Case Summaries – Page 305 – Electronic Discovery Law

Whitney v. JetBlue Airways Corp., 2008 WL 2156324 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 29, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where handwritten IIR was included with numerous other similar documents and destroyed en masse by airline under document retention policy, court found that, although there was a ?disturbing amount of carelessness on defendant’s part? in its retention and production of the IIRs, plaintiff had not demonstrated that handwritten IIR would have been favorable to her case or that she was prejudiced by its absence; accordingly, court declined to impose any spoliation sanctions but awarded plaintiff her fees and costs in connection with motion

Nature of Case: Airline passenger allegedly injured by another passenger sued airline claiming negligent failure to protect and gross negligence

Electronic Data Involved: Original handwritten ?Inflight Irregularity Report? and conflicting electronic versions of same

E.E.O.C. v. Outback Steakhouse of FL, Inc., 2008 WL 2410415 (D. Colo. June 11, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where information requested was relevant to EEOC?s claim, and defendants failed to provide concrete substantiation of the alleged burden, either in terms of manpower, hours, or financial resources that would be required to compile it, court ruled that, even though EEOC requested information in electronic database form, defendants’ answers were not restricted by their electronic record-keeping system; court ordered defendants to make a good faith effort to compile supplemental information from all available sources

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Employment records and information

Mich. First Credit Union v. CUMIS Ins. Soc., Inc., 2008 WL 2915077 (E.D. Mich. July 22, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: District court overruled plaintiff?s objections to magistrate judge?s order denying sanctions and clarifying that defendant was not required to produce ESI in ?native format? or to produce metadata, where limited evidentiary value of producing ?native format? documents with accompanying metadata was outweighed by overly burdensome task of generating such documents

Nature of Case: Breach of insurance contract, unfair trade practices

Electronic Data Involved: APEX files, Lotus Notes email files, and Microsoft Office spreadsheet files

J.T. Shannon Lumber Co., Inc. v. Gilco Lumber, Inc., 2008 WL 3833216 (N.D. Miss. Aug. 14, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Granting motion to quash, court found that subpoenas duces tecum served by plaintiff on Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! requesting entire contents of individual defendants’ mailboxes and other information were facially invalid under Stored Communications Act of 1986 and were overly burdensome and oppressive; court found that breadth was so expansive that it resembled a ?fishing expedition,? and that plaintiff had not shown that all information requested was relevant or likely to lead to admissible evidence

Nature of Case: Intentional interference with business relationships, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty

Electronic Data Involved: Entire contents of individual defendants’ mailboxes stored on third-party ISPs, details of individuals’ accounts and user connection logs

Barrett v. Ambient Pressure Diving, Ltd., 2008 WL 4280360 (D.N.H. Sept. 16, 2008) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Sanction of dismissal not warranted where data stored on dive computers was lost when it could no longer be downloaded after one year, since plaintiff did not engage in deliberate destruction, she did not know whether data was helpful or hurtful to her case because she had not seen it, and she had not known that data would automatically become unavailable for download after one year; defendant?s entitlement to alternative relief to be decided at trial; court further granted plaintiff?s motion for summary judgment dismissing defendant?s counterclaims for ?fraud on the court? and ?spoliation of evidence?

Nature of Case: Negligence, product liability, wrongful death

Electronic Data Involved: Dive information stored on VR3 dive computers

Cantrell v. Cameron, 195 P.2d 659 (Colo. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Finding the court abused its discretion when it ordered production of a laptop for inspection but declined to incorporate restrictions or narrow scope of inspection and denied defendant?s motion for a protective order despite confidentiality concerns including attorney-client privilege and proprietary business information, appellate court vacated order and directed lower court to issue protective order limiting scope of inspection; court noted that while personal computers do implicate confidentiality issues requiring ?serious consideration of a person?s privacy interest,? ?a personal computer?s contents are not confidential by nature?

Nature of Case: Traffic accident resulting in personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, laptop

Lessley v. City of Madison, Ind., 2008 WL 4977328 (S.D. Ind. Nov. 20, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where defendants failed to timely respond to discovery requests, failed to respond to two motions to compel, and where individual defendant testified he made no attempt to look for files or emails in response to discovery requests, Court granted motion for sanctions and issued order setting final deadline for production, barring all of defendants? objections to production except attorney-client privilege, fining defendants $1,000 and ordering payment of plaintiffs? attorney?s fees

Nature of Case: Suit for damages resulting from improper strip search

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, ESI

Oldenkamp v. United Am. Ins. Co., 2008 WL 4682226 (N.D. Okla. Oct. 21, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel where plaintiff failed to offer any evidence that requested emails existed and where defendant offered sworn testimony that all responsive document had been produced; court also denied plaintiffs? motion for spoliation sanctions where plaintiff offered no evidence that allegedly spoliated materials existed; where defendant indicated its inability to locate a particular document but produced audio tapes detailing the contents, court declined to impose sanctions because plaintiffs offered no evidence of defendant?s intentional destruction of evidence and because plaintiffs suffered no prejudice in light of alternative source for requested information

Nature of Case: Litigation concerning insurance company’s denial of benefits

Electronic Data Involved: Email, ESI

Kingsway Fin. Servs., Inc. v. Pricewaterhouse-Coopers LLP, 2008 WL 5423316 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 31, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Citing Aguilar v. United States Dep?t of Homeland Sec, 2008 WL 5062700 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 21, 2008), which stated: ?In the absence of an issue concerning the authenticity of a document or the process by which it was created, most metadata has no evidentiary value.?, court denied motion to compel production of metadata where plaintiff failed to show its relevance and made no claim that the documents had been improperly modified

Nature of Case: Claims arising from the Securities Exchange Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, metadata

Relion v. Hydra Fuel Cell Corp., 2008 WL 5122828 (D. Or. Dec. 4, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Finding that plaintiff ?did not pursue all reasonable means of preserving privilege? court found that attorney client privilege was waived when plaintiff unintentionally produced two privileged emails in hard copy despite conducting a privilege review and because plaintiffs failed to discover the production until revealed by defendants despite having both paper and electronic, text-searchable copies of the documents produced

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Catagory:Case Summaries