Case Summaries – Page 417 – Electronic Discovery Law

Anderson v. Crossroads Capital Partners, LLC, 2004 WL 256512 (D. Minn. Feb. 10, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Plaintiff’s use of Cyberscrub data wiping software prior to court-ordered inspection of her computer and after agreeing on the record that she would not purge her hard drive or delete any documents, and her misrepresentations about age of hard drive, were not sufficiently egregious to warrant dismissal but did warrant an adverse inference instruction

Nature of Case: Sexual harassment and whistleblower claims by former employee

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive of plaintiff’s personal computer

Centurion Indus., Inc. v. Warren Steurer & Assocs., 665 F.2d 323 (10th Cir. 1981)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Subpoena seeking non-party’s software trade secrets enforced since trade secrets were relevant and necessary to patent suit and need for information outweighed possible injury to third party

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Software trade secrets of third party

Cornell Research Found., Inc. v. Hewlett Packard Co., 223 F.R.D. 55 (N.D.N.Y. 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Where defendant resisted production of technical specifications in electronic form because material had already been produced at great expense in hard copy form, magistrate ruled that defendant must allow plaintiff’s expert to view material in electronic form at defendant’s facility during regular business hours under and such further terms and conditions as the parties agree

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Technical specifications

Fischbach v. Trustees of Cal. State Univ., 2004 WL 179471 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan. 31, 2004) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Email discovered and produced after court granted summary judgment for defense and notice of appeal was filed constituted new evidence; appellate court granted writ of coram vobis, reversed and directed the trial court to deny defendants’ motion for summary judgment without prejudice to their renewing the motion after plaintiff had opportunity to conduct further discovery regarding email

Nature of Case: Defamation and invasion of privacy

Electronic Data Involved: Belatedly produced email found on key player’s hard drive

Hentsch Henchoz & Cie v. Gubbay, 97 P.3d 1283 (Utah 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Where defendant shipped all of its documents, records, and computer hard drives from Utah to Spain in defiance of trial court’s orders requiring defendant to comply with discovery requests, and trial court granted summary judgment in favor of plaintiff, Supreme Court of Utah held that defendant?s appeal of the summary judgment ruling could be dismissed by appellate court based upon defendant?s contumacious conduct, but Supreme Court would first allow defendant an opportunity to bring itself into compliance with trial court?s orders within 30 days, including those orders requiring defendant to comply with discovery and to return all requested documents and evidence to Utah

Nature of Case: Investor sued financial services company for fraud, conspiracy, breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drives

Katt v. Titan Acquisitions, Inc., 244 F. Supp. 2d 841 (M.D. Tenn. 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Despite dismissal of all plaintiffs’ claims and entry of final judgment on the merits, court retained ancillary jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions for spoliation of electronic evidence for purpose of holding a hearing before ruling on the motion

Nature of Case: Securities class action

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic evidence

Madden v. Wyeth, 2003 WL 21443404 (N.D. Tex. Apr. 16, 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Confident that defense counsel would advise their clients of preservation duty and admonish them of dire consequences of violating same, court denied plaintiff’s motion to preserve evidence in absence of some proof that evidence may be lost or destroyed without it

Nature of Case: Drug products liability

Electronic Data Involved: Discoverable information in paper or electronic format

Nicholas v. Windham Int’l, Inc., 373 F.3d 537 (4th Cir. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: No abuse of discretion to deny enforcement of subpoena directed to plaintiffs’ nonparty company where defendants had already deposed plaintiffs and conceded that the company would have no additional information, plaintiffs would be designated Rule 30(b)(6) witnesses if discovery were allowed, and plaintiffs had already produced email from their business accounts and remained under a continuing obligation to supplement their earlier productions

Nature of Case: Ancillary proceeding to enforce subpoena

Electronic Data Involved: Email

SEC v. Beacon Hill Asset Mgmt. LLC, 231 F.R.D. 134 (S.D.N.Y. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Granting motion to compel contact list printed out from defendant’s contact management software program which was not timely included on defendant’s privilege log, court rejected “frivolous” argument that the contact list technically did not exist until it was printed: “For more than thirty years, Fed.R.Civ . P. 34(a) has included data stored on electronic media as being subject to a Rule 34 request. The fact that the data has not been printed out does not mean that the document does not exist. Indeed, if BH’s argument were meritorious, any party could avoid producing damaging documents through the simple expedient of storing them on electronic media and never printing them out.”

Nature of Case: SEC enforcement action

Electronic Data Involved: Email, spreadsheets and contact list

Stricklen v. Fed. Aviation Admin., 32 F.3d 572 (Table, Text in WESTLAW), 1994 WL 390001 (9th Cir. 1994) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Negative inference not warranted in NTSB board proceeding where computer tapes containing radar data were destroyed pursuant to FAA policy and without notice that pilot would raise issue of near-miss

Nature of Case: Petition for review of order of NTSB revoking pilot’s airline transport certificate

Electronic Data Involved: Tapes containing radar data

Catagory:Case Summaries