Case Summaries – Page 230 – Electronic Discovery Law

Cartel Asset Mgmt. v. Ocwen Fin. Corp., 2010 WL 502721 (D. Colo. Feb. 8, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendants bore the burden of persuasion when asserting that ESI was inaccessible because of undue burden or cost and where defendants? supported their claim of inaccessibility with only one declaration which lacked specific information regarding defendants? storage practices, the number of back-up or archival systems that would need to be searched, or defendants? capability to retrieve information from those back-up or archival systems, the court denied defendants? Motion for a Protective Order

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, unfair competition, unjust enrichment and fraud

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Lockheed Martin Corp. v. L-3 Commc?ns Integrated Sys., L.P., 2010 WL 1891779 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 31, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where, prior to entry of judgment, defendant moved for sanctions of dismissal or a new trial due to plaintiff?s failure to produce highly relevant internal emails during discovery, and where the factors for a new trial were met, court declined to order dismissal but ordered a new trial and thus set aside the $37.3 million verdict in favor of plaintiff

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Alpert v. Riley, 2010 WL 1556566 (S.D. Tex. Apr. 19, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant previously stored privileged materials on the computer of a third-party business partner and where the relationship later soured, defendant inadvertently waived claim of privilege as to privileged ESI by failing to take prompt steps to protect the privileged materials following clear notice that the protections he had placed (passwords, etc.) were no longer in place and by persisting in that failure to protect the material for a number of years thereafter

Nature of Case: Alleged improper excercise of authority by trustee

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents

Phillip M. Adams & Assoc., LLC v. Fujitsu Ltd., 2010 WL 1901776 (D. Utah May 10, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Addressing a number of issues related to the format and organization of plaintiff?s production and a motion to compel plaintiff?s response to interrogatories, court ordered the production of ESI in its native format where plaintiff failed to object to a request for the same but, where native production was not specified, plaintiff was allowed to select the form of production; unable to determine whether the burden of production of computer data from all computers used by plaintiff over a period of many years would outweigh the value of production, court ordered plaintiff to produce a detailed inventory of each computer and to allow sampling of one or two computers of defendant?s choice in order to determine the need for additional discovery

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, hard drives

Aponte-Navedo v. Nalcom Chem. Co., 268 F.R.D. 31 (D.P.R. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Upon plaintiff?s first motion to compel, the court found that while information regarding defendant?s information technology department and the hardware and software used by defendant is discoverable, plaintiff?s requests were overly broad and the court could not compel responses to the interrogatories as drafted but ordered defendants to identify the computer program or software used to created or transmit the already produced documents and for defendants to produce native documents with metadata intact

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Information regarding defendant’s information technology department, ESI

Kandel v. Brother Int?l Corp., 683 F. Supp. 2d 1076 (C.D. Cal. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court found production of privileged documents was ?inadvertent? within the meaning of the parties? stipulated protective order and that the privilege was therefore not waived where defendant took reasonable steps to prevent the inadvertent production, including creating and following a document review protocol, identifying privileged names to assist in the segregation of potentially privileged documents, and requesting that certain key words searches be used to identify potentially privileged information and where defendants took prompt steps to retrieve the privileged documents upon discovering their disclosure; district court affirmed the order, noting that the review was ?obviously complicated? by the fact that ?many or most of the documents were in Japanese and had to be obtained from Japan?

Nature of Case: Putative class action alleging unfair business practices and related claims in connection with design of toner cartridges

Electronic Data Involved: Inadvertently produced ESI

Roberts v. City of Phoenix, 235 P.3d 265 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where the trial court concluded that defendant committed discovery violations in bad faith, including failing to timely produce responsive information, withholding responsive information even after a court order to produce, failing to provide an explanation for the failure to produce certain responsive information, producing certain documents only after being presented with evidence of their existence by plaintiff, and purging responsive documents from relevant files during the pendency of litigation, and where a lesser sanctions were properly considered, appellate court found ?reasonable grounds supporting the court?s decision? and affirmed the sanction of default judgment

Nature of Case: Violation of civil rights, selective enforcement of the law, failure to supervise, and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, hard copy

Johnson v. Metro. Gov. of Nashville, 2010 WL 3342211 (M.D. Tenn. Aug. 24, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiffs? motion for default judgment or an adverse inference where, despite finding that the alleged spoliator had intentionally deleted data in violation of his statutory duty to preserve, the court was presented with no evidence of bad faith in the data?s destruction and nothing more than speculation as to the data?s relevance

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Employment records subject to retention by statute

Trickey v. Kaman Indus. Technologies Corp., 2010 WL 3892228 (E.D. Mo. Sept. 29, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff suspected defendants of withholding responsive emails and sought to compel defendants to explain their preservation and production efforts and to produce all responsive ESI, court found defendants? explanation of its discovery efforts insufficient to determine whether they had satisfied their obligations where defendants failed to answer questions such as what happens to emails that are ?manually persevered? by individual custodians, the method of preservation employed by defendants (e.g. retaining existing storage archives, creating a mirror image of computer systems), and the availability of backup copies of data from an allegedly stolen laptop, and ordered defendants to provide such information, among other things, and to provide a copy of the police report ?presumably? filed for the stolen laptop

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, ESI

Martinez v. Rycars Constr., LLC, 2010 WL 4117668 (S.D. Ga. Oct. 18, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted defendant?s motion to quash subpoena to defendant?s telecommunication vendor seeking production of any and all cell phone records, emails, and text messages sent between January 2008 and the present for the purpose of discovering evidence of defendant?s drug use where the request was overly broad and potentially cumulative; court noted that a more targeted request may have been more appropriate but still questioned how the provider would be able to ?sift? the data to identify specifically relevant communications

Nature of Case: Personal Injury

Electronic Data Involved: Communication data from cell phone service provider

Catagory:Case Summaries