Key Insight: Court ruled that, although Martha Stewart waived the attorney client privilege when she forwarded to her daughter a privileged email containing her account of the facts surrounding her sale of the stock, she did not waive work product protection
Nature of Case: Criminal proceedings re Stewart’s sale of ImClone stock
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Court granted underwriter defendants’ motion for extension to complete production of certain electronic discovery but advised that, should they fail to meet this schedule, plaintiffs could request to be relieved of their obligation to share expenses in the production of electronic discovery; further, defendants to conduct additional electronic discovery searches for nine more custodians
Nature of Case: Securities class action
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic discovery
Key Insight: Where statute specifically imposed a duty on defendants to preserve evidence, and defendants represented they had complied and will comply with the statute, and plaintiffs adduced no evidence of non-compliance, court declined to enter an order mandating the preservation of evidence
Nature of Case: Securities fraud class action
Electronic Data Involved: All relevant documents, data compilations and tangible things
Key Insight: Where there were gaps in plaintiff’s production of email, administrative law judge granted motion to compel production of email from plaintiff’s backup tapes but ordered parties to share the costs of such production
Nature of Case: Case before the U.S. International Trade Commission
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Concluding that plaintiff’s discovery abuse warranted sanctions, district court ruled that appropriate sanction would be to inform the jury about plaintiff’s misconduct, since monetary sanctions previously imposed had not deterred further misconduct and extreme sanction of dismissal was not warranted by the facts
Electronic Data Involved: Breach of distributorship agreement, fraud, unfair trade practices and related torts
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
Key Insight: Where evidence showed there was no feasible and economic electronic means by which certain data could be produced, court ruled that, to the extent defendants intended to introduce evidence related to such data at trial, defendants would be required to produce all such evidence, documentary, electronic or otherwise, upon which they intend to rely
Nature of Case: Class action
Electronic Data Involved: Information regarding damages, offsets and class member eligibility
Key Insight: In light of defendant’s previous attempt to delete incriminating email and documents from his company laptop, court entered order requiring all parties to preserve and protect evidence
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of corporate opportunity and related claims
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents and mail
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