Case Summaries – Page 381 – Electronic Discovery Law

BG Real Estate Servs., Inc. v. Am. Equity Ins. Co., 2005 WL 1309048 (E.D. La. May 18, 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Request for production of “computer hard drive” was overly broad and responding party need not produce entire hard drive; however, to the extent that hard drive contained non-privileged items that were responsive to other requests as to which responding party’s objections were not sustained, such items should be produced

Nature of Case: Insurance coverage and unauthorized settlement

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

McDougal-Wilson v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 232 F.R.D. 246 (E.D.N.C. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel defendant to produce (among other things) computer generated employee profiles of all its employees in North Carolina from 1995 to the present, finding that producing records of over 1,000 employees who were not similarly situated to plaintiff would be unduly burdensome and oppressive and was unlikely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Computer generated employee profiles

United States v. Safavian, 233 F.R.D. 12 (D.D.C. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: In connection with criminal defendant’s request for certain emails and correspondence, court held that the term “government” included all agencies and departments of the Executive Branch of the government and all subdivisions thereof and it was insufficient for Justice Department merely to state that certain documents were not in its possession and it was continuing to make inquiries; Justice Department ordered to immediately and by formal request in writing, demand that GSA conduct a thorough search and produce all relevant emails, including archived emails on employees’ hard drives

Nature of Case: Criminal prosecution for obstruction of justice

Electronic Data Involved: Email and archived email

Padilla v. Price Toyota, 2005 WL 6209494 (D.N.J. Oct. 28, 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs? motion to compel production of vehicle?s ?black box? where information sought was not available elsewhere and was necessary for expert analysis of airbag system despite defendants? arguments that data was irrelevant and unreliable and that retrieving the data would be unduly expensive because of need for technician to travel cross-country; regarding unreliability, court noted that a Daubert motion was not precluded in future

Nature of Case: Personal injury resulting from auto accident

Electronic Data Involved: Vehicle’s “black box”

Williams v. Mass. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 226 F.R.D. 144 (D. Mass. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s request for forensic search of former employer’s information systems where plaintiff offered no credible evidence that defendants were unwilling to produce computer-generated documents or that defendants had withheld relevant information

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination, race discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email

TIG Ins. Co. v. Premier Parks, Inc., 2005 WL 468300 (Del. Super. Ct. Mar. 1, 2005) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Where insurer, in course of attempting to comply with discovery order, realized it had no electronic mechanism to retrieve case files based on whether a class was certified, but it could sort files by amount expended, court modified discovery order because it would have inflicted a substantial burden upon the insurer and the information produced would almost certainly be irrelevant

Nature of Case: Park operator alleged insurer failed to provide adequate counsel to defend a class action discrimination suit

Electronic Data Involved: Case file data

Stamps v. Encore Receivable Mgmt., Inc., 232 F.R.D. 419 (N.D. Ga. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Plaintiff was not entitled to protective order delaying, until after key depositions were taken, production of tape recording of message left by defendant’s representative on plaintiff’s home answering machine, since tape constituted substantive evidence and was not mere impeachment evidence, and issues of fairness weighed in favor of production

Nature of Case: Debtor alleged violations of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

Electronic Data Involved: Tape recording of message left on answering machine

Ferrero v. Henderson, 2004 WL 1802134 (S.D. Ohio July 28, 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Where parties had settled the amount of attorney fees to be paid to plaintiff as sanction for defendant’s failure to produce crucial payroll records until first day of trial, court reconsidered and withdrew finding of bad faith on part of defense counsel since she had made at least some effort to reasonably investigate, and the failure to produce the material was blamed on two employees in defendant’s HR department

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination, FMLA claim

Electronic Data Involved: Payroll data

Allianz Ins. Co. v. Otero, 353 F. Supp. 2d 415 (S.D.N.Y. 2004)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Where defendants maintained that there was more to a particular claim file than what was produced, that material was destroyed and that they were prejudiced, court denied defendants’ request for dismissal of all claims for negligent spoliation of evidence, finding that defendants had not established sufficient prejudice to warrant the extreme remedy sought

Nature of Case: Insurance coverage

Electronic Data Involved: Computer-generated claim file

Advantacare Health Partners, LP v. Access IV, 2005 WL 1398641 (N.D. Cal. June 14, 2005) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court denied individual defendant’s motion for reconsideration of default judgment entered against her and other defendants for continued destruction of evidence and continued possession of plaintiff’s proprietary files; although there was no evidence that individual defendant personally engaged in wrongful acts, she was not insulated by simply leaving compliance with court orders to other defendant; further, individual had numerous opportunities to disavow knowledge of misconduct or detail what efforts she personally took to comply with court orders but never did so

Nature of Case: Misapproriation of trade secrets and related torts

Electronic Data Involved: Proprietary information in electronic form

Catagory:Case Summaries