Key Insight: Plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction granted; defendants enjoined from destroying, erasing or altering any of its computer-stored information that concerns any of plaintiff’s claims against them
Nature of Case: Trademark infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Computer data
Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s request “to go into Ford’s databases and look for any relevant information that might be there,” finding the request for production to be overbroad and unduly burdensome
Nature of Case: Product liability
Electronic Data Involved: Databases
Key Insight: Failure to produce computer data and other discovery abuses warranted imposition of monetary sanctions against defendant ($105,000 paid to plaintiffs and $15,000 paid to clerk of court “for the unnecessary consumption of the court’s time and resources”) and appointment of special master at defendant’s expense for purpose of monitoring its compliance with all further discovery
Nature of Case: Class action brought by veterans for alleged exposure to radiation during service with armed forces
Electronic Data Involved: Two V.A. computer systems (databases)
Key Insight: Plaintiff sanctioned $10,000 for failing to preserve or search email of certain persons; key word search to be narrowed
Nature of Case: Business sued competitors for defamation and unfair competition
Electronic Data Involved: Email, databases (scope of key word search)
Key Insight: Government required to submit a proposed protocol for searching the contents of seized computer hard drive and disks before it could conduct any search; court observed that government essentially sought “a license to roam through everything in the computer without limitation and without standards,” and that such a request failed to satisfy the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment
Nature of Case: Suspected tax fraud
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive and computer disks
Key Insight: Affirming jury award for plaintiff, where plaintiff had been permitted to add claim for negligent destruction of evidence based on defendant’s failure to preserve electronic records and computer hard drive, court found no error in allowing plaintiff to introduce at trial evidence of defendant’s discovery misconduct. Court further concluded that strong statements of disapproval of defendant’s discovery abuses did not require trial judge’s recusal.
Nature of Case: Breach of contract suit between former partners
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive
Key Insight: Defendant’s discovery abuse and destruction of evidence warranted monetary sanctions and default judgment
Nature of Case: Antitrust
Electronic Data Involved: Sales and inventory data
Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs’ motion for leave to issue document preservation subpoena to Chapter 11 debtor, finding it was necessary to preserve the documents held by debtor since debtor would likely be dissolved and its documents would be destroyed, and such destruction would cause actual prejudice to plaintiffs in prosecuting their class action
Nature of Case: Securities class action by investors claiming that defendants had looted assets of Chapter 11 debtor
Electronic Data Involved: Information held in electronic form
Key Insight: Where defendants had taken steps to remedy alleged gaps in production by producing new spreadsheets and time remained to remedy any further deficiencies prior to the discovery cut-off, extreme sanction of default judgment was unwarranted
Nature of Case: Breach of contract
Electronic Data Involved: Emails and spreadsheets of sales data
Key Insight: Court provided direction to parties for implementing injunction, ordering among other things: (1) defendant to obtain new computers of its choice and at its expense to replace all existing computers and servers; (2) defendant to choose which files would be transferred to new computers; (3) plaintiff?s expert to observe copying and transfer, and examine new computers to confirm they do not contain plaintiff?s data; (4) after transfer, defendant?s old computers to be stored and kept available for forensic discovery, the cost of which would be borne 75% by defendant and 25% by plaintiff, except that plaintiff?s expert fees to date to be divided evenly between plaintiff and defendant
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of proprietary information
Electronic Data Involved: 30 computers and 2 servers of defendant
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