Catagory:Case Summaries

1
Youle v. Ryan, 811 N.E.2d 1281 (Ill. App. Ct. 2004)
2
Polito v. AOL Time Warner, Inc., 2004 WL 3768897 (Pa. Ct. Com. Pl. Jan. 28, 2004)
3
Federal Court Issues Opinion On E-Discovery Sanctions and Evidence Preservation
4
Fero v. Excellus Health Plan, Inc., No. 6:15-cv-06569-EAW (W.D.N.Y. Jan. 19, 2018)

Youle v. Ryan, 811 N.E.2d 1281 (Ill. App. Ct. 2004)

Key Insight: Order compelling defendant surgeon to produce his surgical database, to include information related to all the cholecystectomy procedures defendant had ever performed (with the patient names redacted) was abuse of discretion; matter remanded with directions that the court examine the database contents in camera to determine relevance and privilege issues

Nature of Case: Medical malpractice

Electronic Data Involved: Surgical database maintained by defendant surgeon

Polito v. AOL Time Warner, Inc., 2004 WL 3768897 (Pa. Ct. Com. Pl. Jan. 28, 2004)

Key Insight: Court ordered AOL to reveal the identities of its anonymous subscribers who had transmitted offensive emails and instant messages where plaintiff had established that: (1) she had a prima facie basis for asserting criminal or civil liability against the anonymous authors; (2) the identifying information was relevant to her claims and necessary to obtain redress; (3) she was seeking the information in good faith and not for an improper purpose; and (4) she was unable to obtain the identifying information by alternative means

Nature of Case: Individual sued ISP seeking disclosure of identities of subscribers who sent her offensive email and instant messages

Electronic Data Involved: Identities of subscribers

Federal Court Issues Opinion On E-Discovery Sanctions and Evidence Preservation

The federal district court for the Southern District of New York has issued another ruling (available here) relating to electronic discovery in the ongoing matter of Zubulake v. UBS Warburg.

The court’s most recent decision, issued October 22, 2003, addresses Zubulake’s motion for sanctions against UBS for its failure to preserve missing backup tapes and deleted emails. See Zubulake v. UBS Warburg, LLC, 2003 WL 22410619 (S.D.N.Y.). Although the court established no definitive guidelines regarding when backup tapes must be preserved, the decision discusses this issue at length, describing both situations where the tapes should be preserved, and situations where they need not be preserved.

After considering UBS’s failure to preserve the missing backup tapes and deleted emails, the court declined to grant an adverse inference instruction against UBS, or to impose on UBS the full cost of restoring certain backup tapes, but did order UBS to bear the plaintiff’s costs of re-deposing certain individuals concerning issues raised either by the destruction of evidence or by any newly-produced emails. Read More

Fero v. Excellus Health Plan, Inc., No. 6:15-cv-06569-EAW (W.D.N.Y. Jan. 19, 2018)

Key Insight: Reconsideration of ruling that plaintiffs lacked standing. Expert affidavit shows substantial risk of identity theft and sale of PII and PHI on the dark web, establishing injury-in-fact.

Nature of Case: Class action arising out of a data breach and alleging identity theft.

Electronic Data Involved: Dark web evidence

Keywords: PII and PHI, dark web, identity theft, Joe Church, Digital Shield, X1 Social Discovery

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