Case Summaries – Page 327 – Electronic Discovery Law

Potter v. Havlicek, 2007 WL 539534 (S.D. Ohio Feb. 14, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Although court denied motion for preliminary injunction forbidding defendant from using, disclosing or destroying emails and other ESI described by defendant as evidence he would present if tangentially related divorce case went to trial, court ordered defendant to produce subject emails and other ESI within 10 days

Nature of Case: Alleged violations of Electronic Communications Privacy Act and Stored Communications Act, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress

Electronic Data Involved: Emails and other ESI described by defendant in affidavit in tangentially related divorce case

Tenet Healthsystem Desert, Inc. v. Fortis Ins. Co., Inc., 520 F. Supp. 2d 1184 C.D. Cal. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment, court drew adverse inference from plaintiff’s loss of records, “i.e., that the records from Mr. Wyatt’s May, 2002 hospital visit are unfavorable to Plaintiff and, therefore, suggest Mr. Wyatt had a pre-existing condition during the October and December, 2002 medical treatment,” as an appropriate sanction due to the prejudice their loss caused defendant in the litigation

Nature of Case: Medical provider sued insurer for failure to pay for services provided to insured

Electronic Data Involved: Medical records relating to insured’s earlier emergency room visit

Cyntegra, Inc. v. Idexx Labs., Inc., 2007 WL 5193736 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 21, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where plaintiff stored majority of its documents on third-party servers and failed to make payment to maintain the service, resulting in deletion of relevant documents, court declined to enter default judgment and monetary sanctions but instead would allow lesser sanction of adverse inference instruction, since (1) plaintiff had control, albeit indirectly, over destroyed information; (2) plaintiff was at least negligent in not taking any affirmative steps to preserve documents, and (3) evidence was relevant to defense

Nature of Case: Antitrust, tortious interference with contractual relations

Electronic Data Involved: Documents stored by plaintiff on third-party computer servers

Pedroli v. Bartek, 2007 WL 1480967 (E.D. Tex. May 18, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court granted defendants’ expedited motion to suspend requirement for Rule 26(f) conference in light of pending motions to dismiss and provision in Private Securities Litigation Reform Act that provides for automatic stay of discovery and other proceedings in all federal securities fraud actions while motions to dismiss are pending

Nature of Case: Securities litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Rule 26(f) conference

Cambrians for Thoughtful Dev., U.A. v. Didion Milling, Inc., 2007 WL 5618671 (W.D. Wis. Nov. 27, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Rejecting plaintiff?s claims that work product protection extended only to documents prepared in anticipation of the ongoing litigation, court denied motion to compel email strings between attorney and employees of defendant prepared in anticipation of government enforcement action, especially where enforcement action and ongoing litigation were closely related, as was the case here

Nature of Case: Violations of Clean Air Act

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Hendricks v. Smartvideo Techs., Inc., 2007 WL 220160 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 26, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied defense motion for dismissal based on plaintiff’s failure to preserve laptop’s hard drive, since there was no evidence that plaintiff’s conduct was intentional or in bad faith — plaintiff explained that hard drive was replaced after laptop crashed and before defendant’s discovery requests were received

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop hard drive

Frye v. St. Thomas Health Servs., 2007 WL 908059 (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 26, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: State appellate court found no error in trial court’s order denying plaintiff’s motion to compel production of certain hard drives of defendant for the purpose of allowing an expert to determine whether they contained relevant email, since discovery requests at issue made no mention of hard drives

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email, hard drives

Frees, Inc. v. McMillian, 2007 WL 1308388 (W.D. La. May 1, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District court upheld magistrate judge’s January 22, 2007 memorandum order and related protective order, as such orders were not clearly erroneous or contrary to law

Nature of Case: Design firm sued former vice president under Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Electronic Data Involved: Former employee’s home computer and new work computer

Heartland Surgical Specialty Hosp., LLC v. Midwest Div., Inc., 2007 WL 2122437 (D. Kan. July 20, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Although court found it “bothersome” that it no attempt at all was made by some of the founders to search, even on a random basis, their personal or office emails, balancing the burden on the founders of conducting full email searches of their non-@hssh.org email accounts against the likelihood that such searches would recover few, if any, additional documents not already produced by Heartland, court declined to require founders to conduct any searches of their personal email accounts in responding to subpoenas

Nature of Case: Antitrust and tortious interference litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Personal email accounts of plaintiff’s founders

Doe v. Morey Charter Sch., 2007 WL 2331864 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 14, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District court overruled plaintiff’s objections to magistrate judge’s order denying in part motion to compel since order was not clearly erroneous; although plaintiff argued that more material should have been produced, defendants represented that they had produced everything and magistrate judge noted that both sides’ counsel had access to mirror images of hard drives containing the requested data which had been seized in police investigation

Nature of Case: Allegations of sexual abuse and harrassment by former elementary school teacher

Electronic Data Involved: Email and other ESI

Catagory:Case Summaries