Case Summaries – Page 184 – Electronic Discovery Law

Vasudevan Software, Inc. v. Microstrategy, Inc., No. 11-cv-06637-RS-PSG, 2012 WL 5637611 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 15, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Concluding that without more information it could not determine the reasonableness of Plaintiff?s request that Defendant use specific search terms for specified custodians, court ordered Defendant to run a searching using each of Plaintiff?s search terms against five custodians and for the parties to then meet and confer to attempt to reach resolution of their dispute and to return to the court if such resolution could not be reached; parties utilized modified version of Federal Circuit?s Model Order on E-Discovery in Patent Cases

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

United States v. Warner, No. C 11-04181 LB, 2012 WL 6087193 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 6, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where plaintiff sought the government?s production of all communications between himself and the government, all documents concerning its debt collection policies, and information related to the government?s debt collection efforts related to his debt, the court found that the government?s burden argument was unpersuasive where it lacked specific information to support the claim and where, pursuant to the factors in Rule 26(b)(2)(C)(iii), the burden did not outweigh the benefit of the requested discovery

Nature of Case: Student loan debt collection

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

YCB Int?l, Inc. v. UCF Trading Co., No. 09-CV-7221, 2012 WL 3069683 (N.D. Ill. June 12, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where plaintiffs failed to take appropriate steps to preserve information, including failing to suspend their document destruction policy and failing to issue a litigation hold, which resulted in the destruction of relevant documents (but, as the court concluded, not ESI), the court declined to impose drastic sanctions but recommended that the jury be instructed about the failure to preserve (but not instructed to draw any inferences based on that destruction) and recommended that plaintiffs be ordered to pay $1000 to defendant to ?partially compensate? it for attorneys? fees incurred by its motion and to pay $1000 to the court clerk

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Hard copy inspection reports

Roxane Labs. Inc. v. Abbot Labs., No. 2:12-cv-312, 2013 WL 1829569 (S.D. Ohio Apr. 30, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff argued that production of the requested ESI would be unduly burdensome because of the lack of a ?centralized electronic document system? which would require it to ask ?hundreds of employees to search their electronic documents,? and would require ?significant effort to review and produce,? and where Plaintiff also argued that a 30(b)(6) deposition would be a less burdensome method of obtaining discovery, the court noted the lack of information provided to establish the burden alleged and reasoned that ?the mere fact that a party does not have a centralized electronic document system? does not establish undue burden and granted defendant?s motion to compel

Nature of Case: Patent litigation seeking declaratory judgment of invalidity and noninfringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Ramadhan v. Onondaga Cnty., No. 5:10-CV-103, 2012 WL 1900198 (N.D.N.Y. May 24, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Addressing plaintiff?s motion for sanctions court laid out relevant law of spoliation and found that defendants had a duty to preserve relevant evidence but declined to impose sanctions where plaintiff failed to establish that allegedly spoliated emails were relevant; where plaintiff failed to establish that additional SERT video existed or was relevant to his claims; and where plaintiff failed to establish prejudice from unproduced booking video, particularly where he presented conflicting assertions regarding its relevance (where he at once moved to preclude presentation of evidence related to the underlying offense or arrest and sought sanctions for the booking video?s spoliation)

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, video

Crop Data Mgmt. Sys., Inc. v. Software Solutions Integrated LLC, No. 2:11-cv-01437 LKK KJN, 2012 WL 2571201 (E.D. Cal. July 2, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion to compel ?complete forensic imaging and an open ended computer inspection of all of defendants ?electronically stored information?? where the court found the request was overly broad in scope and unduly burdensome and costly in light of the time and cost of the necessary privilege reviews by defendants and other expenses associated with the business interruption of such inspections, where ?plaintiff ha[d] not reasonably attempted to obtain the information it [sought] short of the proposed, burdensome computer investigation,? and where it was ?highly improbable? that the parties could complete the inspection by the close of discovery

Electronic Data Involved: Forensic inspection of computers and servers

Cordance Corp. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 855 F. Supp. 2d 244 (D. Del. Apr. 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Plaintiff objected to Defendant?s bill of costs, including significant costs related to electronic discovery. Citing the recent decision of the Third Circuit in Race Tires America., Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire, Corp., the court reduced Defendant?s request for e-discovery costs from $447,694.63 to $2,721.53.

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs related to ediscovery

Bourne v. Arruda, No. 10-cv-393-LM, 2012 WL 1570831 (D.N.H. May 3, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion for access to defendants? computers and other electronic storage devices (at defendants? expense) where plaintiff?s allegations of incomplete discovery and spoliation were merely speculative and were insufficient to justify his request

Nature of Case: Defamation

Electronic Data Involved: Computers, electronic storage devices

Goldstein v. Colborne Acquisition Co., No. 10 C 6861, 2012 WL 1969369 (N.D. Ill. June 1, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: President and owner of corporation waived privileged as to emails on company servers by consenting to the sale of all company assets, including the company?s servers and emails, without asserting his privilege; shareholders/officers of corporation waived privilege as to messages sent from company email where subjective belief that their communications were confidential was not reasonable in light of company?s email policy which claimed ownership of emails on company systems and reserved the right to access them; court?s analysis applied Asia Global Crossing factors, but acknowledged that privilege waiver inquiries require case-by-case analysis

Nature of Case: Claim of fraudulent sale of business to avoid judgment

Electronic Data Involved: Allegedly privileged emails

Borwick v. T-Mobil West Corp., No. 11-cv-01683-LTB-MEH, 2012 WL 3984745 (D. Colo. Sept. 11, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where defendant converted relevant audio files to .wav format and destroyed the originals pursuant to its document retention policy, the court declined to enter spoliation sanctions because the record did not establish bad faith reasoning (1) that defendant had provided an adequate explanation for plaintiff?s concern about gaps in the recordings, (2) that plaintiff should have requested the files in native format (which she did not) and that had she done so, defendant would have been on notice to preserve relevant files in their original format, and (3) the files were discarded pursuant to an established document retention policy; regarding bad faith, court stated, ?Only the bad faith loss or destruction of evidence will support either a judgment in favor of Plaintiff or the kind of adverse inference that Plaintiff seeks, i.e., that production of the original i360 recordings would have been unfavorable to Defendant?

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Audio files converted from original format

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