eDiscovery Import – Page 20 – Electronic Discovery Law

L-3 Commcn?s Corp. v. Sparton Corp., 313 F.R.D. 661 (M.D. Fla. 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court addressed topic of key word searching and sustained in part and overruled in part Defendant?s objections to the Magistrate Judge?s order to run all searches proposed by the Plaintiff where certain terms were vague or duplicative; court laid out framework for resolving disputes regarding search terms deemed overly burdensome, including a requirement that the parties confer in good faith before coming to the court

Nature of Case: Claims alleging defect in m

Electronic Data Involved: ESI (search terms at issue)

Shaw v. Experian Info. Sol., Inc., 2015 WL 1260552 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 18, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court granted Plaintiffs? motion to compel production of defendant database records. Defendant argued that the harm to third parties from disclosure of personal information contained in the requested data outweighed the relevance of the information to plaintiffs? claim, and that the preparation, review, and production presented an undue burden. Finding that the requested data was highly relevant to the class certification requirements, the court concluded plaintiffs? need significantly outweighed privacy concerns given the option of producing subject to protective order and Plaintiffs? agreement to accept data with personal information redacted. Nor was the court persuaded by defendant?s burden argument, finding the estimate and explanation from plaintiffs? database consultant ?more persuasive, appropriate, and accurate? than that provided by defendant – particularly in light of modifications Plaintiffs made to their request after defendant clarified how the data was stored in their systems. The court also noted that defendant?s briefing failed to allege any facts supporting its assertion that the information was more readily available from other sources.

Nature of Case: Class Action; Violation of Fair Credit Reporting Act

Electronic Data Involved: Database

United States v. Zaragoza-Moreira, 2015 WL 1219535 (C.A.9 (Cal.) Mar. 18, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court reversed and remanded case to the district court with directions to dismiss indictment in this criminal case after finding that Homeland Security Investigations agent acted in bad faith and in violation of defendant?s due process rights in failing to preserve video footage of defendant the agent knew to be of exculpatory value to the defendant, which the court found was established by a transcript of the agent?s interview with the defendant. The court also noted that the government?s failure to take action in response to a letter from defense counsel to the Assistant United States Attorney requesting preservation of the video tapes related to the defendant?s arrest or events leading to the arrest was ?particularly disturbing,? but declined to decide whether that failure also constituted bad faith given that they had already found bad faith on the part of the HSI agent.

Nature of Case: Criminal

Electronic Data Involved: Video footage

Document Security Systems, Inc. v. Coupons.com, Inc., 2015 WL 1189661 (W.D.N.Y. Mar. 16, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Cost of converting native email and other native files into imaged format for purposes of production was one of many items considered by the court in defendant?s application for costs following grant of summary judgment. Despite plaintiffs argument that the requested expenses should only be approved if they pertain to documents actually produced to Plaintiff, court was satisfied with defendant?s explanation that the costs were ?actually and necessarily incurred in responding to the Plaintiff?s discovery demands? and allowed recovery of defendant?s tiffing costs, even though Defendant could not ?state with certainty whether every document that was converted was actually turned over to Plaintiff as being responsive to a particular demand.?

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Imaged native files

Dekeyser v. Thyssenkrupp Waupaca Inc., No. 08-c-0488, 2015 WL 10937559 (E.D. Wis. Apr. 10, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where Defendant initially produced material safety data sheets in TIFF format and later in hard copy but Plaintiff complained they were ?extremely difficult? to utilize because of the number of duplicates, the ?absence of organization? and the small font size (despite having relied upon the productions for purposes of summary judgment), court was swayed by Plaintiff?s expert?s articulation regarding the lack of burden rather than Defendant?s vague attestations of the burden of reproduction and, reasoning that Plaintiff had not produced all of the information requested in its initial production (e.g., certain data fields from the database in which the material safety data sheets were maintained) and that the prior productions were in a form that degraded searchability, ordered reproduction of the requested information i.e., ?all data and information maintained in [Defendant?s] databases relating to the MSDS and all data inputted by [Defendant] concerning the same, in an electronic, organized and usable format.?

Nature of Case: FLSA

Electronic Data Involved: Contents of database

Weidenhamer v. Expedia, Inc., No. C14-1239RAJ, 2015 WL 7158212 (W.D. Wash. Nov. 13, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel Defendant to search for documents from non-U.S. points of sale where the court found such documents would be of ?marginal relevance at best? and that the burden and expense of production outweighed the benefit, noting that such production would ?vastly expand? an already voluminous production, would entail additional translation costs, and would ?potentially require the involvement of additional entities or foreign law??; court also declined to compel Defendant to conduct searches of Account Representatives for 170 different airlines where Plaintiff failed to establish that the expanded search would reveal additional relevant information and noting that the productions of third party air carriers had not revealed any ?glaring deficiencies? in Defendant?s production

Nature of Case: Class action

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Hespe v. City of Chicago, No. 13 C 7998, 2016 WL 7240754 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 15, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where a magistrate judge found the requested inspection of Plaintiff?s devices was not proportional to the needs of the case ?especially? in light of Plaintiff?s privacy and confidentiality interests despite the production of thousands of text messages by Plaintiffs? mother (which Plaintiff confirmed she had sent to her for safekeeping) and alleged inconsistent testimony from the Plaintiff, the District Court Judge overruling Defendants? objections acknowledged the need for caution in allowing such inspections (including by citing the 2006 Advisory Committee Notes to Fed. R. Civ. P. 34) absent evidence of a responding party?s failure as to its discovery obligations or a ?substantiated connection? between the at-issue device and the claims of the case and concluded that neither had been established in the present case

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, text messages

Evans v. Quintiles Transnational Corp., No. 4:13-cv-00987-RBH, 2015 WL 9455580 (D.S.C. Dec. 23, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Reasoning that the ?issues of whether the alleged computer file ever existed and, if it did, whether and when Quintiles should have reasonably known that the evidence may be relevant to the anticipated litigation, and whether Quintiles willfully lost or destroyed the computer file rests on credibility determinations that this Court is not in a position make at this stage? and noting the ?disputed facts at issue,? the court indicated its inclination to ?to provide the jury with appropriate guidelines and instructions so that they, after hearing all of the evidence, can resolve any credibility questions and make a determination, first, as to whether the alleged computer file even existed on Plaintiff?s computer, whether and when Quintiles should have reasonably known that the evidence may be relevant to anticipated litigations, and, if so, whether Quintiles willfully lost or destroyed the file? and invited the parties to submit proposed jury instructions

Nature of Case: Wrongful Termination

Electronic Data Involved: Contents of laptop

Robertson v. People Magazine, No. 14 Civ. 6759 (PAC), 2015 WL 9077111 (S.D. N.Y. Dec. 16, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court addressed motion to compel and held that requests were burdensome, disproportionate to the needs of the case, and irrelevant to Plaintiff?s claims reasoning that Plaintiff?s requests for ?nearly unlimited access to People?s editorial files? would ?extend far beyond the scope of Plaintiff?s claims and would significantly burden Defendants?

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

In re Lithium Ion Batteries Antitrust Litig., No. 13-MD-02420 YGR (DMR), 2015 WL 833681 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 24, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where parties disagreed regarding incorporation of ?randomized qualitative sampling? to determine the effectiveness of search terms into their Search Term Protocol because Defendant objected to Plaintiffs? access to non-responsive, irrelevant documents, court approved its use, arguing that it was intended to prevent the production of irrelevant information; in recognition of Defendants? concerns, court noted Plaintiff?s agreement that Defendant ?may review the random qualitative sample and remove any irrelevant document(s) from the sample for any reason, provided they replace the document(s) with an equal number of randomly generated document(s)?, ordered that the irrelevant documents and any attorney notes regarding the sample be destroyed within a time specified, and ordered that access to the random sample would be limited as specified

Nature of Case: Antitrust

Electronic Data Involved: ESI (search terms at issue)

Author - eDiscovery Import