Electronic Discovery Law – Page 456 – Legal issues, news and best practices relating to the discovery of electronically stored information.

Hester v. Bayer Corp., 206 F.R.D. 683 (M.D. Ala. 2001)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: After case was removed to federal court, defendant obtained order vacating state court’s entry of ex parte preservation order requiring defendant to “suspend all routine destruction of documents, including but not limited to, recycling back-up tapes, automated deletion of e-mail, and reformatting hard drives,” compliance with which defendant estimated to cost $50,000/month

Nature of Case: Product liability

Electronic Data Involved: Documents and information in paper or electronic format

In re Heritage Bond Litig., 223 F.R.D. 527 (C.D.Cal. 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Where defendants “deliberately and willfully” failed to produce responsive documents, court concluded that defendants had not substantially complied with its prior discovery order and awarded civil contempt sanctions against defendants in the amount of plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees and costs

Nature of Case: Securities litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Documents on individual defendant’s personal computer

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

Haynes v. Office of Attorney Gen., 298 F. Supp. 2d 1154 (D. Kan. 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Terminated employee obtained preliminary injunction preventing his former employer from accessing “private” files stored on his work computer or discussing “private” files that were accessed; employer further ordered to provide employee access to his private files to determine which ones he wanted copied; employee prohibited from deleting any information from work computer

Nature of Case: Former assistant attorney general sought damages and injunctive relief

Electronic Data Involved: Employee’s “private” information contained on work computer

Hayes v. Compass Group USA, Inc., 202 F.R.D. 363 (D. Conn. 2001)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Defendants required to produce information on all age discrimination claims brought during relevant time frame for which defendants have computer search capabilities; defendants not required to manually search files created prior to installation of computerized case management system

Nature of Case: Age discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Discrimination claims records

Hahn v. Minn. Beef Ind., 2002 WL 32667146 (D. Minn. Mar. 8, 2002)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Where, after months of discovery disputes, reports upon which defendant urged plaintiff to rely in lieu of full database turned out to be inaccurate, court denied plaintiff’s motion for entry of default judgment for discovery abuse and instead postponed trial so that defendant could produce accurate information; however, court imposed monetary sanctions against defendant representing plaintiff’s legal and expert fees for time spent working with inaccurate data

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Database, reports, electronic data

GTFM, Inc. v. Wal-Mart Stores, 2000 WL 335558 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 30, 2000)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Plaintiffs’ motion for on-site inspection of computer records granted and defendant ordered to pay all plaintiffs’ expenses and legal fees unnecessarily expended due to defendant’s failure to make an accurate disclosure of its computer capabilities in December 1998

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Computerized information re purchase of goods bearing plaintiffs’ trademarks

Grill v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 2004 WL 2314640 (W.D. Wash. Oct. 7, 2004)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Finding that work product protection did not apply to contested emails, court ordered their production

Nature of Case: Disabled individual alleged violations of ADA

Electronic Data Involved: Email between plaintiff and third party

In re Grand Jury Subpoena Duces Tecum Dated Nov. 15, 1993, 846 F. Supp. 11 (S.D.N.Y. 1994)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: Grand jury subpoena demanding production of all computer hard drives and disks of specified individuals (as opposed to specified categories of information) quashed because it was unreasonably broad

Nature of Case: Grand jury proceedings

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drives and floppy diskettes

In re Grand Jury Subpoena Dated June 30, 2003, 770 N.Y.S.2d 568 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2003)

Dec 01 2004

Key Insight: DA’s application to compel witnesses to answer questions granted: attorney/client privilege did not preclude attorneys representing individuals connected to events surrounding homicide from answering questions about laptop that was instrumentality of crime

Nature of Case: Grand jury proceedings investigating homicide

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop