Case Summaries – Page 124 – Electronic Discovery Law

Johnson v. Allstate Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., No. C 14-5064, 2014 WL 7377198 (W.D. Wash. Dec. 29, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Addressing Defendant?s claims that the emails of thirty-four employees previously identified by Defendant as potentially having responsive information were not reasonably accessible, the court indicated that Defendant?s declaration in support of that claim was ?of limited value? where it made only broad claims regarding the potential time it could take to search each computer but failed to account for the actual time taken to search the computers of the four primary adjusters for a prior production but acknowledged it was ?extremely difficult? to conclude that all thirty-four employees had ?significant, relevant discoverable emails or documents? and thus ordered the search and production of one custodian revealed in deposition to have been involved in the at-issue denial of coverage and that Plaintiff could choose 10 additional employees? computers to be searched based on Defendant?s court-ordered description of each employees? job and the type of documents they were likely to maintain

Nature of Case: Insurance litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Chavis Van & Storage of Myrtle Beach v. United Van Lines LLC, No. 4:11CV1299 RWS, 2014 WL 1729152 (E.D. Mo. May 1, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Reducing defendants taxable costs, the court indicated that recovery for bates labeling, converting to pdf for attorney review and redaction, and de-duplication was not allowed and significantly reduced the remaining identified costs, including those for ?processing? and ?preparing? data absent a sufficient explanation of what was meant by those terms

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Lozoya v. Allphase Landscape Constr., Inc., No. 12-cv-1048-JLK, 2014 WL 222326 (D. Colo. Jan. 21, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court ordered production of ESI from plaintiff?s girlfriend?s computer upon finding that the information, including when she searched for an attorney for the plaintiff and the search terms she employed, was relevant to the litigation and ordered the production of plaintiff?s ESI, despite his claims that his computers were ?broken? absent factual support for the contention that the data was not accessible; court further ordered production of all relevant ?phone ESI? in plaintiff?s possession

Nature of Case: Employment litigation (wage and hour)

Electronic Data Involved: ESI on plaintiff’s computers and on third party’s computer, “Phone ESI”

In re Transpacific Passenger Air Transp. Antitrust Litig., No. C-07-05634 CRB (DMR), 2014 WL 709555 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 24, 2014

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs’ motion to quash defendant airline’s subpoena to third party Airline Tariff Publication Company (“ATPCO”) which sought production of documents and ESI previously obtained by plaintiffs from ATPCO, search terms and parameters used by plaintiffs, and communications between ATPCO and plaintiffs’ expert, where defendant had chose not to collaborate with plaintiffs and other defendants to identify relevant information, formulate search strings and download the results pursuant to a cost-sharing agreement, and parties’ stipulation regarding experts protected the requested materials from discovery

Nature of Case: Antitrust litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Historical airfare pricing data

Volcan Group Inc. v. Omnipoint Commc?ns, Inc., 552 Fed. Appx. 644 (9th Cir. Jan. 9, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: District court did not abuse discretion in dismissal of Plaintiff?s breach of contract action where Plaintiff failed to preserve (i.e., spoliated) relevant materials and where the record also suggested that certain evidence had been falsified

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, promissory estoppel, unjust enrichment

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Dewhurst v. Century Aluminum Co., No. 2:09-1546, 2014 WL 555164 (S.D. W. Va. Feb. 12, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied defendant’s motion for spoliation sanctions based on union’s failure to preserve evidence, noting that union appeared to have been diligent in trying to gather up relevant documents once litigation commenced, there was no way to determine when the missing records were destroyed, and union was autonomous organization and none of the existing plaintiffs shouldered any blame for the union’s negligence

Nature of Case: Class action regarding defendant’s obligation to restore certain retiree healthcare benefits

Electronic Data Involved: E-mail and other ESI

Network Cargo Sys. U.S.A., Inc. v. Pappas, No. 13 C 9171, 2014 WL 1856773 (N.D. Ill. May 7, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where e-discovery consultant jointly retained by parties reported that three previously undisclosed flash drives had been connected to former employee’s personal computers during the relevant time period, court agreed with plaintiff that consultant should be allowed to image and review the three flash drives but ruled that costs of such review would be borne by plaintiff given the likely limited usefulness of the search

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of confidential information

Electronic Data Involved: Flash drives and other electronic devices used by former employee

EEOC v. Suntrust Bank, No. 8:12-cv-1325-T-33MAP, 2014 WL 1364982 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 7, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied without prejudice EEOC?s motion for an adverse inference jury instruction, indicating it may consider this ruling at a later date if presented with further evidence tending to show bad faith conduct by SunTrust; court would permit the EEOC to introduce evidence at trial concerning SunTrust?s video surveillance system, SunTrust?s policies relating to use and preservation of video surveillance footage, and SunTrust?s failure to preserve video footage at issue, where Suntrust isolated and carefully reviewed tapes to investigate (and partly validate) one plaintiff?s claims, but then put that same footage back into circulation to be taped over and did not retain or preserve the footage

Nature of Case: Sexual harassment

Electronic Data Involved: Video surveillance footage from bank’s security cameras

E.A.F.F. v. United States, No. SA-08-CA-124-XR, 2014 WL 1652598 (W.D. Tex. Apr. 23, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Rejecting plaintiff’s challenge to $65,000 for scanning expenses as taxable costs where discovery production was voluminous and parties had agreed that defendants would produce their responsive documents in electronic format, court ruled that scanning of documents to create digital duplicates amounted to “making copies of materials” under Section 1920(4); however, because invoices indicated that requested costs may include more than just scanning, court would allow defendants to supplement bill of costs to specifically identify which portion of invoice was for scanning/making copies or to clarify that the entire cost was, in fact, for scanning/making copies

Nature of Case: Unaccompanied alien minors brought action against Office of Refugee Resettlement alleging they were physically and sexually abused while in detention awaiting final adjudication of their immigration status

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic images of paper documents

Am. Health, Inc. v. Chevere, No. 12-1678 (PG), 2014 WL 3955906 (PG), 2014 WL 3955906 (D.P.R. Aug. 14, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court found that entry of default was too harsh a punishment and that lesser sanction such as an adverse inference instruction was available and adequate to temper prejudice to plaintiffs resulting from individual defendant?s admitted deletion of e-mails containing plaintiff?s confidential information; court further ordered defendants to pay plaintiffs $2,500 for attorneys? fees no later than August 22, 2014

Nature of Case: Claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Stored Wire and Electronic Communications and Transactional Records Access Act, and the Wire and Electronic Communications and Interception of Oral Communications Act

Electronic Data Involved: Email attachments

Catagory:Case Summaries