Lockheed Martin Idaho Techs. Co. v. Lockheed Martin Advanced Envtl. Sys., Inc., 2006 WL 2095876 (D. Idaho July 27, 2006)

In this diversity case, the federal district court awarded the prevailing party its costs under 28 U.S.C. § 1920(4) in three areas: (1) $4.6 million in costs for creating a litigation database; (2) $600,000 in costs for trial evidence presentation; and (3) $200,000 in costs for copies.

The court evaluated the request as follows:

Turning to the first category, the litigation database was necessary due to the extreme complexity of this case and the millions of documents that had to be organized. While the creation of the database is expensive, it is not unreasonably so, and it saved immense time for counsel who otherwise would have to sift through the documents by hand. Given these circumstances, the Court finds that these costs are recoverable under § 1920(4).

With regard to the trial evidence presentation costs, the Court required counsel to put the trial evidence in electronic format. It was important that the evidence presentation be efficient and of high quality. The Court cannot find these costs unreasonable. The Court will likewise approve the third category, the coping costs.

Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Davis, 2006 WL 2092581 (E.D. Pa. July 26, 2006)

In an earlier opinion (Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Davis, 234 F.R.D. 102 (E.D. Pa. 2005), summarized here), the court denied summary judgment but concluded that an adverse inference sanction was warranted based upon defendant’s spoliation of evidence. In this opinion, the court sets out its findings of fact and conclusions of law from the subsequent bench trial, and decides the case in favor of Paramount.

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On Time Aviation, Inc. v. Bombardier Capital, Inc., 2006 WL 2092075 (D. Conn. July 26, 2006)

In this order, the district court overruled defendant’s objections to certain discovery rulings made by the magistrate judge. Defendants had argued that plaintiff’s consultant and expert witness (Schuller) must have deliberately concealed relevant information, since he had not produced a particular email. Rejecting defendants’ argument, the court noted that they had proffered no evidence that Schuller deliberately deleted the email, and that Schuller had stated he believed he never received it because all his other emails from that time period were printed out in chronological order, and the email was not there. The court further noted that the email in question did not contain Schuller’s email address, “so there is no confirmation that it was sent to or received by him.”

The court further overruled defendants’ objections to the magistrate’s finding that plaintiff had satisfied its discovery obligations by providing affidavits from two other witnesses which stated that they generally did not use email, did not have in their possession any such messages related to the case, and that any messages they had sent to or received from Schuller were already produced by Schuller.

Samsung Elecs. Co., Ltd. v. Rambus, Inc., 2006 WL 2038417 (E.D. Va. July 18, 2006)

Samsung filed this action seeking a declaratory judgment, inter alia, that four patents held by Rambus were unenforceable by virtue of the doctrines of unclean hands, equitable estoppel, patent misuse, waiver and laches. The patents-in-suit were the same as the four patents-in-suit in Rambus, Inc. v. Infineon Technologies AG, No. CIV. A. 3:00cv524 (E.D.Va.) ("Rambus v. Infineon"). Rambus asserted counterclaims against Samsung, alleging infringement of two of the patents. Read More

Omega Patents, LLC v. Fortin Auto Radio, Inc., 2006 WL 2038534 (M.D. Fla. July 19, 2006)

After patent infringement litigation was resolved through a settlement agreement in which Fortin was granted a license to practice certain patents, Omega Patents filed this lawsuit to enforce the settlement agreement, believing that certain royalties from the patents were being under-reported. In this opinion, the court granted plaintiff’s motion for sanctions to be imposed against one of the defendants under Rule 37(d). Read More

Gen. Med., PC v. Morning View Care Ctrs., 2006 WL 2045890 (S.D. Ohio July 20, 2006)

Plaintiff’s complaint alleged claims for breach of contract and tortious interference arising out of a contract for General Medicine to provide medical care at six of Morning View’s residential health care facilities. In this opinion, the district court adopted the magistrate’s Report and Recommendation that defendant’s motion to dismiss complaint as a discovery sanction be denied. Read More

Eastman Kodak Co. v. Sony Corp., 2006 WL 2039968 (W.D.N.Y. July 20, 2006)

In this case, the special master issued a Report and Recommendation recommending, inter alia, that Sony’s motion to compel Kodak to more specifically correlate information produced electronically via a computer server, CD-Roms and DVDs, to Sony’s document requests be denied. Sony objected to the Report and asked the court to direct Kodak to produce the documents in the form requested by Sony, or, in the alternative to produce documents in the form requested for certain of the more narrow document requests. Sony argued that if the Special Master’s Report and Recommendation were allowed to stand, it would be deprived of due process because it would be virtually impossible to find relevant documents "hidden" in the electronic equivalent of approximately 300 million pages of produced documents. Read More

Covucci v. Keane Consulting Group, Inc., 2006 WL 2004215 (Mass. Super. Ct. May 31, 2006)

In this age discrimination case, defendants moved to dismiss the complaint as a sanction for the intentional spoliation of material evidence by plaintiff Covucci. After conducting a hearing and taking testimony from Covucci, the court found that defendants had proved by clear and convincing evidence that plaintiff intentionally and in bad faith engaged in a pattern of conduct that encompassed the destruction of evidence relating to the creation of an email that was the central document in the case, provided false and misleading testimony at his deposition and at the evidentiary hearing, and that his conduct was calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate the case. The court further found that the plaintiff’s misconduct had prejudiced the defendants in their ability to defend against these claims and that dismissal of the complaint was warranted. Read More