Case Summaries – Page 190 – Electronic Discovery Law

United States v. Comty. Health Ctr. Of Buffalo, No. 05-CV-237A(F), 2012 WL 3136485 (W.D.N.Y. Aug. 1, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where plaintiff was able to recover potentially relevant ESI on defendants? backup tapes which had been produced to plaintiff without restriction following defendants erroneous determination that no responsive documents were contained thereon (as the result of using insufficient software to read the data) and where plaintiff therefore sought unrestricted access to the information, except for privileged documents, and for defendants to pay plaintiff?s cost to review the information, the court determined that defendants? production of the tapes waived their objections to Plaintiff?s efforts to locate responsive information but that the failure to identify potentially responsive documents was not in bad faith and that the information on the tapes was not reasonably accessible and denied Plaintiffs? motion for reimbursement for the cost of reviewing the tapes

Nature of Case: False Claims Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI on “back-up magnetic tapes”

Barnes v. District of Columbia, —F. Supp. 2d —, 2012 WL 4101943 (D.D.C. Sept. 19, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Where plaintiffs discovered, late in the discovery time period, that defendant?s database production was incomplete but defendant claimed plaintiffs were merely using the wrong query?a query that defendant had not yet produced?the court ordered that defendant produce the relevant query and left open plaintiffs? option to re-file its motion to compel production of additional data if, upon conducting its analysis with the proper query, it nonetheless determined (and could successfully show) that relevant data was missing

Nature of Case: Civil rights claims related to overdetention and strip searching of inmates

Electronic Data Involved: Database content, relevant database query

Coral Group Inc. v. Shell Oil Co., No. 4:05-CV-0633-DGK, 2012 WL 4569468 (W.D. Mo. Sept. 30, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: For intentional spoliation resulting in irreparable prejudice, including a ?discernible pattern? of efforts to deprive Plaintiffs of relevant financial information contained on the computer of Plaintiff?s outside accountant and the failure to preserve other data, the court ordered that plaintiff?s claims were dismissed with prejudice

Nature of Case: Fraud, breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

U.S. ex rel Baklid-Kunz v. Halifax Hosp. Med. Ctr., No. 6:09-cv-1002-Orl-31TBS, 2012 WL 5415108 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 6, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Addressing the proper logging of privileged emails, the court adopted the position ?for which there is overwhelming support? (as cited in the opinion) ?that each email in an email string must be listed separately so that the court (and the opposing party) may make an attorney-client privilege determination with regard to each email in the string.?

Nature of Case: violations of False Claims Act

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Coquina Invs. v. Rothstein, No. 10-60786-Civ., 2012 WL 3202273 (S.D. Fla. Aug. 3, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court found that counsel for Defendant ?acted negligently in failing to comply with its discovery obligations in this case? and that Defendant ?acted willfully in failing to comply with its discovery obligations and assist its outside counsel to properly litigate this case? and ordered that certain adverse facts were established for purposes of this action and that counsel and Defendant pay Plaintiff?s reasonable attorney?s fees and costs associated with its fourth and fifth motion for sanctions; discovery violations identified included: late (including after trial) production of relevant documents, counsel?s failure to produce relevant evidence ?in a manner that preserved the documents qualities? (i.e., with highly relevant formatting changes (e.g. no color) and without metadata), both Defendant and counsel?s failure to ?conduct an adequate search,? and the conspicuous absence of Defendant?s in-house counsel in assisting or supervising the litigation; court also noted that ?[i]n many ways, this is a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth? where the defense included two firms, hundreds of lawyers, and a consultant that only one firm was aware of, for example

Nature of Case: Fraud

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Brigham Young Univ. v. Pfizer, Inc., No. 2:06-cv-890 TS, 2012 WL 1302288 (D. Utah Apr. 16, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Denying plaintiffs? motion for sanctions the court distinguished the cases of Lee v. Max Int., LLC, 638 F.3d 1318 (10th Cir. 2011) and Phillip M. Adams & Assoc., LLC v. Dell, Inc., 621 F. Supp. 2d 1173 (D. Utah 2009), found the defendant had not acted in bad faith, and rejected plaintiffs assertions that the duty to preserve arose from obligations to maintain information pursuant to corporate policy or an obligation to the government; noting that most relevant documents were from the 1990?s, the court also acknowledged that even where a preservation obligation exists, the passage of time can result in the inadvertent destruction or misplacement of evidence and the fading of human memories

Electronic Data Involved: Unspecified in opinion

Eolas Techs., Inc. v. Abode Sys., Inc., — F. Supp. 2d —, 2012 WL 4092568 (E.D. Tex. July 19, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Addressing taxable costs, court approved recovery of costs for scanning but, citing the Third Circuit decision in Race Tires Am. Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Corp., held that ?document collection, processing, and hosting? were not ?recoverable costs? and also held that, where the parties agreed that TIFF images were an acceptable form of production, but not required, the conversion was not ?necessarily obtained for use in the case? and thus related costs were not taxable under ? 1920; court indicated in footnote that had TIFF been the only agreed upon format of production, the outcome may have been different

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Bean v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., No. CV 11-08028-PCT-FJM, 2012 WL 129809 (Jan. 17, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court granted motion to compel defendant to produce a key explaining the codes used on an already-produced spreadsheet where Rule 34(a)(1)(A) ?explicitly places the burden of translating the data on the responding party? and where the task of providing plaintiff with the meaning of specifically identified acronyms was not overly burdensome compared to requiring plaintiff to figure them out using prior deposition testimony and ?informal communications with counsel?

Nature of Case: copyright infingement

Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheet

Dent v. Siegelbaum, No. DKC 08-0886, 2012 WL 718835 (D. Md. Mar. 5, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: Court did not err in denying plaintiff?s request for a spoliation instruction with respect to digital pictures taken of plaintiff which were deleted when a defendant (a police officer) connected the camera to his computer for uploading where there was no evidence ? to prove, or even suggest? that the officer intended to destroy the pictures and where ?a culpable state of mind? was a necessary element to be proven by a party seeking such sanctions

Nature of Case: Claims of unconstitutional seizure and use of excessive force

Electronic Data Involved: Digital photos

Pringle v. Adams, No. SACV 10-1656-JST (RZx), 2012 WL 1103939 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 30, 2012)

Dec 01 2012

Key Insight: In copyright infringement action where the creation date of certain evidence was highly relevant, the court granted defendant?s motion for terminating sanctions for plaintiff?s spoliation where plaintiff had a duty to preserve but nonetheless spoliated relevant evidence by sending a relevant hard drive for ?repairs? and where he indicated he no longer had possession of another hard drive, without explanation for its unavailability, and where the court found that defendants were prejudiced by the loss of the hard drives

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives containing information regarding creation date of allegedly infringed song

Catagory:Case Summaries