Key Insight: Magistrate Judge denied motion for spoliation sanctions where plaintiff?s possession of some emails that arguably should have been produced by defendant but were not was ?somewhat probative? but fell short of establishing that other relevant emails were created by defendant and then destroyed; upheld on appeal
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Court granted motion to modify imaging protocol and, after indicating its belief that ?the use of hash values eliminates the need for search limitations,? ordered a protocol modification that included an order for the expert to search for hash values to identify documents present on more than one specified computer/device
Electronic Data Involved: Contents of personal computer, storage devices
Key Insight: Where pursuant to defendant?s document retention policy the form at issue was subject to retention until February 4, 2007, and where defendant provided notice of his claims on February 1, 2007, including his assertions of defendant?s negligence, court found destruction of the relevant form warranted an adverse inference establishing that defendant negligently loaded the trailer involved in the underlying accident
Nature of Case: Negligence
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Where defendant produced privileged emails and sought to preclude waiver arising therefrom, the court rejected defendant?s assertions that it did not intend to waive privilege and, noting the lack of evidence regarding reasonable steps to prevent disclosure and that defendant had not yet requested the return of the documents at issue, found that privilege had been waived
Nature of Case: Employement litigation
Electronic Data Involved: Privileged emails
Key Insight: Where plaintiff produced 64,350 pages of documents in electronic form without identifying what request the documents were responsive to, the court ordered the parties to cooperate to prepare a load file to assist in defendant?s review and ordered defendant to bear the cost and, where the court agreed with defendants that metadata was an ?important source for the defendants as part of the orderly production? of ESI, the court ordered the parties to cooperate ?in completing the metadata requested by the defendants in an appropriate format? and that ?outside costs, if any, other than copying costs for the metadata [would] also be borne by the defendants?
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, metadata
Key Insight: Where non-party OSU represented that responding to a subpoena seeking 6571 documents would require an expenditure of $1,761.24 and 55 hours of in-house counsel?s time, court found the burden was not so undue as to require protection from compliance and, in so finding, noted OSU?s financial interest in the outcome of the litigation, OSU?s close ties to a party in the case, and the amount in controversy of the underlying litigation (many millions of dollars)
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Bureau of Prison?s failure to preserve video footage of hallway outside cell in which the alleged murder of an inmate occurred did not violate the defendant?s constitutional rights where the defendant failed to establish that the footage was materially exculpatory and where the court found the failure to preserve was grossly negligent but not in bad faith
Nature of Case: Defendant charged with murdering another inmate
Electronic Data Involved: Video
Key Insight: Where a store employee attempted to copy the relevant surveillance footage but was unsuccessful and where the failure was not discovered until after the tape had been overwritten, the court found defendant?s loss of the relevant footage was negligent and imposed an adverse inference that the lost footage would have been unfavorable to the defendant
Nature of Case: Slip and fall
Electronic Data Involved: Video
Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs? motion for sanctions and ordered adverse inference for defendants? spoliation where defendants failed to suspend the automatic deletion function on their email which deleted both incoming and outgoing emails after three to four days and where defendants admitted to deleting relevant audio visual content from their server, court also ordered payment of attorney?s fees and costs for defendants? failure to adequately respond to the court?s order for particular information related to their preservation and collection efforts; court rejected assertions that UK Data Protection Act does not permit the retention of personal information and required deletion of emails where defendant offered no evidence that the deleted data contained personal information protected by statute and also rejected the position that the court lacked authority to order production pursuant to the Data Protection Act
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Appellate court affirmed trial court?s exclusion of electronic business records obtained by the plaintiff from the former holders of defendant?s debt, where the trial court properly concluded that the a representative of the plaintiff corporation was not ?the right person to establish the Citibank records? (because he was not familiar with how the records were created or maintained and had no personal knowledge of the entries on the at-issue spreadsheet, for example) and held that ?CPS failed to establish the trustworthiness and reliability of the records sufficiently to permit their admission into evidence? pursuant to Pennsylvania Rule of Evidence 803(6), among other things
Nature of Case: Action to collect credit card debt
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic records
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