Case Summaries – Page 284 – Electronic Discovery Law

Yath v. Fairview Clinics, N.P., 767 N.W.2d 34 (Minn. Ct. App. 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where evidence indicated defendant wiped her computer?s hard drive days before producing it for inspection but where evidence also indicated that the wiping occurred prior to receipt of the subpoena seeking the computer?s production, appellate court acknowledged a reasonable basis to suspect intentional spoliation but found that there was not sufficiently compelling evidence to require such a finding and thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to impose spoliation sanctions

Nature of Case: Invasion of privacy

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive

Tumbling v. Merced Irrigation Dist., 2009 WL 2136112 (E.D. Cal. July 14, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(c)(i) and (ii), court denied defendant?s motion to compel production of plaintiff?s hard drive where defendant admitted that it had not yet exhausted less intrusive or burdensome means of discovering the information sought

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

State v. Bowser, 2009 WL 2308068 (Wis. Ct. App. July 30, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Trial court did not abuse discretion by denying defendant?s motion for a copy of the hard drive containing incriminating child pornography and granting State?s motion for a protective order requiring defendant?s forensic expert to conduct examination of the hard drive pursuant to Department of Justice protocol which required the examination be undertaken at government offices under strict guidelines intended to prevent further dissemination of the images

Nature of Case: Possession of child pornography

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

Paradise v. Al Copeland Invs., Inc., 22 So.3d 1018 (La. Ct. App. 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Trial court abused its discretion in ordering an adverse presumption in favor of plainitff for defendant?s loss of relevant computer evidence by discarding a hard drive after it crashed where defendant offered a reasonable explanation for the loss; court?s reasoning also relied upon evidence that the communications sought by plaintiff were available from an alternative source

Nature of Case: Class action for violation of Telephone Consumer Protection Act

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

Unishippers Global Logistics, LLC v. DHL Express (USA), Inc., 2009 WL 3297817 (D. Utah Oct. 12, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendant refused to search custodians? user files, network drives, and individual hard drives for responsive ESI but agreed to search custodians? emails and ?all electronic files that are known to contain non-duplicative information? and where defendant provided plaintiff with affidavit evidence of the unlikelihood of discovering relevant non-duplicative evidence in non-email sources, court denied plaintiff?s motion to compel ?unless and until? plaintiff could provide ?some reasonable basis? to require defendant to image and search all electronic files

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Non-email ESI

Blangsted v. Snowmass-Wildcat Fire Prot. Dist., 2009 WL 2407655 (Aug. 5, 2009

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendants sought dismissal or a new trial based upon plaintiff?s loss of an audiotape of the meeting in which he was terminated, court declined to grant the requested sanctions upon finding that no litigation was pending at the time of the loss, that any prejudice to defendants was small, that plaintiff?s degree of culpability was small and where there was no evidence of bad faith; court nonetheless indicated its willingness to consider the loss in any claims for fees or costs citing plaintiff?s failure to disclose the existence and loss of the tape which resulted in expenses to defendants to settle the dispute

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Audio tape

Laethem Equip. Co. v. Deere & Co., 2009 WL 4069279 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 23, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where upon the court?s order to produced any privileged documents not properly and timely logged plaintiff produced only certain documents and redacted others, and where plaintiff explained that the withheld and redacted documents were duplicates of documents previously determined to be privileged by the court, court denied defendant?s motion to compel and stated: ?Where a written communication is found to be protected by the attorney-client privilege, an identical copy of that document, when challenged, ought to yield the same result, despite a different indexing number for the copy. To treat identical copies of the same document differently based solely on the numerical designation in a data log elevates form over substance in the worst way.?

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, statutory violations, tortious interference

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged materials

Gutierrez-Bonilla v. Target Corp., 2009 WL 5062116 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 16, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where plaintiff failed to establish the existence of the allegedly destroyed surveillance tape and where, even had the existence of such a tape been established, plaintiff failed to serve any request for preservation, court found plaintiff failed to establish a duty of preservation or that the allegedly spoliated evidence could have supported her case; court also found plaintiff failed to establish defendants? culpable state of mind where, in light of the lack of notice of preservation, the tape would have been recycled in the usual course of business and denied plaintiff?s motion for spoliation sanctions

Nature of Case: Slip and fall

Electronic Data Involved: Video surveillance tape

King v. State, 908 N.E.2d 673 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Trial court abused its discretion in admitting evidence obtained from Yahoo! linking defendant to the relevant account and screen name where Yahoo! stated it did not verify the personal information provided by its users and thus ?the source of the information or the method or circumstances of preparation?indicate[d] a lack of trustworthiness? such that admission under the business records exception was error

Wilson v. Farris, 2009 WL 1393688 (M.D. Fla. May 15, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendant represented that searching for requested documents would require ?hundreds of hours to complete? because each search resulted in thousands of records to be read and cross checked against hard copy to determine there responsiveness, and where defendant further indicated that the searching undertaken thus far yielded ?very few if any documents? that were responsive to plaintiff?s request, court denied plaintiff?s motion to compel production finding the required search ?unduly burdensome?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Catagory:Case Summaries