eDiscovery Import – Page 209 – Electronic Discovery Law

Whitney v. Wurtz, 2007 WL 521231 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 15, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered plaintiffs to provide a separate disk for each plaintiff’s responses to defendant?s request for production, and instructed (1) that ?electronic documents shall be produced as they are kept in the usual course of business or Plaintiffs shall organize and label the documents to correspond with Veriscape’s requests? and (2) that electronic documents be produced without the use of any compression software and in the format requested by defendant at the hearing

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, termination, and deceit

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents produced on computer disk

Potter v. Havlicek, 2007 WL 539534 (S.D. Ohio Feb. 14, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Although court denied motion for preliminary injunction forbidding defendant from using, disclosing or destroying emails and other ESI described by defendant as evidence he would present if tangentially related divorce case went to trial, court ordered defendant to produce subject emails and other ESI within 10 days

Nature of Case: Alleged violations of Electronic Communications Privacy Act and Stored Communications Act, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress

Electronic Data Involved: Emails and other ESI described by defendant in affidavit in tangentially related divorce case

ATM Exchange, Inc. v. Visa Int’l Serv. Ass’n, 2007 WL 1674230 (S.D. Ohio June 7, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered defendant to provide verified discovery response indicating that it had produced all relevant and responsive documents and/or information collected from imaged hardrive of key player’s computer, and to provide verified discovery response stating whether or not it had an email document retention policy in place during relevant time period

Nature of Case: Negligent misrepresentation and fraud

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Hudson Global Res. Holdings, Inc. v. Hill, 2007 WL 1545678 (W.D. Pa. May 25, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Granting in part and denying in part plaintiff’s motion for TRO/preliminary injunction, court also ordered counsel to confer and suggest within ten days an agreeable method by which plaintiff, through its computer forensics expert or otherwise, may access and permanently delete or retrieve its information from defendant’s portable external hard drive and personal computer which were in court’s custody

Nature of Case: Plaintiff alleged claims of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of trade secrets and unfair competition against former employee

Electronic Data Involved: Business data; laptop and portable hard drive

Glass v. Beer, 2007 WL 1456059 (E.D. Cal. May 17, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendants submitted evidence under penalty of perjury explaining reasons why they were able to locate only two of the four requested videotapes despite three searches, and defendant submitted no evidence that defendants had tampered with evidence, that the tape was intentionally destroyed, or that defendants were lying, court denied motion to compel and for sanctions

Nature of Case: State prisoner asserted civil rights claims claiming use of excessive force

Electronic Data Involved: Videotapes

In re Maura, 842 N.Y.S.2d 851 (N.Y. Sur. Ct. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered that non-party law firm’s hard drive be imaged, and that law firm (not plaintiff) would be entitled to select computer forensic expert to conduct cloning process; court further ordered parties to confer on details and set basic timeframe for cloning and review of material, and ruled that plaintiff would be responsible for costs associated with search and production

Nature of Case: Proceeding to determine the validity of a right of election

Electronic Data Involved: Law firm computer

Flying J Inc. v. TA Operating Corp., 2007 WL 2220581 (D. Utah July 30, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendant objected that requests for production of certain financial data sought to force them to create documents that did not exist, but did not assert that requested data was not readily accessible, and plaintiffs argued that they sought production of already-existing data (whether or not such data was stored in electronic form), court found that requests sought relevant information and ordered defendant ?to produce already-existing data, whether in raw or synthesized form,? responsive to the requests

Nature of Case: Antitrust litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Financial and sales data

Tenet Healthsystem Desert, Inc. v. Fortis Ins. Co., Inc., 520 F. Supp. 2d 1184 C.D. Cal. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment, court drew adverse inference from plaintiff’s loss of records, “i.e., that the records from Mr. Wyatt’s May, 2002 hospital visit are unfavorable to Plaintiff and, therefore, suggest Mr. Wyatt had a pre-existing condition during the October and December, 2002 medical treatment,” as an appropriate sanction due to the prejudice their loss caused defendant in the litigation

Nature of Case: Medical provider sued insurer for failure to pay for services provided to insured

Electronic Data Involved: Medical records relating to insured’s earlier emergency room visit

Martinez v. Gen. Motors Corp., 2007 WL 1429632 (Mich. Ct. App. May 15, 2007) (Unpublished opinion)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Trial court did not abuse its discretion by declining to sanction GM for destruction of “superfluous and irrelevant computer evidence” on computer hard drive, since the information on the hard drive would not have increased or decreased the probability that plaintiff was involved in sending the inappropriate emails at issue in the case, and emails had already been discovered

Nature of Case: Wrongful discharge

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive

Omax Corp. v. Flow Int’l Corp., 2007 WL 1830631 (W.D. Wash. June 22, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Even if database was incomplete and potentially unhelpful, court found that plaintiff was nonetheless entitled to information contained in the database since it did have some value and was relevant to plaintiff?s damages case, and its production did not appear to involved undue cost or complexity

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Database

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