Case Summaries – Page 237 – Electronic Discovery Law

Grey v. Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, 2010 WL 3526478 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 2, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiffs offered nothing more than speculation regarding defendants? alleged intentional or grossly negligent spoliation of metadata and where defendant asserted that before destroying the server at issue, the information thereon was migrated and no metadata was knowingly changed, the court declined ?to infer from the absence of metadata that such evidence would have been favorable to Plaintiff?s claims?

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic records of phone calls, metadata

O?Neill v. City of Shoreline, 240 P.3d 1149 (Wash. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Metadata is subject to disclosure pursuant to the Public Records Act

Nature of Case: Public Disclosure Act

Electronic Data Involved: Metadata

Cornered, Inc. v. Does 1-2177, 2010 WL 4259605 (D.D.C. Oct. 22, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiff?s motion for leave to seek discovery prior to the Rule 26(f) conference for the purpose of identifying the unknown Doe defendants by allowing plaintiff to serve Rule 45 subpoenas on the relevant Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but required the ISPs to provide written notice to the subscribers in question to provide them an opportunity to move to quash

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Names of ISP subscribers

Streit v. Elec. Mobility Controls, LLC, 2010 WL 4687797 (S.D. Ind. Nov. 9, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant?s multiple attempts at starting plaintiff?s car following the underlying accident resulted in multiple ?blocks? of data being overwritten, the court denied sanctions absent evidence that the loss was intentional (where the imposition of sanctions required a showing of bad faith) and because the relevant ?event? data was also recorded in alternative source that was fully preserved and plaintiff offered no evidence that the relevant data was recorded only to the lost data blocks and not the available alternative source

Nature of Case: Personal injury/product liability

Electronic Data Involved: Black box data from automobile

Revello v. Med-Data Infotech USA, Inc., 2010 WL 4967968 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. Dec. 8, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court quashed order directing production of defendant?s source code where, despite claiming misappropriation of its trade secret, plaintiff declined to produce its own source code and thus ?neither identified with reasonable particularity the nature of its claimed trade secret nor established that it exists? and was therefore not entitled to the source code it sought from the defendant

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secret

Electronic Data Involved: Source code

In re Oracle Corp. Secs. Litig., 627 F.3d 376 (9th Cir. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where as the result of a finding of willful spoliation the district court ordered an adverse inference that established Oracle?s CEO?s knowledge of any material facts that Plaintiffs were able to establish, but where plaintiffs were nonetheless defeated at summary judgment and thereafter appealed the order arguing that the inference should have been sufficient to defeat a challenge to the insufficiency of their prima facie case, the appellate court affirmed the holding of the district court noting that, ?in light of the enormous record developed in this case, the only conceivable benefit of Defendant?s spoliation was the possibility of disclaiming Ellison?s knowledge of any damaging facts underlying the purported fraud? and that the district court?s sanction was ?carefully fashioned to deny Defendants that benefit?

Nature of Case: Securities fraud

Electronic Data Involved: emaisl, ESI

Ruise v. State, 43 So.3d 885 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. Sept. 7, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court held GPS data was properly admitted as a business record where the state presented testimony of an employee for the GPS monitoring company who explained how the monitoring system worked and the testimony of appellant?s probation officer who explained how he accessed the GPS database and printed the exhibits introduced, and where the probation officer had previously tested the accuracy of the GPS system by taking appellant to different locations and checking the accuracy of the monitoring data

Nature of Case: Probation revocation

Electronic Data Involved: GPS monitoring data

United States v. Salyer, Cr. No. S-10-0061 LKK (GGH), 2010 WL 3036444 (E.D. Cal. Aug. 2, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Acknowledging the general rule that the Government has no obligation to specifically identify Brady/Giglio material that has been disclosed to a defendant, the court noted its authority to require identification nonetheless and, considering the volume of the government?s disclosure, the individual defendant?s detention awaiting trial, the small size of his defense team, the lack of parallel civil litigation, and the lack of corporate assistance in identifying evidence, ordered the government to identify Brady material already disclosed and in subsequent disclosures

Nature of Case: Criminal

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Jones v. Comsys IT Partners, Inc., 2010 WL 3002083 (W.D.N.C. July 27, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where in response to plaintiff?s motion for a protective order requiring the preservation of relevant emails defendants affirmed they had been preserving relevant evidence and would continue to do so, the court denied plaintiff?s motion as moot

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Carnegie Mellon Univ. v. Marvell Tech. Group, Ltd., 2010 WL 4337388 (W.D. Pa. Oct. 27, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendants sought to avoid searching and producing emails and related documents maintained by defendants? CEO and CTO and argued that they had already produced 5.5 million pages and that the information sought was cumulative and therefore imposed an undue burden, the court noted defendants admission that they had not searched or reviewed the materials of the relevant executives and found that plaintiff had shown the likelihood that such a search could lead to the discovery of relevant evidence and ordered the executives? materials to be searched and if responsive, produced

Electronic Data Involved: Executives’ ESI

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