Case Summaries – Page 112 – Electronic Discovery Law

LBI, Inc. v. Sparks, No. KNLCV126018984S, 2015 WL 6144112 (Conn. Super. Ct. Sept. 18, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where Defendant sought to avoid production or allocate costs related to the production of allegedly inaccessible information based on the alleged cost and burdens related to processing and review but acknowledged that some of the ?raw data associated with the documents? was accessible, the court concluded that the affidavit from an attorney for the defendant?s counsel who had not ?attested to having a technical understanding of, or background in, electronically stored data? was not by itself ?enough evidence? to demonstrate that the at-issue ESI was not reasonably accessible and ordered defendant to submit additional evidence re: whether the information was stored in a ?readily usable format?

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, breach of duty of loyalty, misappropriation of trade secrets and tortious interference with a business relationship

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

A.M.castle & Co. v. Byrne, No. H-13-2960, 2015 WL 4756928 (S.D. Tex. Aug. 12, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff sought ?physical access? to Defendant?s electronic devices based on the belief that Plaintiff failed to perform a thorough search, the court overruled objections to denial of the motion where Plaintiff failed to show that Defendant was in possession of any of Plaintiff?s company documents and where Defendant responded adequately to discovery, including hiring an outside party to perform forensic examination of the computers and utilizing hundreds of search terms proposed by the plaintiff

Nature of Case: Breach of employee confidentiality agreement, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, tortious interference with contract, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, and civil conspiracy

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Adesanya v. Novartis Pharm. Corp., No. 2:13-CV-5564-SDW-SCM, 2015 WL 6122080 (D.N.J. Oct. 16, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court granted motion to compel production of computer used by Plaintiff for her work with Defendant?s competitor upon concluding that its likely contents would ?arguably be relevant to claims that Plaintiff unethically competed with her employer? among other things, and ordered Plaintiff to produce the computer as it had been stored in the ordinary course of business and that the computer be provided to a third-party vendor for imaging and then returned to Plaintiff

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination, “claims that Plaintiff unethically competed with her employer”

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Loop AI Labs Inc. v. Gatti, 2015 WL 1090180 (N.D.Cal. Mar. 12, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion for temporary restraining order which requested restrictions on defendant?s assets, and orders prohibiting destruction of evidence, expediting discovery, allowing plaintiff access to defendant?s email and social media accounts, and for the return of a laptop because the court found plaintiff failed to demonstrate it was likely to suffer irreparable harm absent injunctive relief. In asserting it would suffer irreparable harm, plaintiff argued defendant had demonstrated she would not observe her obligation to preserve evidence, but provided no evidence in support of this claim. Stating that ?suspicions are not a proper ground for injunctive relief,? the Court noted that counsel for each defendant were ?expected to advise their clients of their duty to preserve potentially relevant evidence and the serious consequences for failing to do so,? but denied further relief.

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of Trade Secrets; Breach of Contract

Electronic Data Involved: Email, social media, laptop

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)

Nuvasive, Inc. v. Madsen Med., Inc., No. 13cv2077 BTM(RBB), 2015 WL 4479147 (S.D. Cal. July 22, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: For Defendant?s failure to preserve its employees? text messages, court imposed an adverse inference.

Electronic Data Involved: Text messages

Junious Vital v. Nat?l Oilwell Varco, No. H-12-1357, 2015 WL 40417 (S.D. Tex. Nov. 30, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court sustained objection to award of costs for ?monthly expenses associated with maintaining a database of electronically stored information used to locate, retrieve, and store the plaintiffs? emails.?

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Case Citation: Nucci v. Target Corp., 162 So.3d 146 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2015).

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Circuit Court denied petition for certiorari relief to quash Trial Court order compelling discovery of photographs from Plaintiff?s Facebook account, finding no departure from the essential requirements of law, because the photographs were ?powerfully relevant to the damage issues in the lawsuit,? Plaintiff?s privacy interest in them were minimal because ?photographs posted on a social networking site are neither privileged nor protected by any right of privacy, regardless of any privacy settings that the user may have established,? and the Stored Communications Act ?does not apply to individuals who the use the communications services provided.?

Nature of Case: Personal Injury

Electronic Data Involved: Facebook/social media photographs

Butler v. State of Texas, —S.W.3d—, 2015 WL 1816933 (Tex. Crim. App. Apr. 22, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Highest criminal court in Texas reversed the judgment of the court of appeals that had overturned defendant?s conviction upon concluding that the trial court ?had acted within its discretion? in concluding that the state met its threshold burden of authentication sufficient to admit defendant?s text messages to the victim where authentication can be satisfied by direct or circumstantial evidence and where the victim testified that she knew the messages were from defendant because: he had called from that number in the past, ?the context of the text messages convinced her that the messages were from him,? and ?he actually called her from that same phone number during the course of that very text message exchange?

Nature of Case: Criminal: Kidnapping, assault and related crimes

Electronic Data Involved: Text messages from Defendant to the victim

S.E.C. v. CKB168 Holdings, Ltd., No. 13-CV-5584 (RRM), 2015 WL 4872553 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 7, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Rejecting defendants? explanation that their failure to preserve was the result of a vendor?s refusal to continue assistance for the reason of non-payment, the court found that defendants? had a duty to preserve the information stored on the corporate server that began ?well before the vendor stopped providing services? and reasoned that it was defendants? obligation to ?take ?all necessary steps to guarantee that relevant data was both preserved and produced,?? and also found that defendants were ?at a minimum grossly negligent? for failing to preserve relevant evidence where there was no evidence of efforts to preserve a readable copy of the corporate server nor evidence that they sought modification of the freeze on their assets in able to make payments to the vendor; magistrate judge recommended sanction of an adverse inference

Nature of Case: Securities and Exchange Commission investigation (SEC)

Electronic Data Involved: Contents of corporate server / “back office data”

Catagory:Case Summaries