Case Summaries – Page 300 – Electronic Discovery Law

Ford Motor Co. v. Hall-Edwards, 997 So.2d 1148 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where trial court granted plaintiff access to all defendant?s databases, including an exclusively privileged database, based upon an unproven assumption regarding ease of production and upon defendant?s violation of a prior court order by failing to provide sufficient information regarding its search efforts, appellate court quashed order noting that defendant?s violations were correctable and non-prejudicial and thus could not justify invasion of the attorney-client privilege or work product

Nature of Case: Personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: Database

Rhoads Indus., Inc. v. Bldg. Materials Corp. of Am., 254 F.R.D. 238 (E.D. Pa. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court clarified prior sanctions order and held that where top email in string was not properly and timely logged, it must be produced, however, properly and timely logged underlying messages in string were protected but only to extent that they were ?identical replicas of the version of the message that was logged?; where top message was properly logged, privilege extended to properly logged underlying messages in string but any messages not properly logged were ordered produced

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Email

New Albertsons Inc. v. Superior Court, 86 Cal. Rptr. 3d 457 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court issued writ of mandate vacating award of sanctions against defendant for spoliation of video and photographic evidence where trial court had no statutory or inherent authority to order sanctions absent defendant?s violation of a court order or sufficiently egregious or exceptional circumstances and, where by failing to timely move to compel further response upon Albertson?s alleged deficient production, plaintiffs waived their rights to do so

Nature of Case: Negligence and premises liability

Electronic Data Involved: Video and photographic evidence

Washington v. State, 961 A.2d 1110 (Md. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court of Appeals reversed Special Court of Appeals and remanded case for new trial based on State?s failure to properly authenticate surveillance video where State entered video into evidence but provided no testimony as to ?the process used, the manner of the operation of the cameras, the reliability of authenticity of its images, or the chain of custody of the pictures?

Nature of Case: First degree assault and related offenses

Electronic Data Involved: Video Surveillance

Meccatech, Inc. v. Kiser, 2008 WL 6010937 (D. Neb. Apr. 2, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where the court found that defendants had ?intentionally destroyed or withheld? ESI, including by deleting relevant evidence or attempting to discard a relevant hard drive (which was instead saved by the technician defendant told to discard it), and where the destruction resulted in prejudice to the plaintiff, the court ordered default judgment against defendant and other evidentiary sanctions

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Sharp v. City of Palatka, 2008 WL 89762 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 8, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: No adverse inference warranted for alleged spoliation of audio recordings, since plaintiff failed to establish first element that recordings ever existed; however, plaintiff would be free to elicit testimony concerning the alleged recordings at trial

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Audio recordings of two conversations

Karim v. Natural Stone Indus., Inc., 2008 WL 429627 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Jan. 18, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where computer hard drive was not relevant and material to plaintiff’s ability to return to employment, evidence regarding plaintiff?s employability was ascertainable by other means, and it would be impossible to discern plaintiff?s computer usage beyond the use testified to at deposition given that several members of plaintiff’s household also used the computer, court denied as improperly invasive third-party defendant?s request for a ?clone? of plaintiff’s home computer hard drive

Nature of Case: Injured construction worker sued for violations of New York Labor Law and for common law negligence

Electronic Data Involved: Plaintiff’s home computer

Executive Air Taxi Corp. v. City of Bismarck, 2008 WL 564725 (8th Cir. Mar. 4, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Eighth Circuit upheld district court’s order denying plaintiff’s request to have a third-party expert conduct forensic investigation of a City-owned computer to search for relevant emails that might not have been produced in discovery; district court’s findings that City had produced all relevant emails in hard copy and that forensic discovery could expose confidential or privileged materials were not clearly erroneous and in light of that factual premise there was no abuse of discretion

Nature of Case: Equal protection and substantive due process claims

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop computer of defendant’s employee

Baird v. Dept. of the Army, 517 F.3d 1345 (Fed. Cir. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Finding that administrative judge abused his discretion in refusing to compel production of relevant email, and given defendant?s ?lax attitude? towards compliance with plaintiff?s discovery requests, court vacated final decision of Board and remanded case to Board, to be remanded to administrative law judge with directions to order defendant to promptly produce all relevant emails and to assure that all relevant personnel either had already, or will promptly, produce all relevant emails; if such production of email resulted in further evidence to support Baird’s theory, administrative judge to afford Baird another hearing

Nature of Case: Civilian employee at Army hospital sought review of Merit Systems Protection Board final decision sustaining her termination for having failed random drug test

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Melcher v. Apollo Med. Fund Mgmt. L.L.C., 859 N.Y.S.2d 160 (N.Y. App. Div. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where there was no proof that plaintiff intentionally destroyed or withheld evidence, plaintiff’s assistant testified that she searched his computers, and there was an adequate explanation for non-production of two items of correspondence, appellate court found trial court had improperly directed the cloning of plaintiff’s computer hard drives and reversed lower court’s order

Nature of Case: Breach of fiduciary duty

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drives

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