Catagory:Case Summaries

Ak-Chin Indian Cmty. v. U.S., 85. Fed. Cl. 397 (Fed. Cl. Jan. 14, 2009)

Ak-Chin Indian Cmty. v. U.S., 2009 WL 320333 (Fed. Cl. Feb 5, 2009) (Denying Defendant’s Motion for Reconsideration but amending prior order in 85 Fed. Cl. 397 to delete certain findings of fact).

In this case, the court granted plaintiff’s motion to compel the defendant to organize and label its responses to plaintiff’s requests for production according to category, and to identify the specific documents from which responses to interrogatories could be derived.

Defendant responded to plaintiff’s discovery requests by making the requested information available for inspection.  The information could allegedly be located by querying a database containing data about the contents of each box stored at a particular location.  Plaintiff objected to defendant’s response and requested the information be organized and labeled according to the categories of its requests.  Finding that the documents offered for inspection were not maintained “in the usual course of business” and thus defendant’s response did not comply with RCFC 34, the court ordered defendant to organize and label the documents as requested by plaintiff.  The court also held that defendant had not met the requirements to properly rely upon RCFC 33(d) in responding to interrogatories where the rule allowed the production of business records as a response only where the burden of ascertaining the answer would be substantially the same for either party.

Read More

Proctor & Gamble Co. v. S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 2009 WL 440543 (E.D. Tex. Feb 19, 2009)

In this case, following the court’s decision that all documents were to be produced electronically in TIFF format with Optical Character Recognition (“OCR”), defendant asserted that the cost of processing the documents should be shifted to the plaintiff.  In support of its assertion, defendant claimed that the cost of conversion to OCR would likely exceed $200,000 and that “it does not itself seek to use the OCR process, and any extra expense would be incurred on it behalf solely for Plaintiff’s convenience.”  Defendant offered no evidence in support of its estimate, however, and the court’s own research indicated the estimated cost appeared to be “somewhat inflated.”  Nor did defendant deny that the OCR process would make the documents easier to examine, thus reducing costs for attorney time.

Read More

Brookdale Univ. Hosp. & Med. Ctr., Inc. v. Health Ins. Plan of Greater N.Y., 2009 WL 393644 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 13, 2009)

In this case, the court was asked to reconsider its prior order compelling defendants to return privileged documents inadvertently produced by the plaintiff.  The court declined to overturn its ruling regarding documents specifically identified by the plaintiff as inadvertently produced and addressed by the court’s prior order.  However, as to documents not identified at the time of the order, the court declared any privilege waived.

Read More

Kvitka v. Puffin Co., LLC, 2009 WL 385582 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 13, 2009)

Finding plaintiff intentionally discarded her laptop despite a duty to preserve it, the court ordered dismissal of her claims and an adverse inference instruction as to defendants’ cross-claims.

After years of advertising in defendants’ magazine, plaintiff Kvitka, an antique doll dealer, received notice that defendants were terminating her right to advertise because of complaints about her business practices, including that she disparaged other advertisers and dealers. In the parties’ subsequent discussions, defendants revealed their possession of a file containing several complaints about Kvitka as well as 15 pages of emails, written by her, in which she disparaged other advertisers.

Unable to resolve the conflict out of court, Kvitka filed suit.  In the course of discovery, it was revealed that despite Kvitka’s counsel’s receipt of correspondence from defendants specifically requesting preservation of Kvitka’s computer and emails, Kvitka had nonetheless discarded her laptop.

Read More

Mintel Int’l Group, Ltd. v. Neerghen, 2009 WL 249227 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 3, 2009)

In this case, the plaintiff, Mintel International Group Limited (“Mintel”), alleged that defendant Neerghen violated the Illinois Trade Secrets Act, the Computer Fraud Abuse Act, and various terms of his employment contract when he emailed confidential Mintel documents to his personal account and subsequently accepted employment with Mintel’s competitor, Datamonitor. Throughout the course of litigation, five motions to compel were filed seeking a mirror image of third-party Datamonitor’s computers.  All of those motions were denied.

Read More

In re Classicstar Mare Lease Litig., 2009 WL 260954 (E.D. Ky. Feb. 2, 2009)

In this case, despite prior production in accordance with the Federal Rules, the court enforced a promise to produce in native format but ordered the requesting party to bear the costs.

This matter came before the court on the motion of GeoStar Corporation for relief from the court’s order requiring it to produce financial information in its native format.  Plaintiffs originally requested financial information from GeoStar “as they are kept in the usual course of business” or organized and labeled in a manner prescribed.  GeoStar objected, but the court ultimately entered orders requiring production.  The orders did not specify the format of production.

Read More

SEC v. Badian, 2009 WL 222783 (S.D.N.Y Jan. 26, 2009)

In this case, Rhino Investors, Inc. (“Rhino”), a non-party, sought to claw back approximately 260 documents that it claimed were inadvertently produced in 2003 in the midst of an SEC investigation.  The court, applying the four factors set forth in Louis Sportswear, U.S.A., Inc. v. Levi Strauss & Co., 104 F.R.D. 103, 105 (S.D.N.Y. 1985) and its progeny, concluded that Rhino had waived any privilege it may have asserted.

Read More

Arista Records, LLC v. Usenet.com Inc., 2009 WL 185992 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 26, 2009)

Upon finding that defendants acted in bad faith to deliberately destroy relevant evidence despite a duty to preserve, the court imposed severe sanctions.

Defendant Usenet.com, operated by defendant Gerald Reynolds, is a commercial Usenet provider.  Usenet is a “network of loosely connected computer servers that share message traffic for discussions.”  Users are able to upload content to the system and download content from other users’ postings. Postings to Usenet are known as “articles.”  “Articles” are organized into “newsgroups” – including Music Groups.  In this case, “Plaintiffs contend that Defendants provided their subscribers access to hundreds of music piracy newsgroups containing vast amounts of infringing digital music files copyrighted by Plaintiffs.”

Read More

S.E.C. v. Collins & Aikman Corp., 2009 WL 94311 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2009)

In this case, arising from claims of securities fraud, the court addressed questions concerning the government’s discovery obligations in civil discovery.  Throughout discovery in the case, several disputes arose regarding the SEC’s production of documents and its failure to perform sufficiently thorough searches for the requested information.  Following extensive analysis of the individual issues, the court ultimately concluded that “[w]hen a government agency initiates litigation, it must be prepared to follow the same discovery rules that govern private parties…”

Read More

Lake v. City of Phoenix, 207 P.3d 725 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2009)

In this case, the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld a superior court ruling denying plaintiff’s motion to compel production of metadata associated with documents previously produced pursuant to Arizona’s Public Records Law.

In late 2006, after filing an Equal Employment Opportunity Complaint against the city, plaintiff submitted a series of public records requests.  The city’s subsequent production contained hard copy versions of electronic documents responsive to his request for all notes “documenting supervisory performance” within the relevant time frame.  Plaintiff suspected the notes had been backdated and requested production of the metadata associated with each document.  The city refused arguing that the requested metadata was “not maintained by the city and was not available,” and that metadata was not a public record.  In response, plaintiff brought a special action before the district court. Finding it lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter, the superior court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel.  Plaintiff appealed, and the appellate court affirmed the superior court’s ruling denying the production of metadata.

Read More