eDiscovery Import – Page 188 – Electronic Discovery Law

Truckstop.net, LLC, v. Sprint Corp., 547 F.3d 1065 (9th Cir. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where defendant appealed District Court order for plaintiff to return inadvertently produced email and for privileged portions of the email to be redacted, Ninth Circuit dismissed appeal for lack of jurisdiction pursuant to the collateral order doctrine where the alleged harm from disclosure had already occurred and where defendant did not allege additional harm

Nature of Case: Contract dispute

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged email

Oldenkamp v. United Am. Ins. Co., 2008 WL 4682226 (N.D. Okla. Oct. 21, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel where plaintiff failed to offer any evidence that requested emails existed and where defendant offered sworn testimony that all responsive document had been produced; court also denied plaintiffs? motion for spoliation sanctions where plaintiff offered no evidence that allegedly spoliated materials existed; where defendant indicated its inability to locate a particular document but produced audio tapes detailing the contents, court declined to impose sanctions because plaintiffs offered no evidence of defendant?s intentional destruction of evidence and because plaintiffs suffered no prejudice in light of alternative source for requested information

Nature of Case: Litigation concerning insurance company’s denial of benefits

Electronic Data Involved: Email, ESI

Pure Power Boot Camp v. Warrior Fitness Boot Camp, 587 F. Supp. 2d 548 (S.D.N.Y. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Pursuant to its inherent equitable authority, where plaintiff accessed one defendant?s personal email accounts without authorization and attempted to use emails therein during litigation and where such activity would be a violation of The Stored Communications Act, court precluded plaintiffs? use of those emails for all but impeachment purposes; where plaintiffs initially produced wrongfully obtained emails with their print dates obscured but defendants later gained access to original form, court declined to impose spoliation sanctions

Nature of Case: Breach of fiduciary duties, trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Ashman v. Solectron Corp., 2008 WL 5071101 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 1, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court ordered plaintiff to return documents gained through illegal access to defendants’ computer system and ordered plaintiff to pay defendants’ expenses related to its motion but declined to dismiss the case or preclude use of documents received in ?normal course? of discovery where policy favors resolution on the merits, where most documents would have been produced in discovery, where improper conduct was not ongoing, and where preclusion of evidence would have provided windfall advantage to defendants

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Gateway Senior Hous., Ltd. v. MMA Fin., Inc., 2008 WL 5142152 (E.D. Tex. Dec. 4, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court found that defendant waived attorney-client privilege as to specific emails where defendant failed to establish privileged nature of the communications and where defendant failed to properly identify the emails on a privilege log prior to their inadvertent production; court ordered adverse instruction in favor of plaintiffs as spoliation sanction where defendant failed to produce highly relevant hard drives for inspection and where defendants? proffered explanations for the destruction of those hard drives was contradicted and ?lame? in light of defendants? knowledge of their relevance and its duty to preserve

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, emails, hard drives

Cumberland Truck Equip. Co. v. Detroit Diesel Corp., 2008 WL 5111894 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 2, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where plaintiffs admitted to deletion of electronic data after failing to disable auto-delete function but where deletion was not intentional and where defendants failed to show more than a suspicion of prejudice, court declined to issue order for plaintiffs to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed; court issued warning to plaintiffs that any future loss of data, whether negligent or otherwise, was ?not acceptable? and ordered measures taken against further deletion

Nature of Case: Price fixing

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email

U.S. v. Latham, 2008 WL 5146526 (D. Nev. Dec. 5, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court denied defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to preserve exculpatory evidence where defendant alleged government spoliation of potentially exculpatory hard drives but failed to show that the unavailable evidence possessed exculpatory value that was apparent prior to destruction and that he could not obtain comparable evidence by other means and where defendant failed to adequately support an inference that evidence was destroyed in bad faith

Nature of Case: Recieving and transporting child pornography

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives

Remedy Intelligent Staffing, Inc. v. Metro. Employment Corp. of Am., 2008 WL 5156609 (D. Mass. Dec. 5, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court declined to order preliminary injunction requiring defendants to image hard drives for production and to produce copies of all electronic files related to the action where plaintiff alleged that defendants destroyed ESI on plaintiff?s server but did not state who deleted it or how, and where plaintiff failed to show the information was not available elsewhere or that ample protection was not provided by the preservation obligations under the Federal Rules or the rules of the American Arbitration Association

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, hard drives

Rhoads Indus., Inc. v. Bldg. Materials Corp. of Am., 254 F.R.D. 238 (E.D. Pa. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court clarified prior sanctions order and held that where top email in string was not properly and timely logged, it must be produced, however, properly and timely logged underlying messages in string were protected but only to extent that they were ?identical replicas of the version of the message that was logged?; where top message was properly logged, privilege extended to properly logged underlying messages in string but any messages not properly logged were ordered produced

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Arista Records, LLC v. Does 1-4, 589 F. Supp. 2d 151 (D. Conn. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs? motion to for leave to take expedited discovery from defendants? internet service providers (two universities) for purpose of identifying Doe defendants where information sought was necessary for continued prosecution of the litigation and where narrowly tailored requests would reduce if not eliminate any prejudice to defendants; court limited discovery to defendants? directory information and MAC (media access control) addresses and provided defendants opportunity to object

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ISP directory information, MAC addresses

Author - eDiscovery Import