Catagory:Case Summaries

1
A/R Roofing, L.L.C. v. Certainteed Corp., 2006 WL 2381610 (D. Kan. Aug. 16, 2006)
2
Frees, Inc. v. McMillian, 2006 WL 2668843 (E.D. Tenn. Sept. 15, 2006)
3
Plasse v. Tyco Elecs. Corp., 2006 WL 3445610 (D. Mass. Nov. 8, 2006)
4
Malletier v. Dooney & Bourke, Inc., 2006 WL 3851151 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2006)
5
Dorel Juvenile Group, Inc. v. DiMartinis, 2006 WL 3240116 (S.D. Ind. Sept. 29, 2006) (Unpublished)
6
Roberts v. Whitfill, 191 S.W.3d 348 (Tex. App. 2006)
7
Nichani v. United Tech. Corp., 2006 WL 1102761 (D. Conn. Apr. 26, 2006)
8
In re NYSE Specialists Sec. Litig., 2006 WL 1704447 (S.D.N.Y. June 14, 2006)
9
In re ULLICO Inc. Litig., 237 F.R.D. 314 (D.D.C. 2006)
10
Patmont Motor Werks, Inc. v. CSK Auto Inc., 2006 WL 2591042 (D. Nev. Sept. 8, 2006)

A/R Roofing, L.L.C. v. Certainteed Corp., 2006 WL 2381610 (D. Kan. Aug. 16, 2006)

Key Insight: Where the font used by plaintiff’s expert in his hard copy list of customer estimates and contracts was ?incredibly small? and difficult to read without magnification, thus rendering hard copy list inadequate, and because defendant’s request for production of material in electronic form was not otherwise prohibited by scheduling order, court granted defendant’s motion to compel the data in electronic format

Nature of Case: Plaintiff claimed loss of business resulting from letter sent by defendant

Electronic Data Involved: Customer list

Frees, Inc. v. McMillian, 2006 WL 2668843 (E.D. Tenn. Sept. 15, 2006)

Key Insight: Court narrowed subpoena to defendant’s new employer, setting out “tiered discovery” process: plaintiff was to identify at least one project involving files allegedly removed from disputed laptop; new employer would then search for documents and/or files of the type described that were related to that project and produce them; if any of the produced documents and/or files were shown to be relevant or reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, then the parties would proceed to the ?second tier? of discovery and plaintiff could then request documents related to other projects; if no responsive documents could be found with respect to the first identified projects, however, plaintiff would be required to make a sufficient showing to the court as to why discovery should proceed further

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

Electronic Data Involved: Proprietary business and technological data

Plasse v. Tyco Elecs. Corp., 2006 WL 3445610 (D. Mass. Nov. 8, 2006)

Key Insight: In follow up to earlier decision dismissing complaint as sanction for plaintiff’s discovery misconduct, court awarded defendant $35,000 in attorneys’ fees and full costs of $20,472 since forensic computer experts were “particularly necessary to uncover plaintiff’s skulduggery”

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop; drafts of plaintiff’s resume

Malletier v. Dooney & Bourke, Inc., 2006 WL 3851151 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2006)

Key Insight: Court directed defendants to confirm in writing whether it searched particular email accounts or conduct such search if it had not already done so; court further denied plaintiff’s request for spoliation sanctions based upon defendant’s alleged failure to preserve chat room comments since it was highly unlikely that any comments by members of the public that would be pertinent to the lawsuit would have been received, since chat room was opened after relevant time period and technology to save chat room comments was not installed until over a year later

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Chat room comments; email

Dorel Juvenile Group, Inc. v. DiMartinis, 2006 WL 3240116 (S.D. Ind. Sept. 29, 2006) (Unpublished)

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel production of an exact image of the hard drive of defendant’s personal computer and instead ordered that the examination of and production from defendant’s personal computer proceed on the terms spelled out in defendant’s responses to the motion to compel

Electronic Data Involved: PC hard drive

Roberts v. Whitfill, 191 S.W.3d 348 (Tex. App. 2006)

Key Insight: Reversing plaintiff’s $800,000 jury verdict on other grounds, state appellate court expressed concern about spoliation instruction given by trial court since plaintiff had not pursued motion to compel, there was doubt about the materiality and relevance of the data and how or if its absence seriously impaired plaintiff’s ability to present her case, defendant had provided an explanation for the data’s removal from his computer and had offered to produce at least some of the data in paper form or print specific reports, and spoliation instruction given appeared to be excessive based upon surrounding circumstances and spoliation instructions recently approved by Texas courts

Nature of Case: Former partner alleged antitrust violations, fraud and breach of fiduciary duty claims

Electronic Data Involved: QuickBooks data

Nichani v. United Tech. Corp., 2006 WL 1102761 (D. Conn. Apr. 26, 2006)

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel production of all documents prepared by four trial witnesses regarding accident investigation, as well as all email between or among them regarding the same matter, where discovery was closed and plaintiff had long known that four witnesses had potentially relevant information and plaintiff never followed up on general production requests nor sought discovery from witnesses directly; court further denied plaintiff’s alternative motion in limine precluding testimony of four individuals

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Email

In re NYSE Specialists Sec. Litig., 2006 WL 1704447 (S.D.N.Y. June 14, 2006)

Key Insight: Court ordered that all hard copy documents be produced on single page tiff images, uploadable on both Opticon and Concordance, and that all electronic documents be produced in their native format with all associated metadata

Nature of Case: Securities class action

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents

In re ULLICO Inc. Litig., 237 F.R.D. 314 (D.D.C. 2006)

Key Insight: Where court found that ULLICO had in bad faith “grossly abused” the use of the “confidential” designation allowed under parties’ stipulated protective order, court ordered ULLICO to completely re-do its confidentiality designations and also ensure that the documents were correctly identified in parties’ joint discovery database

Nature of Case: ERISA litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Confidential documents, joint discovery database

Patmont Motor Werks, Inc. v. CSK Auto Inc., 2006 WL 2591042 (D. Nev. Sept. 8, 2006)

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s renewed motion for sanctions where plaintiff had failed to satisfy local meet and confer requirement; parties had previously engaged in meet and confer during recess and agreed on search methodology for responsive documents and emails

Nature of Case: Trademark and copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheet; email

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