Case Summaries – Page 298 – Electronic Discovery Law

Brokaw v. Salt Lake County, 2008 WL 5449065 (D. Utah Dec. 30, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Despite court?s acknowledgment of the requested data?s relevance, plaintiff?s offer to provide a technical expert to perform the search, and plaintiff?s proffer of at least three alternative search protocols, court denied plaintiff?s motion to compel a school district to search for specified terms in the databases of all its schools where court found that the proposed discovery imposed an excessive burden due to the district?s lack of technical resources and where plaintiff?s proposals failed to sufficiently lessen that burden

Nature of Case: Complaint alleges unreasonable seizure of high school student and use of excessive force resulting in permanent injuries

Electronic Data Involved: Computer databases at all school’s in district

Aecon Buildings Inc. v. Zurich N. Am., 253 F.R.D. 655 (W.D. Wash. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court imposed significant monetary sanction upon finding that defendant violated both the letter and spirit of discovery rules where defendant deliberately concealed existence of electronically stored information by making repeated misrepresentations regarding completeness of production and the existence of additional information and for defendant?s failure to produce the necessary privilege log

Nature of Case: Bad faith failure to defend or indemnify

Electronic Data Involved: Notes made in electronically stored case file

In re Fischer Advanced Composite Components AG, 2008 WL 5210839 (W.D. Wash. Dec. 11, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Citing its discretion pursuant to U.S.C. ? 1782, court declined to compel production of requested communications from parent corporation for use in foreign jurisdiction where court found the information sought was in the possession of a party to the action in the foreign jurisdiction and that to compel production of such information would be ?burdensome and duplicative?

Nature of Case: Breach of contract and tortious intimidation (proceedings initiated in foreign jurisdiction)

Baxter Healthcare Corp. v. Fresenius Med. Care Holding, Inc., 2008 WL 5214283 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 12, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where defendant offered to produce a witness to authenticate a ?manageable number of documents? that plaintiffs would ?actually use at trial?, court denied plaintiffs? motion to compel production of a witness knowledgeable enough to authenticate thousands of documents and more than 580 CD-Rom discs of electronic files and source code and concluded that plaintiffs? motion was ?unreasonable and not supported by either the rules or the law?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Williams v. Taser Int’l, Inc., 2008 WL 192991 (N.D. Ga. Jan. 22, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where privilege log entries failed to identify who sent or received documents, disclosed little or no information about actual contents of documents, used boilerplate objections which court had previously ruled were insufficient, and court had previously ordered Taser to provide more information in privilege logs, court concluded that Taser?s unjustified delay in providing a meaningful privilege log was inexcusable, in bad faith and deserving of sanctions; Taser?s assertions of attorney client privilege and work product doctrine were deemed waived and court ordered Taser to produce all documents identified in privilege logs

Nature of Case: Wrongful death

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged email and other documents

Commerce Benefits Group, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., 2008 WL 657838 (N.D. Ohio Mar. 6, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where plaintiff did not demonstrate that focus of the defendants’ search was not reasonably directed toward finding responsive documents, and failed to establish that relevance and necessity of any further discovery into email backup tapes outweighed burden and expense that would ensue, not to mention further delay which would certainly follow, court denied motion to compel

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: ESI stored on backup tapes

Binary Semantics Ltd. v. Minitab, Inc., 2008 WL 2020362 (M.D. Pa. May 5, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court denied as overly-broad and intrusive defendant’s request that its forensic expert be permitted to make complete forensic copy of plaintiff’s File Server and FTP server; court instead would allow forensic expert to make forensic copy of relevant folders on plaintiff’s FTP server

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Metadata

John B. v. Goetz, 531 F.3d 448 (6th Cir. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Applying a five-factor balancing test and in light of significant confidentiality and federalism concerns present in the case, Sixth Circuit concluded that certain aspects of district court’s orders constituted a ?demonstrable abuse of discretion,? and granted, in part, defendants? petition for mandamus and set aside those provisions of the district court’s orders that required forensic imaging of state-owned and privately owned computers, including the provisions that required U.S. Marshal or his designee to assist plaintiffs’ computer expert in execution of orders

Nature of Case: Class action on behalf of roughly 550,000 children seeking to enforce their rights under federal law to various medical services

Electronic Data Involved: State-owned and privately owned computers

Sampson v. City of Cambridge, 251 F.R.D. 172 (D. Md. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where defendant’s failure to preserve emails was merely negligent and plaintiff did not establish that lost evidence would have supported her claims, court denied plaintiff?s motion for default judgment or adverse inference instruction as spoliation sanction; however, since second forensic examination of hard drive was necessitated solely by defendant’s misstatement, court ordered defendant to cover its cost

Nature of Case: Race discrimination and discrimination under ADA

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, hard drive

Schoenbaum v. E.I. DuPont De Nemours, 2008 WL 877962 (E.D. Mo. Mar. 27, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court issued order relieving law firm of its duties as Co-Interim Class Counsel for plaintiffs, set scheduling conference and ordered parties’ attorneys to meet to discuss various issues in advance of conference, including joint proposed scheduling plan, preservation of evidence and any issues relating to disclosure or discovery of ESI

Nature of Case: Antitrust litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI generally

Catagory:Case Summaries