Case Summaries – Page 325 – Electronic Discovery Law

PML N. Am., LLC v. ACG Enters. of NC, Inc., 2007 WL 2156276 (E.D. Mich. July 26, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendant was insolvent and unable to fund litigation expenses or pay monetary sanctions imposed for electronic discovery abuses (which included among other things the unexplained disappearance of a hard drive from CEO’s laptop), and in light of CEO’s active participation in the fraud, breach of contract and e-discovery abuses, court granted plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend complaint to add defendant’s CEO as an individual defendant

Nature of Case: Fraud and breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

Children’s Legal Servs. P.L.L.C v. Kresch, 2007 WL 4098203 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 16, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel answers to multi-part interrogatory seeking each email address, mobile phone number, internet username, and instant messaging username used by any employee, associate, partner, paralegal, shareholder or other person who worked with defendant and was involved in the provision, referral or advertisement of legal services connected to the disputed service mark or any permutation thereof, finding it unduly broad, burdensome and not limited to the discovery of relevant matters

Nature of Case: Service mark infringement claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email addresses and user names

Vaughn v. City of Puyallup, 2007 WL 3306743 (W.D. Wash. Nov. 6, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where plaintiff contended that defendant had not thoroughly searched its electronic storage network or devices for relevant documents, court denied plaintiff?s request to compel defendant to conduct and document a further comprehensive search since plaintiff failed to cite authority for proposition that court should enforce plaintiff?s subjective notion of how defendant should conduct discovery: ?Defendant is under a duty to produce all relevant documents. Defendant is not under a duty to comply with every discovery procedure requested by Plaintiff.?

Nature of Case: Wrongful discharge

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents

APC Filtration, Inc. v. Becker, 2007 WL 4569721 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 21, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court approved plaintiff’s fee petition and awarded $79,606 in attorneys’ fees and $19,856 in expenses, for a total of $99,462, as sanction for defendant’s intentional destruction of laptop computer

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of employment contract

Electronic Data Involved: Computer

Mother, LLC. v. L.L. Bean, Inc., 2007 WL 2302974 (W.D. Wash. Aug. 7, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: As sanction for plaintiff?s failure to comply with discovery order requiring production of ?all electronically stored information regarding its finances,” court struck plaintiff’s claim for loss of profits and ordered plaintiff to pay reasonable expenses, costs, and attorneys? fees incurred by defendant in bringing motion

Nature of Case: Trade dress infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI regarding plaintiff’s finances

Tomlinson v. El Paso Corp., 245 F.R.D. 474 (D. Colo. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court rejected defendants’ claim that they had no control over third party’s ?computerized infrastructure? and ordered production of electronic pension plan records by defendants; because ERISA sets out employer’s responsibilities for the proper maintenance and retention of pension and welfare plan records and employer cannot delegate those duties, records maintained by third party were in “possession, custody or control” of defendants for purposes of discovery

Nature of Case: Claims under ERISA

Electronic Data Involved: Pension and welfare plan records maintained by third party

Autotech Techs. Ltd. P?ship v. Automationdirect.com, Inc., 2007 WL 2746650 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 17, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendant argued that extracting requested information regarding 56,000 to 60,000 customer invoices from computer system would cost as much as $80,000, and alternative method for extracting information proposed by plaintiff was unsuccessful, court held parties to their prior agreement and determined that reasonable allocation was for plaintiff to pay 62 percent and defendant to pay the remainder; court further ordered defendant to provide proof of actual cost and proof of actual payment and stated that, if defendant is able to extract information for less than $80,000 or if parties arrive at different cost-shifting formula, that will control

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Customer information stored in database

DE Techs., Inc. v. Dell, Inc., 2007 WL 128966 (W.D. Va. Jan. 12, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District judge modified magistrate’s December 4, 2006 sanctions order, allowing Dell to use the 57 disputed documents at trial since it concluded that Dell had provided the documents in a way that fulfilled all of its discovery obligations and DE had not moved to compel production of the documents in a different format

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents produced in searchable database

Marin v. Evans, 2007 WL 655456 (E.D. Wash. Feb. 27, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where it was undisputed that defendants had taken steps to prevent spoliation of evidence and the only support for preservation order was that defense counsel had been accused of destroying evidence in a separate case, court found that plaintiffs failed to show any evidence of past evidence destruction by the parties to this case and concluded that preservation order was not necessary

Nature of Case: RICO civil action

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

Bitler Inv. Venture II, LLC v. Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC, 2007 WL 465444 (N.D. Ind. Feb. 7, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where principal of co-plaintiff forwarded 15 email exchanges with counsel to plaintiffs’ testifying expert witness, and expert witness produced them as part of his file even though he stated he did not consider them when forming his opinion, court ordered production of such emails under Rule 26(a)(2)(B)

Nature of Case: Breach of contract and waste

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged emails

Catagory:Case Summaries