Case Summaries – Page 166 – Electronic Discovery Law

Ford Motor Co. v. Mich. Consol. Gas Co., No. 08-CV-13503, 2013 WL 5435184 (E.D. Mich. Sep. 27, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Magistrate judge evaluated plaintiffs? work product, attorney-client privilege, joint defense and common interest privilege claims, set out various findings and guidelines, and ordered plaintiffs to update their respective privilege logs and produce certain documents; magistrate judge further ruled that, because Ford had earlier produced voluminous documents as they were kept in the usual course of business, it had no further duty under Rule 34 or otherwise to organize and label the documents to correspond with individual requests for production

Nature of Case: Current and former property owners sued former operator of manufactured gas plant

Electronic Data Involved: Environmental investigation, remedy assessment and allocation related documents

Keenan v. Int?l Assoc. of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, No. 2:10-cv-277-GZS, 2013 WL 1314302 (D. Me. Mar. 28, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Court denied motion for spoliation sanctions for plaintiff?s disposal of personal computer that allegedly crashed where the evidence indicated no bad faith (plaintiff admitted that disposal of the computer was an error due to his own ignorance) and where defendants prejudice was limited in light of other evidence and their ability to explore plaintiff?s truthfulness regarding his assertions that he filed a timely appeal (a copy of which was allegedly lost when the computer crashed and was disposed of) at trial; although court declined to exclude evidence (the requested sanction) it left open the possibility that other sanctions may be imposed ?at a later stage?

Electronic Data Involved: Personal Computer

Fairview Ritz Corp. v. Borough of Fairview, No. 09-875 (JLL), 2013 WL 5435060 (D.N.J. Sept. 27, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Upon motion for reconsideration based on Plaintiff?s location and production of a document previously found to have been spoliated, court found that an adverse inference and monetary sanctions predicated on the finding of spoliation were no longer appropriate but ordered Plaintiff?s counsel to show cause why monetary sanctions should not be imposed for the delay and Defendants? protracted efforts to procure the document?s production

Electronic Data Involved: Single document (ESI)

Slovin v. Target Corp., No. 12 CV 863(HB), 2013 WL 840865 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 7, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Court found Target was at least grossly negligent for failing to preserve all portions of relevant surveillance footage (capturing Plaintiff?s fall and the surrounding circumstances) and thus imposed an adverse inference and monetary sanctions, but declined to strike Target?s answer or preclude use of the at-issue video excerpts and photographs

Nature of Case: Personal injury/slip and fall

Electronic Data Involved: Surveillance footage

United States ex rel Becker v. Tools & Metals, Inc., Nos. 3:05-CV-0627-L, 3:05-CV-2301-L, 2013 WL 1293818 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 31, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Court addressed at length the recovery of costs related to electronic discovery in action alleging violations of False Claims Act and affirmed recovery of costs, although with some adjustments, for ?uploading and creating a search index? (done by vendor), electronic hosting costs, and forensic imaging, but did not allow recovery of costs related to vendor?s efforts to repair broken or corrupt files where asking for reproduction of those files would have been free

Nature of Case: False Claims Act

Electronic Data Involved: Costs related to electronic discovery

Hull v. WTI, Inc.,—S.E.2d—, 2013 WL 2996191 (Ga. Ct. App. June 18, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Where defendants produced 156,000 documents as they were kept in the ordinary course of business but where the documents were insufficiently organized and only the documents? indexes and not the documents themselves were text searchable, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in holding that the production was not consistent with Defendants? discovery obligations; appellate court noted that trial court did not hold that parties are prohibited from producing documents as kept in the ordinary course of business but rather than in this instance, ?under these circumstances,? the production was not appropriate

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, trade secret misappropriations, and “other business tort claims” and counterclaims

Electronic Data Involved: Scanned hard copy and miscellaneous ESI (e.g., email)

SJS Distribution Sys., Inc. v. Sam?s East, Inc., No. 11 CV 1229(WFK)(RML), 2013 WL 5596010 (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 11, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: For Plaintiff?s failure to preserve potentially relevant emails and other ESI (including the failure to issue a litigation hold) despite its duty to preserve (which was triggered upon its discovery of alleged packaging discrepancies in diaper shipments delivered by the defendant), the court declined to preclude Plaintiff from offering certain evidence, noting the lack of bad faith, but ordered an adverse inference stating that Plaintiff negligently deleted relevant emails that would have been favorable to the defendant and for Plaintiff to pay Defendant?s attorney?s fees and costs associated with the motion for sanctions

Nature of Case: Claims related to packaging discrepancies in diapers delivered to Plaintiff that were intended for resale

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email

CBT Flint Partners LLC v. Return Path LLC, 737 F.3d 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Court addressed recovery of costs related to electronic discovery pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1920(4) ?applying the law of the regional circuit (in this case, the Eleventh Circuit)”

Nature of Case: Patent Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs related to electronic discovery

Home Gambling Network, Inc. v. Piche, No. 2:05-cv-00610-DAE-VCF, 2013 WL 5491952 (D. Nev. Sep. 30, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: District court adopted magistrate judge?s report and recommendation that plaintiffs? motion for terminating sanctions, based in part on defendants? botched production of database, be denied in light of additional evidence (consisting of supplemental report by defense expert stating that database was not corrupt but merely ?offline,? expert testimony and in-court demonstration of operation of database, and information regarding a prior database crash) presented by the parties after the district court vacated different magistrate judge’s report and recommendation that plaintiffs? motion for terminating sanctions be granted, that defendants? answer be stricken and that a default judgment be entered against defendants; in light of additional evidence, magistrate judge found that (1) defendants did produce a mirror image of the database as ordered by the court and there was no basis for sanctions, and (2) something done to plaintiffs’ copy of the database after it was provided to plaintiffs caused the error message

Nature of Case: Patent infringement and various state-law claims

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, database

First Fin. Bank N. A. v Bauknecht, No. 12-CV-1509, 2013 WL 3833039 (C.D. Ill. July 23, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Magistrate Judge granted a motion to compel a search of all of defendant?s email accounts , not limited to the 4 specific individuals listed in the Rule 26(a) disclosures, reasoning that the 26(a) disclosure ?only meant? that the individuals identified may be used to support defendant?s claims or defense and that defendant did not indicate that the specified employees were the only ones to have responsive documents. The court denied Plaintiff?s request to compel Defendant to conduct separate searches of its email, one by ?recipient/sender? and one ?by subject matter? using specified search terms and reasoned that the latter search was broader, but indicated that Plaintiff could pay for the second search. Having declined to limit the accounts to be searched, the court acknowledged the likelihood that accounts unlikely to have relevant information would be included, and shifted 25% of the cost to the requesting party (Plaintiff).

Nature of Case: Breach of Employment Contract

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Catagory:Case Summaries