Case Summaries – Page 244 – Electronic Discovery Law

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

Sofaer Global Hedge Fund v. Brightpoint, Inc, 2010 WL 4701419 (S.D. Ind. Nov. 12, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Addressing several discovery issues, court ordered plaintiff to undertake search of 13 custodians, despite objection that only one custodian was likely to maintain relevant records, where the paucity of documents produced from plaintiff?s championed custodian indicated the need for additional searching but, as to former employees records, etc. which plaintiff alleged were unavailable because the computers were wiped for use by other employees, court reasoned that ?a party obviously cannot produce documents that do not exist? and declined to compel their production; court denied defendants? request for dismissal but, because plaintiff?s opposition on many issues was ?substantially unjustified? granted the fees related to pursuing those requests

Nature of Case: Claims arising from loan made by plaintiff based on false representations by defendant

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Goshawk Dedicated, Ltd. v. Amer. Viatical Servs., LLC, 2010 WL 5250360 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 4, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Clarifying the nature of its order regarding costs, court stated that its prior order requiring plaintiff to deposit funds into the court registry sufficient to cover the third party?s anticipated costs of producing ESI specifically excluded attorney?s fees but did not preclude recovery of them, and ordered compliance with its prior order

Nature of Case: Fraud and negligence claims

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Voom HD Holdings LLC v. Echostar Satellite LLC, No. 600292/08 (N.Y. Sup. Nov. 3, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court ordered adverse inference for grossly negligent failure to preserve where defendant?s duty to preserve was triggered by its awareness that its decision to terminate an agreement with plaintiff would trigger litigation but where defendant failed to impose a litigation hold until after plaintiff?s complaint was filed and failed to discontinue its automatic deletion of emails which resulted in the loss of relevant emails; court?s analysis included discussion of prior sanctions against defendant for failure to preserve in Broccoli v. Echostar Commc’ns Corp., 229 F.R.D. 506 (D. Md. 2005)

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Email

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

Wright v. City of Salisbury, 2010 WL 126011 (E.D. Mo. Jan. 7, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff purposefully arranged a conversation with the mayor, recorded the conversation, preserved the portion relevant to his lawsuit on his website server and then lost the remaining, irrelevant portion as the result of problems with his computer, court denied defendants? motion for spoliation sanctions where defendants failed to establish plaintiff?s bad faith or any prejudice resulting from the loss and where the court found plaintiff?s uncontroverted explanation for the loss ?reasonable and believable?

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Audio tape

Robotic Parking Sys., Inc. v. City of Hoboken, 2010 WL 324524 (D.N.J. Jan. 19, 2010) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted intervenor?s motion for a protective order where plaintiff (intervenor?s direct competitor) sought access to defendant?s garage operating computers possibly containing intervenor?s trade secrets but denied request to prevent access entirely where such access was necessary for plaintiff?s case, where there was no showing of irrelevance or burden, and where intervenor?s concerns were ?too speculative to warrant non-disclosure?; court ordered parties to split cost of software necessary for defendant to view forensic images produced by plaintiff where plaintiff sought to use the images at trial, where defendant had no way to view the court ordered production otherwise, and where the parties failed to properly discuss and agree upon discovery issues, including the cost of production, pursuant to local rule

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, source code

Catagory:Case Summaries