Case Summaries – Page 383 – Electronic Discovery Law

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 June 14, 2005) (Unpublished)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

Galvin v. Gillette Co., 2005 WL 1155253 (Mass. Super. Apr. 28, 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Where much of the material sought did not appear to touch on or be relevant to the matter under investigation by the Secretary, i.e., whether fraud may be present in the UBS or Goldman, Sachs fairness opinions based on information provided by Gillette, court quashed broad subpoena issued to Gillette without prejudice to the Secretary issuing a new subpoena more narrowly drafted

Nature of Case: Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued subpoena under state securities act in connection with pending merger

Electronic Data Involved: Email

BDT Prods., Inc. v. Lexmark Int., Inc., 405 F.3d 415 (6th Cir. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court approved recover of taxable costs, including ?electronic scanning and imaging of documents? where declarations established that the costs were ?necessarily incurred? and where ?electronic scanning and imaging could be interpreted as ?exemplification and copies of papers??costs specifically allowed under the relevant statute

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Myrick v. Prime Ins. Syndicate, Inc., 395 F.3d 485 (4th Cir. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court imposed sanctions and allowed plaintiff to question defendant’s witnesses before the jury regarding its failure to disclose documents immediately, where plaintiff learned through depositions that a tape recording, the complete underwriting and claims file, and other electronic information had not yet been produced

Nature of Case: Insurance coverage

Electronic Data Involved: Tape recording and electronic information

Cahill v. Doe, 879 A.2d 943 (Del. Super. Ct. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court denied John Doe’s motion for protective order preventing internet service provider from disclosing his identity, finding that (1) plaintiffs had, in good faith, alleged that John Doe had used the internet as a tool for defamation, (2) the identifying information sought was directly and materially related to thir claim, and (3) the information could not be obtained from any other source

Nature of Case: Elected town council member and wife sued anonymous user of an internet “blog” who posted defamatory statements about plaintiffs on blog

Electronic Data Involved: Blog posting

Synthes Spine Co., L.P. v. Walden, 232 F.R.D. 460 (E.D. Pa. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court ordered plaintiff to produce all materials that plaintiff’s counsel furnished to plaintiff’s testifying expert, regardless of privilege or claimed work product protection, including emails, summaries, spreadsheets and draft expert reports

Nature of Case: Employer sought to enforce restrictive covenants against former employees

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, spreadsheets, draft expert reports

Krausz Puente LLC v. Westall, 2005 WL 236862 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan. 25, 2005) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Trial judge did not err in imposing monetary sanctions and evidentiary sanction against individual defendant limiting the scope of his testimony, where defendant delayed for several days and deleted relevant computer files in violation of court’s order requiring defendant to “immediately make available to Plaintiff’s designated expert all computers, including hard drives and all other electronic storage media in [defendant’s] possession, custody and/or control”

Nature of Case: Breach of contract and fraud

Electronic Data Involved: 5,300 computer files

Clark Constr. Group, Inc. v. City of Memphis, 229 F.R.D. 131 (W.D. Tenn. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court imposed sanctions against city in the form of a rebuttable adverse inference, and fees and costs related to the discovery dispute, based upon city’s grossly negligent failure to institute litigation hold and consequent destruction of relevant hard copy documents

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation

Electronic Data Involved: Email printouts and other hard copy documents

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

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

Catagory:Case Summaries