Case Summaries – Page 306 – Electronic Discovery Law

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

Sprenger v. Rector of Va. Tech, 2008 WL 2465236 (W.D. Va. June 17, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where factual record was sparse and consisted solely of employer’s internet and email use policy, and no information was provided regarding knowledge, implementation, or enforcement of policy, court observed it had facts to determine only one of the four factors set out in In Re Asia Global Crossing, Ltd ., 322 B.R. 247 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2005) and found that defendant had failed to meet its burden of demonstrating waiver of marital privilege; court quashed subpoena to plaintiff?s husband?s employer

Nature of Case: Employee alleged civil rights violations and violations of ADA and FMLA

Electronic Data Involved: ?[A]ll electronically stored information on all computers, laptops, PDA’s, portable media or other devices? utilized by plaintiff’s husband at his place of work relating to plaintiff’s claims

Kayongo-Male v. S.D. State Univ., 2008 WL 2627699 (D.S.D. July 3, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where defendant argued it produce in hard copy format (Excel spreadsheets) all the information that defense expert relied on in creating his regression models, court ordered defendant to produce raw data in electronic format but denied plaintiff?s request to depose defense expert or persons responsible for compiling the information

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic copy of raw, unfiltered data from defendant’s human resource database which defense expert used to conduct regression analysis

Mon River Towing, Inc. v. Indus. Terminal & Salvage Co., 2008 WL 2412946 (W.D. Pa. June 10, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Nothing that in its estimation, “‘a print-out of computer data’ is significantly different than the report requested here by Defendant or any ‘analyses’ of documents,” court ruled that Rule 34 does not require responding party to create or generate responsive materials in specific form requested by the moving party; however, to extent that party merely requested computer print-out of information at issue, such print-outs fell within bounds of Rule 34 and should be produced

Nature of Case: Negligence, lost profits and indemnification

Electronic Data Involved: Computer printouts

Gen. Elec. Co. v. SonoSite, Inc., 2008 WL 4062098 (W.D. Wis. Jan. 22, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where both sides argued that the other side had not produced all responsive information and it appeared to court that there were a few places in which parties may not have yet looked, court gave parties one last chance to look for responsive material before it would hold them to their ?the documents don’t exist? positions and warned that lack of diligence or forthrightness would result in sanctions; court further denied plaintiff?s request to modify protective order that required source code be made available on a computer at producing party?s office for viewing by opposing party

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Source code

Pandora Jewelry, LLC v. Chamilia, LLC, 2008 WL 4533902 (D. Md. Sept. 30, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court imposed monetary sanctions pursuant to Rule 37 for discovery violations related to defendant?s responses to discovery and its inadequate 30(b)(6) deponent, but declined to award spoliation sanction of adverse inference where defendants failed to preserve emails and could not identify blind copy recipients or explain who wrote the emails or to whom they were intended to be sent but where plaintiff failed to show injury resulting from the emails and could not establish that access to the emails or their recipient lists would have been favorable to that showing; court noted, ?the evidence in this case is easily distinguishable from the destroyed evidence in cases where courts have imposed spoliation sanctions?

Nature of Case: False advertising, tortious interference, unfair competition and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Blind copy email recipients

Keithley v. Homestore.com, 2008 WL 4830752 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 6, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where late production of documents resulted in some prejudice to defendants but where prejudice was minor in light of limited relevance of the documents produced and their limited value to defendants? case and where defendants failed to show that documents missing from production were destroyed rather than ?simply lost? or a significant degree of resulting prejudice, court declined to impose dismissal or adverse inference but ordered monetary sanctions pursuant to Rule 37; monetary sanctions in the amount of $205,507.53 were subsequently ordered (Keithley v. Homestore.com, 2009 WL 55953 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 7, 2009))

Nature of Case: Patent Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email

Catagory:Case Summaries