 22, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Court disallowed taxation of costs ?paid to third party vendors for the processing and production of 11,447 pages of electronic documents? where ?a charge for a third party vendor of this size should have been the subject of specific good faith discussions between counsel before being incurred if ICC expected to tax such as part of costs at the conclusion to the litigation.?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Paradigm Alliance, Inc. v. Celeritas Techs., LLC, No. 07-1121-EFM, 2011 WL 3849724 (D. Kan. Aug. 30. 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where plaintiff was required to scan electronically produced documents ?using OCR to convert them into a searchable format to make them useable? and argued that such conversion was ?reasonably necessary? and the modern equivalent of ?fees for exemplification and the costs of making copies of any materials where the copies are necessarily obtained for use in the case,? the court agreed and allowed the costs

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

E.E.O.C. v. DHL Express, No. 10 C 6139, 2011 WL 6825516 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 28, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where DHL produced ?28,000 spreadsheets worth of information? with an index containing metadata for each spreadsheet and any emails to which the spreadsheets were attached but where plaintiff nonetheless claimed that the burden of sifting through the spreadsheets was unduly onerous and sought to compel production of information to identify each spreadsheet and that defendant organize them according to request, the court noted its authority under Rule 34 to impose requirements ?different from those in the rule? and ordered defendant to identify which request each spreadsheet or group of spreadsheets was responsive to and to provide an explanation for spreadsheets not attached to an email

Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheets

Alers v. City of Philadelphia, No. 08-4745, 2011 WL 6000602 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 29, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where defendants inadvertently produced a privileged memorandum as part of a multi-page document amid more than 2000 pages of document production and where they requested return of the document four days after learning of its disclosure at a deposition (where there was no objection made), the court found that privilege was not waived (despite defendants? choice to attach the memorandum to a publically available motion)

Electronic Data Involved: Inadvertently produced memorandum

Commonwealth v. Koch, 39 A.3d 996 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Conviction reversed and case remanded where trial court abused its discretion by admitting text messages found on the defendant?s cell phone without providing any evidence to establish that the defendant was the author of the at-issue messages, particularly where several messages referred to the defendant in the third person and ?and thus, were clearly not written by her?; court also found the text messages constituted inadmissible hearsay

Nature of Case: Drug conviction

Electronic Data Involved: Text messages

Pac. Coast Steel v. Leany, No. 2:09-cv-2190-KJD-PAL, 2011 WL 4704217 (D. Nev. Oct. 4, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: [This amended order corrects an omission to the original order, Docket # 335] Where plaintiffs ?simply overlooked? and thus inadvertently produced 3 privileged documents along with 2.3 million other pages, despite conducting ?multiple? privilege reviews and where plaintiff immediately objected to the use of such documents upon their presentation at deposition and thereafter sought their return before the court, the court found that privilege was not waived

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Tibble v. Edison Int?l, No. CV 07-5359, 2011 WL 3759927 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 22, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Court addressed defendants? request for ?costs for utilizing the expertise of computer technicians in unearthing the vast amount of computerized data sought by Plaintiffs in discovery? and reasoned that ?[c]ourts have found that costs such as those sought by Defendants are recoverable under ? 1920(4)? and that defendants costs were not incurred for mere convenience but rather were ?necessarily incurred in responding to Plaintiffs? discovery requests? and concluded the costs were reasonable; the court found the request to be moot, however, where defendants sought costs ?only to the extent Plaintiffs receive attorneys fees? and no such fees were awarded

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Govan Brown & Assoc., Ltd. v. Does 1&2, 2010 WL 3076295 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 6, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. ? 1782, court granted in part plaintiff?s application to conduct discovery in a foreign proceeding and ordered that plaintiff may serve upon Google, Inc. a subpoena seeking the IP address associated with an account from which an allegedly defamatory email was sent, but denied the application to the extent it sought to serve a subpoena for information related to an email sent from a separate account that merely read, ?Have a nice day? and which could not form the basis for a cause of action under the laws of Canda; to the extent the IP addresses for the two email accounts was the same, however, Google would be allowed to disclosure that information

Brown v. Kia Motors Corp., 2010 WL 135127 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 9. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court declined to order adverse inference for the destruction of plaintiff?s wife?s (a non-party) camera and memory card and plaintiff?s resulting inability to provide the ?digital files? created when the relevant photographs were taken where ?the camera and memory stick [did] not appear to have ever been within plaintiff?s control? and where ?it [did] not appear that the camera and memory stick were suppressed or withheld, but rather both were destroyed in an accident? and thus the elements necessary for an adverse inference were not met

Nature of Case: Product liability

Electronic Data Involved: Digital files related to photographs alleged to be relevant to “the condition of the seatlbelt”

Wright v. City of Salisbury, 2010 WL 126011 (E.D. Mo. Jan. 7, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff purposefully arranged a conversation with the mayor, recorded the conversation, preserved the portion relevant to his lawsuit on his website server and then lost the remaining, irrelevant portion as the result of problems with his computer, court denied defendants? motion for spoliation sanctions where defendants failed to establish plaintiff?s bad faith or any prejudice resulting from the loss and where the court found plaintiff?s uncontroverted explanation for the loss ?reasonable and believable?

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Audio tape

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