Key Insight: Where accounting information was relevant to plaintiffs’ contention that defendants’ corporate form should be disregarded, court ruled that QuickBooks accounting data file for relevant time period be copied to CD and produced to plaintiffs in that form
Nature of Case: Breach of contract, unjust enrichment
Electronic Data Involved: QuickBooks accounting data file
Key Insight: Where plaintiff needed requested information to compare his circumstances of disciplinary action and termination with others who held his position, and defendant’s undue burden objection rested on unsupported claim that it would take over 100 hours to retrieve information from various company databases, court overruled objection finding that defendant had not demonstrated undue burden: “At best, it has perhaps shown that compliance would be inconvenient and involve some expense.”
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination, wrongful termination
Electronic Data Involved: Computerized accident and driving histories of other employees
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
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
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
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
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
Key Insight: Court granted motion to compel defendants to produce the subject computer for inspection, appointed an expert to conduct the examination whose fees would be shared by the parties, and set out two distinct procedures for production of the computer ? one for reviewing the computer?s hardware, software, and operating system and one for reviewing information stored on the computer
Nature of Case: Plaintiffs claimed defendants wrongfully disclosed plaintiffs’ confidential medical information stored on a computer hard drive by placing the computer on the curb for trash disposal
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive of subject computer
Key Insight: Where defendant discarded his hard drive the day after the lawsuit was filed, court granted plaintiff’s motion for spoliation sanctions but ordered plaintiff to pare down the requested fees and expenses to those having a proximate causal nexus to the spoliation; court further ordered counsel to meet and confer on the issue
Nature of Case: Company sued former employee who downloaded proprietary files just prior to resigning and going to work for competitor
Electronic Data Involved: Confidential files
Key Insight: Court ordered defendants to organize and label documents to correspond with discovery requests, or provide an index, and to submit declarations by qualified computer technicians or forensic experts setting forth specific details of any lost or destroyed data or damaged hard drives; court reserved the option to appoint a neutral computer forensic expert as a special master to investigate and assess any claim by defendants that their computer servers or hard drives were damaged during the seizures or that electronic records were lost or destroyed
Nature of Case: Infringement litigation
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents, hard drives
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