Catagory:Case Summaries

Global Aerospace, Inc. v. Landow Aviation, L.P., No. CL 61040 (Vir. Cir. Ct. Apr. 23, 2012)

In this Virginia state court case, the defendants asked to be allowed to use predictive coding for the processing and production of their own ESI.  The Loudon County Circuit Judge granted the request, and "allowed" the defendants to use predictive coding, subject to objections plaintiffs may want to raise once they obtain the resulting production from the defendants.  The Virginia court’s one-paragraph order states, in its substantive entirety:

Having heard argument . . . it is hereby ordered Defendants shall be allowed to proceed with the use of predictive coding for purposes of the processing and production of electronically stored information, with processing to be completed within 60 days and production to follow as soon as practicable and in no more than 60 days.  This is without prejudice to a receiving party raising with the Court an issue as to completeness or the contents of the production or the ongoing use of predictive coding.

A copy of defendants’ motion for a protective order to allow predictive coding is available here.

A copy of plaintiffs’ opposition to defendants’ motion for a protective order is available here.  (Exhibits to this opposition are not currently available.)

A copy of the court’s order granting defendants’ motion is available here.

United Factory Furniture Corp. v. Alterwitz, No. 2:12-cv-00059-KJD-VCF, 2012 WL 1155741 (D. Nev. Apr. 6, 2012)

Here, the court granted plaintiff’s motion to compel mirror-imaging of defendants’ personal computers for the purpose of preservation where plaintiff alleged that defendants had wrongfully accessed its computer systems using the personal computers at issue, where plaintiff asserted that defendants’ ongoing use of the computers would result in the loss of relevant data, and where the court determined that in light of the circumstances of the case (and following analysis of the relevant factors) the need for mirror-imaging outweighed the burden.

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Lubber Inc. v. Optari, LLC, No. 3:11-0042, 2012 WL 899631 (M.D. Tenn. Mar. 15, 2012)

In this case, the court considered defendants’ motion for a protective order to restrict the relevant time frame for additional electronic searches and plaintiff’s motion to compel discovery in nine categories.  Upon consideration of the issues, the court denied defendants’ motion, but ordered the parties to split the expenses related to material not already produced.  Regarding plaintiff’s motion to compel, the court indicated its concern that “Plaintiff will be able to win on these issues” and therefore required that plaintiff post a $10,000 bond, intended to “allow the Plaintiff to secure this information if they wish to pursue this discovery, while at the same time offering some protection to the Defendants should they prevail.”

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Race Tires Amer., Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire, Corp., 674 F.3d 158 (3d Cir. 2012)

On appeal, the Third Circuit vacated the District Court’s approval of taxable costs related to electronic discovery and remanded with instruction to re-tax in accordance with this opinion.  Specifically, the court concluded that the relevant vendors’ charges “would not qualify as fees for ‘exemplification’” and that “of the numerous services the vendors performed, only the scanning of hard copy documents, the conversion of native files to TIFF, and the transfer of VHS tapes to DVD involved ‘copying’” and were thus recoverable.

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Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe SA, No. 11 Civ. 1279 (ALC) (AJP) (S.D.N.Y.)

On March 13, 2012, approximately 2 ½ weeks after Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck issued his much-talked about opinion approving “computer-assisted review,”  District Court Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. has granted plaintiffs’ request to submit additional briefing on their objections to the ruling.

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In re Delta/AirTran Baggage Fee Antitrust Litig., —F. Supp. 2d—, 2012 WL 360509 (N.D. Ga. Feb. 3, 2012)

After repeated representations that all responsive documents had been produced, a defendant belatedly discovered and produced an additional 60,000 pages.  Upon plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions, the court found that the defendant “did not conduct a reasonable inquiry” to ensure production of all responsive documents and had run “afoul” of Rule 26(e).  Accordingly, the court ordered discovery re-opened and that the defendant pay plaintiffs’ reasonable expenses and attorneys’ fees caused by the defendant’s failure, including the cost of the necessary motions and the extended discovery period.

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Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe & MSL Group, No. 11 Civ. 1279 (ALC) (AJP) (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 24, 2012)

Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck issued an opinion on Friday, February 24, 2012, approving of the use of computer-assisted review of electronically stored information (“ESI”) by the parties in this case.  The opinion, which discusses both the details of the underlying case and the topic of computer-assisted review more generally, addresses a myriad of issues including how computer-assisted review works (generally) and what benefits it may provide.  The court appears to be the first to recognize that “computer-assisted review is an acceptable way to search for relevant ESI in appropriate cases.” 

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Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe, No. 11 Civ. 1279 (ALC) (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 8, 2012)

On February 8, 2012, Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck conducted a hearing addressing several discovery issues which included a lengthy discussion of an appropriate protocol for predictive coding and resulted in an order for the parties to submit their draft protocols by February 16th.  The hearing was attended by counsel and their respective ESI experts.  A written opinion is expected which may distill some of the more technical aspects of the discussion.  Nonetheless, for those with the time, the (rather lengthy) transcript of the hearing is fascinating, and certainly worth a read.

A copy of the transcript is available here.

If and when an opinion is issued in this matter, it will be available here as well.

Voom Holdings LLC v. EchoStar Satellite LLC, —N.Y.S.2d—, 2012 WL 265833 (N.Y. App. Div. Jan. 31, 2012)

In this case, the appellate court held that the lower court “properly invoked the standard for preservation set forth in Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC”, which requires that a party place a litigation hold once it “reasonably anticipates litigation” and affirmed the lower court’s order imposing an adverse inference for defendant’s spoliation of ESI.

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Pippins v. KPMG LLP, —F.R.D.—, 2012 WL 370321 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 3, 2012)

In this opinion, the District Court found the Magistrate Judge’s order requiring defendant’s preservation of more than 2500 hard drives was not clearly erroneous or contrary to law.  Finding objections to the order moot, however, because plaintiffs’ motion for conditional certification of a nationwide class was granted, the court denied defendant’s motion for a protective order and ordered preservation of the hard drives until the parties could agree on a sampling methodology, until defendant abandoned a particular litigation position, or until members of each relevant class were established.

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