Key Insight: Negative inference instruction warranted where six gigabytes of music were downloaded onto hard drive the night before the computer was to be turned over for inspection
Nature of Case: Manufacturer sued former employees and their new competing company for misappropriation of trade secrets
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive
Key Insight: Court denied Stewart’s motion to disqualify the attorney who inadvertently read Stewart’s email from cross-examining her or participating in the preparation of her cross-examination
Nature of Case: Criminal proceedings re Stewart’s sale of ImClone stock
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: No abuse of discretion to deny plaintiff’s motion to compel discovery of “computer diskette or tape copy of all word processing files created, modified and/or access by, or on behalf” of five employees over 2-1/2 year period as overbroad and unduly burdensome
Nature of Case: Age discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Word processing files
Key Insight: Court ordered defendant to produce to plaintiff information in the possession of a third party storage facility, with each side paying one-half of the charges billed by the third party for retrieving the information; court further ruled that the prevailing party would be entitled to recover from the losing party its share of the costs associated with retrieval of the information
Nature of Case: FLSA claim
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents
Key Insight: Where defendants had actual notice of allegations against them and affirmatively stated that they were fully aware of their preservation obligations under PSLRA and sanctions for failure to comply, court declined to enter preservation order
Nature of Case: Securities litigation
Electronic Data Involved: Documents, data compilations (including electronically recorded or stored data), and tangible objects
Key Insight: Scheduling and case management order provides, inter alia, that document requests shall be responded to and documents produced within ten days after service, and that parties will produce documents in either hard copy form, or, in the case of electronic documents, in the native electronic format (or a mutually agreeable format)
Key Insight: Court ruled that plaintiff should determine, either informally or during a corporate deposition of defendant, what information responsive to interrogatory could be retrieved from defendant?s computer system and what could only be retrieved manually; to the extent the information could only be retrieved manually, parties were ordered to attempt to agree on a sampling process
Electronic Data Involved: Computer databases
Key Insight: Defendant allowed to amend its answer to include counterclaim for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty based on revelations made in belatedly-produced email
Nature of Case: Breach of contract
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: To enable parties to discuss more meaningfully the proper scope of any privilege and correlative redactions, court ordered producing party to show requesting party’s counsel non-redacted emails at meet and confer, reserving producing party’s right to assert any applicable privilege; court noted that process was especially appropriate since producing party had not argued that disclosure would result in unfair advantage to requesting party, but that material was irrelevant and it feared waiving privilege as to future third parties
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Privileged emails
Key Insight: Former client’s discovery requests, including request for hard drives of lawyer’s computers that had generated documents pertaining to client, were overbroad, oppressive and annoying
Nature of Case: Fee dispute between lawyer and former client
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive
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