Case Summaries – Page 338 – Electronic Discovery Law

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Greystone Servicing Corp., 2007 WL 4179864 (N.D. Tex. Nov. 26, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Overruling defendant’s relevancy objections to various interrogatories, court ordered defendant to serve full and complete answers to various interrogatories, including one that asked: “Identify any documents, data or other information that relate to or reference the subject matter of this litigation, that have been deleted, physically destroyed, discarded, damaged, or overwritten, whether pursuant to a document retention policy or otherwise.”

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, tortious interference, and negligent misrepresentation

Electronic Data Involved: Potentially deleted data

Koninklike Philips Elecs. N.V. v. KXD Tech., Inc., 2007 WL 3101248 (D. Nev. Oct. 16, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where among other things defendants failed to produce documents in violation of court orders, made false statements regarding alleged damage to computer servers and destroyed computer servers in violation of court orders (thereby preventing an independent inspection regarding allegations that servers were damaged), court found that defendants? willful and bad faith discovery misconduct prejudiced plaintiff’s ability to obtain a fair trial on the merits and that lesser sanctions would not adequately rectify the prejudice and delay; court thus struck defendants? answers and entered default judgments against them

Nature of Case: Infringement litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Servers

Drnek v. Variable Annuity Life Ins. Co., 2007 WL 4513203 (9th Cir. Dec. 21, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District court did not abuse its discretion when it denied plaintiff?s motion for spoliation sanctions, since plaintiff offered no specific evidence that any of the destroyed emails contained relevant information

Nature of Case: Claimed violations of the anti-fraud provisions of the Securities and Exchange Acts

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Kellogg v. Nike, Inc., 2007 WL 4570871 (D. Neb. Dec. 26, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Resolving various discovery issues, court found defendants? explanation of document search sufficient and observed that plaintiff could not identify any particular document or category of missing documents based on evidence aside from his own incredulity; court added that, if gaps evolved after defendants’ supplementation of production, plaintiff could revisit the issue

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email and other ESI

Puckett v. Tandem Staffing Solutions, Inc., 2007 WL 7122747 (N.D. Ill. Jun. 27, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied motion for sanctions but, despite prior production of the information in hard copy, ordered defendant to restore and re-produce information from backup tapes where the information was ?reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence? and where defendant asserted that it?s ?documentation? was maintained in electronic form in the usual course of business, and ordered the parties to split the costs; court declined to compel defendant?s search of computers which ?may or may not have been utilized by plaintiff and his comparators? where requiring a search of an unknown number of computers in various offices with the possibility that no relevant individuals utilized them was unduly burdensome

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Backup tapes, computers

LR5-A Ltd. P’ship v. Meadow Creek, LLC, 2007 WL 4248100 (Mass.Super.)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court declined to enter non-destruction order since it had already advised party’s counsel about possible penalties for spoliation and assumed that the message had been passed along; court further denied request for array of orders compelling party to make extensive searches of electronic documents and to permit forensic computer expert to examine all network servers, desktop and laptop computers, hard drives, backup tapes, and PDAs for responsive documents

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Giant Screen Sports LLC v. Sky High Entm’t, 2007 WL 627607 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 27, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court entered default judgment against defendants and dismissed their counterclaims with prejudice as sanction for repeated discovery violations and blatent disregard of court’s orders; among other things, defendants had failed to produce any emails and discarded individual defendant’s computer that was subject to inspection request

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, fraud, and other claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Armament Sys. & Procedures, Inc. v. IQ Hong Kong Ltd., 2007 WL 895836 (E.D. Wis. Mar. 21, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered plaintiff to produce mirror image copies of hard drives at location of defendants’ computer forensics expert, since court saw no reason to treat such discovery differently than traditional (paper) discovery, any privacy concerns were addressed in the protocol proposed by defendants, and it was less burdensome than forcing defendants’ experts to conduct their testing at the site of plaintiff’s experts

Nature of Case: Patent litigation involving claims of forgery and fraud

Electronic Data Involved: Mirror image of hard drive

O’Bar v. Lowe’s Home Centers, Inc., 2007 WL 1299180 (W.D.N.C. May 2, 2007)

Key Insight: Court ordered parties to develop joint precertification discovery plan and articulated detailed guidelines for discovery of ESI adapted from the ?Suggested Protocol for Discovery of Electronically Stored Information? set forth by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

C.T. v. Liberal Sch. Dist., 2007 WL 1536806 (D. Kan. May 24, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Denying motion to compel plaintiff to produce documents listed on privilege log, court nonetheless found log inadequate and ordered plaintiff to submit an amended privilege log and, further, to identify whether or not each email listed is a ?string? or ?strand? email and, if so, to list each email within a strand as a separate entry in the privilege log

Nature of Case: Allegations of sexual abuse and harassment

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Catagory:Case Summaries