Case Summaries – Page 336 – Electronic Discovery Law

Muro v. Target Corp., 2007 WL 3254463 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 2, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District court upheld magistrate judge?s ruling that Target’s ?litigation hold? notices were subject to attorney-client privilege and work product protection since notices were communications of legal advice from corporate counsel to corporate employees regarding document preservation; however, court sustained objection to magistrate’s ruling that privilege log was inadequate for failing to separately itemize each individual email quoted in an email string, concluding that Rule 26(b)(5)(A) does not require separate itemization of each individual email quoted in an email string

Nature of Case: Putative class action alleging violations of Truth in Lending Act

Electronic Data Involved: Litigation hold notices; privileged email

Hunts Point Realty Corp. v. Pacifico, 2007 WL 2304859 (N.Y. Sup. July 24, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Although court concluded that plaintiff had not adequately proven damages under any theory and thus damage award was zero, court found that defendant’s “unabashed flaunting of this Court’s preservation order” in failing to preserve emails resulted in additional work by plaintiffs’ counsel and the court, and as sanction, court awarded attorneys’ fees and costs for all work done by counsel related to defendant’s failure to preserve email

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Whitney v. Wurtz, 2007 WL 521231 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 15, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered plaintiffs to provide a separate disk for each plaintiff’s responses to defendant?s request for production, and instructed (1) that ?electronic documents shall be produced as they are kept in the usual course of business or Plaintiffs shall organize and label the documents to correspond with Veriscape’s requests? and (2) that electronic documents be produced without the use of any compression software and in the format requested by defendant at the hearing

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, termination, and deceit

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents produced on computer disk

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

Thompson v. Harding Univ., 2007 WL 2081695 (E.D. Ark. July 20,2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendant received from an anonymous source a copy of an email sent by plaintiff which had not been produced by plaintiff in discovery, court denied defendant’s motion for access to plaintiff’s computer but stated that defendant would be permitted to depose plaintiff about items in his possession and items no longer in his possession, and court would be willing to entertain renewed motion depending on the testimony obtained

Nature of Case: Student who was suspended and denied re-admission alleged discrimination claims

Electronic Data Involved: Plaintiff’s personal computer

Perez-Farias v. Global Horizons, Inc., 2007 WL 2327073 (E.D. Wash. Aug. 10, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendants failed to produce email, failed to properly preserve email, and had not complied with orders to timely produce discovery, nor paid plaintiffs’ costs of bringing discovery motions as ordered nor paid sanctions to court as directed, and repeatedly failed to follow local rules with respect to timely and properly filing documents, court granted plaintiff’s motion for case dispositive sanctions; trial would be on the issue of damages only, and only plaintiff’s evidence would be admitted given defendants’ failure to file witness or exhibit lists

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email

In re Seroquel Prods. Liab. Litig., 2007 WL 4287676 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 6, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court rejected non-party’s claim that it was entitled to recover full amount of fees expended to retrieve, identify and review 25 project files sought by plaintiffs (estimated to be $28,950, including $18,750 in attorneys fees for 50 hours of review), since non-party should have reasonably anticipated being involved in the discovery process of subsequent litigation concerning the marketing/prescribing behavior it studied, the cost could be borne by the non-party as overhead, and cost was less than four fifths (4/5) of one percent of the revenue the non-party generated from work on Seroquel products

Nature of Case: Drug product liability class action

Electronic Data Involved: 25 electronically-maintained project files relating to market research that non-party Harris performed on behalf of AstraZeneca with respect to Seroquel

Benton v. Dlorah, Inc., 2007 WL 3231431 (D. Kan. Oct. 30, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Magistrate judge ordered plaintiff to produce responsive emails, and if emails had been deleted, to produce for inspection her computer hard drive from which those emails were sent to allow defendants to use services of computer forensic specialist, if necessary, to retrieve them; request for sanctions denied without prejudice to a further request for a ?negative inference instruction? to be determined by trial judge

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Deleted email, hard drive of plaintiff’s personal computer

Catagory:Case Summaries