Key Insight: Discovery sanctions motion.
Nature of Case: Workplace discrimination.
Electronic Data Involved: Employment records including personnel files of supervisors and documents regarding performance of other employees.
Keywords: Failure to preserve, search terms, motion to compel.
Key Insight: Plaintiff failure to produce relevant and discoverable information.
Nature of Case: Insurance coverage litigation.
Electronic Data Involved: Email produced by a third party.
Keywords: Motion to compel. Specificity. Failure to specify.
Key Insight: Magistrate recommended sanctions for defendants’ willful failure to comply with his discovery order. No finding of bad faith.
Nature of Case: Breach of contract.
Electronic Data Involved: Defendant emails and text messages.
Keywords: “Strong circumstantial evidence” that the defendants had concealed documents. Adverse inference instructions and legal costs imposed by court.
Key Insight: New trial is ordered when city intentionally withholds or inadequately searches for police recordings.
Nature of Case: use of excessive force by police
Electronic Data Involved: police dispatcher recording
Keywords: OMEC record, traffic stop, police dispatch, zone 6 audio
Key Insight: For defendant?s failure to preserve and produce relevant evidence, copies or versions of which were discovered on a third party?s hard drive (e.g. correspondence between Defendant?s employee and the third party that were not preserved and produced by the defendant), the court found that Plaintiff ?suffered some prejudice? and thus sanctioned Defendant by taking it as ?established fact? that Defendant had similar communications with all of its ?Order Entry Retailers? (of which the relevant third party was one) of the same ?substantive type and quantity? as those discovered on the third party?s hard drive
Nature of Case: FTC Investigation: TCPA
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email
Key Insight: Where Plaintiff sought forensic examination of email accounts not searched by Defendants, the court acknowledged the ?expense and difficulty? of such examinations and reasoned that ?mere skepticism? that relevant information has not been produced is insufficient to warrant such drastic measures and thus denied the request; court reasoned Defendant had failed to reveal the search terms utilized to identify responsive documents in searches of three other email accounts and that Plaintiffs had established the relevancy of all of the requested accounts and ordered the parties to meet and confer as to an appropriate search methodology for all accounts
Nature of Case: Insurance litigation: bad faith
Electronic Data Involved: Forensic examination of email accounts
Key Insight: For multiple discovery violations by Defendant and counsel, including improper certification of discovery responses pursuant to Rule 26(g), failure to issue a litigation hold or appropriately supervise discovery, and intentional deletion of responsive materials and delayed production, the court imposed multiple discovery sanctions, including attorneys? fees and costs, issue sanctions, and an adverse inference; notably, the court indicated sanctions would have been imposed under New Rule 37(e), because the court found that the at-issue ESI was lost with the intent to deprive Plaintiff of the information?s use in the litigation; Update: Compensatory sanctions vacated by District Court upon determination that parties? settlement mooted the issue of compensatory sanctions (—F.Supp.3d—, 2016 WL 1267385 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 15, 2016))
Nature of Case: Trademark infringement, false designation of origin, trade dress infringement, trade libel, unfair competition and interference with prospective economic advantage
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Where Plaintiff sought ?physical access? to Defendant?s electronic devices based on the belief that Plaintiff failed to perform a thorough search, the court overruled objections to denial of the motion where Plaintiff failed to show that Defendant was in possession of any of Plaintiff?s company documents and where Defendant responded adequately to discovery, including hiring an outside party to perform forensic examination of the computers and utilizing hundreds of search terms proposed by the plaintiff
Nature of Case: Breach of employee confidentiality agreement, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, tortious interference with contract, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, and civil conspiracy
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel Defendant to search for documents from non-U.S. points of sale where the court found such documents would be of ?marginal relevance at best? and that the burden and expense of production outweighed the benefit, noting that such production would ?vastly expand? an already voluminous production, would entail additional translation costs, and would ?potentially require the involvement of additional entities or foreign law??; court also declined to compel Defendant to conduct searches of Account Representatives for 170 different airlines where Plaintiff failed to establish that the expanded search would reveal additional relevant information and noting that the productions of third party air carriers had not revealed any ?glaring deficiencies? in Defendant?s production
Nature of Case: Class action
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Finding defendant and counsel in violation of Rule 26(g) for failing to adequately search for discovery (and for their misrepresentations about those efforts), court instructed that ?Rule 26(g) should not be treated like the proverbial stepchild? and that ?Lawyers should not act like ?potted plants? and accept implausible representations from clients . . . .? and also found that sanctions were warranted pursuant to Rule 37(b)(2) for defendant?s violation of the court?s order to produce; accordingly the court imposed sanctions and admonished defendant and counsel for their violation of Rule 26(g) and awarded Plaintiff their fees and costs incurred to obtain the discovery
Nature of Case: Claims arising from alleged plan to terminate franchise agreements
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, hard copy
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