Mancia v. Mayflower Textile Servs. Co., 253 F.R.D. 354 (D. Md. 2008)

In this employment case, plaintiffs filed several motions to compel supplemental responses to their extensive discovery requests after defendants allegedly failed to adequately respond.  The case was eventually referred to Chief United States Magistrate Judge Paul Grimm for the purpose of resolving all of the discovery disputes.

In the initial review of defendants’ objections to the requests, the court noted “an obvious violation” of Federal Rule 33(b)(4) and “facially apparent violations” of Federal Rule 33(b)(2) which require that objections to interrogatories and requests for production be laid out with specificity or else they are waived.  Moreover, the court suggested that the defendants’ failure to be particular in their objections “suggested a probable violation” of Federal Rule 26(g)(1) which requires a reasonable inquiry prior to objecting to an interrogatory or document request.  Accordingly, the court scheduled a hearing to address the issues.

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Almarri v. Gates, 2008 WL 4449858 (D.S.C. Oct. 2, 2008)

In this case challenging conditions of his confinement, plaintiff sought an order directing the government to preserve evidence and an inquiry into the government’s destruction and other spoliation of evidence.  Specifically, the plaintiff alleged that the government had destroyed relevant materials related to his detention, including recordings, and that the government had no uniform policy for preserving detainee interrogation recordings.   Therefore, a preservation order was necessary to prevent further spoliation.  The government maintained that such an order was unwarranted in light of the multiple preservation directives issued to ensure that evidence related to the plaintiff was preserved.

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Arteria Prop. Pty Ltd. v. Universal Funding V.T.O., Inc., 2008 WL 4513696 (D.N.J. Oct. 1, 2008) (Not for Publication)

In this case arising from failed negotiations for a long term development loan, the plaintiff filed a motion for spoliation sanctions and sought an adverse inference in its favor.  Specifically, plaintiff alleged spoliation of the contents of the defendants’ website as it existed at the time the dispute between the parties arose, and of a particular letter from the Bank of New York.

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In re NVMS, LLC, 2008 WL 4488963 (Bankr. M.D. Tenn. Mar. 21, 2008)

In this case, the debtor, a medical services company, moved for expedited discovery of information contained in the database of a former billing partner.  In July of 2000, the debtor contracted with MBP to handle the debtor’s billing.  In February 2008, the debtor stopped doing business with MBP and started using Practice Resources Network, Inc. (PRN).  After switching, the debtor requested that MBP provide the debtor with a copy of its billing data so the debtor could determine the status of its claims. MBP refused.  Soon after filing for bankruptcy in March 2008, the debtor filed an expedited motion seeking copies of this data from MBP.  MBP objected and filed a motion for a protective order.

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Hoover v. Fla. Hydro, Inc., 2008 WL 4467661 (E.D. La. 2008)

In this breach of contract case, Hoover moved to quash subpoenas issued by defendant to two non-parties:  Hoover’s mother and Hoover’s former roommate. The subpoena issued to Hoover’s mother requested inspection of her laptop or any electronic storage device “for documents copied, sent to, or received by her son” related to several entities, including the defendant.  The subpoena issued to the former roommate, Sanghani, also sought inspection of his laptop computer and any other electronic storage device or computer “that has any responsive documents.”  The subpoena further requested documents, “whether in paper form or electronically submitted,” between Hoover and Sanghani that referred to specific persons or topics.

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Koosharem Corp. v. Spec Personnel, LLC, 2008 WL 4458864 (D.S.C. Sept. 29, 2008)

In this breach of contract case, plaintiffs alleged that defendants wrongfully obtained and used confidential information from former employee, Kenneth Fuston, who went to work for the defendants.  Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that defendants used the information to hire approximately 20 of plaintiffs’ employees, open new offices in eight cities, and embark upon a new line of business in competition with plaintiffs.  Plaintiffs moved to compel production of computers believed to contain information related to those claims.  The court had previously granted a motion to compel and ordered defendants to produce emails to or from any current or former employee or customer of the plaintiff found on Fuston’s home computer and documents reflecting communication with the defendant and certain former employees of the plaintiff. Defendants produced 1,936 pages of email.  Believing the production was incomplete, plaintiffs brought a second motion to compel. 

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Pass & Seymour, Inc. v. Hubbell Inc., 2008 WL 4240490 (N.D.N.Y. Sept. 12, 2008)

In this patent infringement case, the court addressed the issue of whether, in response to 72 separate document requests, the plaintiff’s production in digital format of 405,367 pages of documents, apportioned among 202 unlabeled folders and which through application of litigation support software could be made text searchable, but was otherwise neither organized to correlate to the document demands nor in any fashion indexed or labeled to reflect how they were maintained in the ordinary course of plaintiff’s business, satisfied the responding party’s obligations under Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.  Plaintiff asserted that, pursuant to FRCP 34, it had produced the documents in the manner in which they were maintained in the ordinary course of business and therefore need not indicate to which request the documents were responsive.  In support of its position, plaintiff offered only the statement of an attorney indicating that the documents had been assembled as they had been maintained.

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