Catagory:Case Summaries

Johnson v. Kraft Foods N. Am., Inc., 2006 WL 3302684 (D. Kan. Nov. 14, 2006)

In this decision, the court granted in part plaintiffs’ motion to compel and overruled a number of defendants’ objections to plaintiffs’ request for production. Among other things, defendants had objected that many of the terms used in the request were vague and ambiguous, including: “electronic databases,” “personnel related data,” “database,” “coded fields,” and “data dictionaries.” Overruling the objection, the court noted that plaintiffs had attempted to resolve any ambiguity by providing definitions in a separate letter. It also noted that, while the court’s electronic discovery guidelines did not specifically provide definitions for the terms in dispute by the parties, the guidelines did provide a valuable reference to the Sedona Conference® for definitions of terms used in the guidelines. It concluded:
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Ball v. Versar, Inc., 2005 WL 4881102 (S.D. Ind. Sept. 23, 2005)

This case involved the remediation of a “Superfund” hazardous waste site in Indiana. Plaintiffs Roy Ball and Norman Bernstein (the “trustees”) were trustees for the fund formed by the hazardous waste generators to clean up the site under agreement with the relevant governmental agencies. The trustees sued Versar, Inc. for breach of its contract to perform remediation services at the site. In this motion, the defendant sought production of email and other documents it contended the trustees were improperly withholding, access to plaintiff Roy Ball’s personal and employer-owned computers, and sanctions for plaintiffs’ failure to produce or retain discoverable electronic evidence. Read More

Optowave Co., Ltd. v. Nikitin, 2006 WL 3231422 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 7, 2006)

In this breach of contract case, Optowave contended that its contract with defendant Dmitri Nikitin d/b/a Precision Technology Group (“PTG”) incorporated eight certain specifications, and that PTG failed to meet any of the specifications, thereby breaching the contract. During discovery, Optowave sought to compel production of electronic documents and emails regarding the contract. Following oral argument and the parties’ agreement on certain issues raised by the motion to compel, the court scheduled a second hearing on the issue of spoliation of certain internal emails between Nikitin and his employees. Read More

Wyeth v. Impax Labs., Inc., 2006 WL 3091331 (D. Del. Oct. 26, 2006)

In this patent litigation, the court denied in part and granted in part defendant’s motion to compel. Impax contended, among other things, that Wyeth should be ordered to produce electronic documents in their native format, complete with metadata, and not in the Tagged Image File Format (“TIFF”) in which they were produced. Wyeth argued that Impax was not entitled to electronic copies in their natural state for two reasons: (1) Impax had not made a particularized showing of need for the metadata, and (2) collection of this data would be overly burdensome. Read More

Bank of America Corp. v. SR Int’l Bus. Ins. Co., Ltd., 2006 WL 3093174, 2006 NCBC 15 (N.C. Super. Nov. 1, 2006)

In its introductory remarks, the court advised:

This opinion should be read in conjunction with the opinion in Analog Devices, Inc. v. Michalski, 2006 NCBC 14, (N.C.Super.Ct. Nov. 1, 2006), issued contemporaneously herewith. The decision in that case deals with production of inaccessible data in the context of a party-to-party dispute and provides greater detail concerning approaches used by various courts in e-discovery disputes. Both this opinion and the opinion in Analog should make it clear that: (1) the language of current North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure 26 and 45 still control trial court decisions and work well, (2) each case is different and fact intensive, (3) there exist numerous factors which might come into play in the varying factual contexts of each case, and (4) trial courts should always be cognizant that e-discovery decisions, especially those involving inaccessible data, have the potential to be outcome determinative because of the costs involved.

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Analog Devices, Inc. v. Michalski, 2006 WL 3287382 (N.C. Super. Nov. 1, 2006) (Unpublished)

In this misappropriation of trade secrets case, defendants moved to compel the production of emails of the originators of the trade secrets at issue relating to the development of those trade secrets and products initially implementing them. At the hearing on the motion, the court ordered Analog to determine the search capability of the databases containing the emails requested and to conduct a word search, if possible, using agreed-upon terms, of emails sent by specific inventors over a two-year period surrounding the release dates of products implementing the alleged trade secrets. Counsel for Analog subsequently reported that it would produce emails still existing on the hard drives of the personal computers used by the trade secret originators. As to emails no longer existing on personal computers but stored on its backup server, Analog argued that production would be expensive and time consuming and therefore unduly burdensome.

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In re Napster, Inc. Copyright Litig., 2006 WL 3050864 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 25, 2006)

In this opinion, the court denied plaintiffs’ request for spoliation sanctions in the form of a default judgment, and instead granted plaintiffs’ alternative request for a preclusion order, an adverse inference instruction and an award of attorneys’ fees. Plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions argued that defendant Hummer Winblad (“Hummer”) knowingly and intentionally deleted an undetermined number of emails which they had a duty to preserve and to produce in response to plaintiffs’ document requests. Read More

In re Quintus Corp., 353 B.R. 77 (Bankr. D. Del. 2006) 

Avaya, Inc. purchased the assets of the debtors in bankruptcy, and agreed to assume certain of the debtors’ liabilities. Thereafter, the trustee filed an adversary complaint against Avaya asserting breach of contract and unjust enrichment for failure to pay certain liabilities under the parties’ asset purchase agreement (“the APA”). The trustee sought judgment against Avaya in the amount of $1,888,410.52 for the unpaid claims. Read More

Ponca Tribe of Indians of Okla. v. Cont’l Carbon Co., 2006 WL 2927878 (W.D. Okla. Oct. 11, 2006)

In this decision, the court ruled on plaintiffs’ motion to compel certain electronic information.

First, the court rejected plaintiffs’ request that defendant permit them to image or download to a database all information stored in defendant’s “data historian.” Plaintiffs initially proposed imaging or mirroring the data historian as a means of easily obtaining the requested information. However, defendant objected and argued that such imaging would necessarily require approximately 100 days to complete and that any such imaging would violate the licensing for the operating software used. Plaintiffs then suggested that the information be downloaded into a database using software currently possessed by defendant. Defendant responded that it did not own the software modules, but that such software could be purchased for approximately $5,000 and would require another $5,000 in training/programming to make the modules useable. Read More

Leon v. IDX Sys. Corp., 464 F.3d 951 (9th Cir. 2006)

Dr. Mauricio Leon (“Leon”) was hired by the defendant in 2001, and in mid-2002, he began complaining of mismanagement of a federally-funded project.  In April 2003, IDX put Leon on unpaid leave and brought an action for declaratory relief, seeking to establish that it could terminate him without violating the anti-retaliation provisions of the False Claims Act, SOX and the ADA.  In May 2003, Leon filed his own action, which included claims for retaliation under various statutes and state law claims.
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