Case Summaries – Page 414 – Electronic Discovery Law

ABC Health Servs., Inc. v. IBM Corp., 158 F.R.D. 180 (S.D. Ga. 1994)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion to dismiss IBM’s counterclaims as sanction for deletion of computer files, since erasure was done before suit was filed and did not amount to willful or bad faith disregard of discovery order or discovery request; court indicated that a jury instruction regarding destruction of documents may be an appropriate lesser sanction

Nature of Case: Breach of contract for development of software

Electronic Data Involved: Computer files containing both project-related documents and purely personal documents

Armstrong v. Amstead Ind., Inc., 2004 WL 1497779 (N.D. Ill. July 2, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions stemming from defendants’ failure to disclose various relevant documents until after the close of fact discovery and plaintiffs’ expert disclosures, though defendants provided the material to their experts; instead, plaintiffs’ experts would be allowed to supplement their reports to address the belatedly-produced material

Nature of Case: Class action alleging violations of ERISA

Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheets and reports

In re CI Host, Inc., 92 S.W.3d 514 (Tex. 2002)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Texas Supreme Court denied defendant’s request for mandamus relief, finding that trial court did not abuse discretion in ordering production of backup tapes since defendant failed to support its objections as required by Tex. R. Civ. P. 193.4(a)

Nature of Case: Class action against web host alleging contract breach, negligence and violation of Deceptive Trade Practices Act

Electronic Data Involved: Backup tapes

Cumis Ins. Co. v. Diebold, Inc., 2004 WL 1126173 (E.D. Pa. May 20, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Court ordered defendant to respond to document requests by searching its electronic storage devices and electronic data compilations; plaintiff convinced court that defendant may not have satisfied its discovery obligations by showing that responsive Diebold documents and emails had been obtained from other sources, but had yet to be produced by Diebold itself

Nature of Case: Insurance coverage

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

In re Gabapentin Patent Litig., 214 F.R.D. 178 (D.N.J. 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Forwarding or copying email or other documents that are prepared by non-lawyers for business purposes to a lawyer does not transform such email or documents into work product

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Hester v. Bayer Corp., 206 F.R.D. 683 (M.D. Ala. 2001)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: After case was removed to federal court, defendant obtained order vacating state court’s entry of ex parte preservation order requiring defendant to “suspend all routine destruction of documents, including but not limited to, recycling back-up tapes, automated deletion of e-mail, and reformatting hard drives,” compliance with which defendant estimated to cost $50,000/month

Nature of Case: Product liability

Electronic Data Involved: Documents and information in paper or electronic format

Kintera, Inc. v. Convio, Inc., 219 F.R.D. 503 (S.D. Cal. 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Emails exchanged between a narrow group of plaintiff corporate business’s non-attorney employees were protected from discovery by attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine; further, statements on plaintiff’s web site waived work product protection for affidavits described therein, but did not waive work product protection with respect to plaintiff’s recorded conversation with competitor’s former employees and email exchanges with them

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Mathias v. Jacobs, 197 F.R.D. 29 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), vacated, 167 F. Supp. 2d 606 (S.D.N.Y. 2001)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Plaintiff’s failure to preserve computer printouts and telephone lists loaded onto Palm Pilot did not warrant an adverse inference instruction, but did warrant monetary sanctions of $28,271.75 to be paid by party (not his attorney) to compensate the victim for attorneys’ fees and expenses arising both from additional discovery required to locate equivalent information by alternative means and from the motion practice necessitated by the spoliation

Nature of Case: Action seeking monetary damages and specific performance of stock option agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Hard copy material loaded onto Palm Pilot

Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340 (1978)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Requiring defendant to bear expense of identifying class members was abuse of discretion where cost of effort (over $16,000), which included manually sorting records, keypunching and creating software programs, would be same for plaintiff and no special circumstances existed

Nature of Case: Securities fraud class action

Electronic Data Involved: Computer tapes

In re Propulsid Prods. Liab. Litig., 2003 WL 22174137 (E.D. La. Sept. 9, 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Brief reference to court’s earlier order narrowing the scope of subpoena to hard copy documents only, rather than including production of electronic documents

Nature of Case: Product liability

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic production of documents

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