Case Summaries – Page 280 – Electronic Discovery Law

Bonn v. City of Omaha, 2009 WL 1740783 (D. Neb. June 18, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court found the requested electronic discovery ?not reasonably accessible? due to burden and cost and because the expense of the discovery outweighed the likely benefit and denied plaintiff?s motion to compel production of relevant emails where defendant stated they had already retrieved and produced all responsive emails from key individuals containing search terms proposed by plaintiff?s counsel

Nature of Case: Wrongful discharge

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Lawson v. Plantation Gen. Hosp., L.P., 2009 WL 2868891 (S.D. Fla. Aug. 27, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Despite the ?clearly burdensome? process required to restore, review and produce the requested ESI, court ordered production of a specific category of ESI, where ?fairness demand[ed]? plaintiff have an opportunity to review? it, but ordered that if plaintiff continued to desire production of the remaining categories ?for which plaintiff ha[d] a lesser need, in light of all of the other discovery in this matter,? plaintiff must pay half the cost

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Pulse Eng?g. Inc. v. Mascon, Inc., 2009 WL 3234177 (S.D. Cal. Oct. 2, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel production of redacted portions of emails where the emails were prepared in anticipation of litigation and where dissemination to third party with common legal interest did not constitute waiver pursuant to the Common Interest Doctrine (commonality of interested existed where third party was responsible for manufacturing and supplying the allegedly infringing filter)

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Portions of privileged emails

In re eBay Seller Antitrust Litig., 2009 WL 3613511 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 28, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where, in support of its argument that production would be unduly burdensome, eBay provided ?uncertain? estimates of the cost that varied drastically, court held that ?without any clear indication that the costs would be unduly burdensome? the magistrate?s order to compel production was not clearly erroneous; citing Fed. R. 34 for the proposition that the civil rules contemplate the production of information from dynamic databases and case law addressing the same, court held that magistrate did not clearly err in concluding that ?the technical burden to eBay of creating a new dataset for the instant litigation does not excuse production.?

Nature of Case: Antitrust litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Contents of database

People v. Vallejo, 2009 WL 3925232 (Cal. Ct. App. Nov. 19, 2009)(Unpublished)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court found no abuse of discretion for admitting table summarizing defendant?s sales activities for the relevant time period where the corporate investigator of defendant?s suspected theft prior to his prosecution testified that the report was generated by a particular software in the ordinary course of business and where there was the ?logical inference? based on certain facts that the report was prepared ?at or near? the time of the events reported therein as is required by California Evid. Code section 1271 to authenticate a document as a business record

Nature of Case: Grand theft from employer

Electronic Data Involved: Report of defendant’s sales activities

Bensel v. Allied Pilots Assoc., 263 F.R.D. 150(D.N.J. 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Despite acknowledging that ?defendants should have moved more quickly to place litigation holds on the routine destruction of certain documents and electronic data,? the court found that plaintiffs failed to identify any specific document that was lost or destroyed, failed to establish destruction of documents in bad faith and failed to specify any prejudice arising from the alleged bad behavior and denied plaintiff?s motion for spoliation sanctions; in so holding, court noted plaintiff?s reliance on speculation and ?vague statements? which did not ?rise to the specificity level required by the Third Circuit to impose sanctions or even make a finding of spoliation.?

Nature of Case: Allegations of breach of duty of fair representation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Whatman v. Davin, 2009 WL 4808807 (D.S.C. Dec. 9, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendant?s employee admitted to using her personal computer to work from home and plaintiff thereafter sought to compel defendant?s production of that computer, court found that ?plaintiff?s informal request for a forensic copy of [employee?s] personal home computer does not impose upon the defendants the burden of producing property outside its possession and control? and therefore denied plaintiff?s motion to compel

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Employee’s personal computer

Whitaker Chalk Swindle & Sawyer, LLP v. Dart Oil & Gas Co., 2009 WL 464989 (N.D. Tex. Feb. 23, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendant sought protection against disclosure of documents related to the billing dispute with its former attorneys because such production could waive privileges in another, pending case, court ordered production pursuant to prescribed provisions, including a provision that no waiver would result by the compelled disclosures pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 502

Nature of Case: Billing dispute between counsel and former client

Electronic Data Involved: Information related to billing dispute

Nutramax Labs. Inc. v. Theodosakis, 2009 WL 2778388 (D. Md. June 8, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court denied defendants? motion for summary judgment and permitted additional discovery by plaintiffs as sanction for defendants? spoliation of its website where defendant removed relevant language from the site after learning of plaintiffs? lawsuit; addressing defendants argument that because plaintiff was able to preserve a copy of the site before the language was removed, there was no prejudice, the court indicated that defendants? ?questionable conduct? suggested that ?there may be other evidence relevant to this summary judgment that has yet to surface? and denied defendants? motion and allowed additional discovery ?to level the evidentiary playing field and to sanction defendants? improper conduct?

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Website

Union Ins. Co. v. Delta Casket Co. Inc., 06-2090, 2009 WL 10665127 (W.D. Tenn., Dec. 1, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court granted Plaintiff?s motion that Defendants bear the costs Plaintiff incurred in producing archived emails, implicated by Defendant?s 30(b)(6) notice. The notice came after a year and a half of discovery and one month before the discovery deadline. Plaintiff was required to use a third party to conduct the search, put the retrieved emails on discs, send them to a copy service to convert to TIFF files and print them so Plaintiff?s counsel could review for relevancy and privilege. Plaintiff spent approximately $35,000 on this process. The Court held that Plaintiff?s Motion was timely and Defendants had notice before the emails were produced that Plaintiff was seeking costs, Plaintiff met its burden of showing the cost and burden incurred were undue and conversion of the discs to TIFF format was necessary in order for Plaintiff?s counsel to review the emails prior to production.

Nature of Case: Insurance indemnification

Electronic Data Involved: Archived email

Catagory:Case Summaries