Backup Tapes – Electronic Discovery Law

Optrics Inc. v. Barracuda Networks, Inc. (N.D. Cal. Feb. 4, 2021)

Feb 04 2021

Key Insight: The Plaintiff in litigation over claims of trademark infringement, unfair competition and breach of contract failed to preserve and destroyed discoverable electronic data, and similarly, failed to prepare for 30(b)(6) depositions. Moreover, there were repeated delays (and time extensions) in Plaintiff responding to Defendant’s discovery requests. In doing so, the Plaintiff repeatedly disobeyed discovery orders issued by the Court.

The litigation settled while discovery was pending. The Defendant moved for sanctions against the Plaintiff for its conduct in discovery, and the Court, pursuant to FRCP 37(b), awarded sanctions against Plaintiff and its counsel, jointly and severally. Plaintiff’s former counsel subsequently claimed that it should not be held liable for the sanctions because it was unable to control the conduct of its client in responding to discovery order(s) and requests.

Nature of Case: Intellectual Property, Trademark Infringement, Contracts, Unfair Competition

Electronic Data Involved: Email, Electronic Files, Hard Drives.

Case Summary

Bolding v. Banner Bank (W.D. Wash. 2020)

May 22 2020

Key Insight: The plaintiffs, current and former mortgage/residential loan officers of defendant, filed a motion for spoliation sanctions and entry of default judgment against defendant based on the failure to preserve and intentional destruction of email accounts and calendar data. The court found: (1) the ESI was relevant to the claims in the lawsuit; (2) defendant breached its duties by intentionally destroying ESI after learning that employees had accused defendant of not paying overtime and after being threatened with a lawsuit, and even after the lawsuit was filed and formal requests for production were received, it paid to order the destruction of additional backup tapes; and (3) the evidence is irretrievably lost. The court declined to enter a default judgment, concluding “[t]he availability of less drastic sanctions that have the ability to mitigate the damage caused by defendant’s egregious destruction of evidence is a powerful factor that militates against imposing dispositive sanctions.”

Nature of Case: Wage and Hour Class Action

Electronic Data Involved: Email and calendar accounts

Case Summary

Bolding v. Banner Bank (W.D. Wash. May 22, 2020)

May 22 2020

Key Insight: Defendant deleted backup tapes after litigation hold notice issued. Spoliation occurred, but no default judgment

Nature of Case: class-action employment

Electronic Data Involved: Backup tapes

Keywords: sanctions, backup tapes, destruction

View Case Opinion

Javo Beverage Co. Inc. v. California Extraction Ventures, Inc. (S.D. Cal. 2020).

Apr 29 2020

Key Insight: The court granted defendant’s motion to compel production of filepath information, but allowed defendant to object to producing discrete filepath information if defendant can articulate a good faith basis for the objection, including irrelevance as to time or scope, or if the filepath data is misleading. If any filepath data is not readily accessible, the parties must confer and attempt to reach a cost-effective resolution prior to seeking the court’s involvement. The court also confirmed the parties’ mutual understanding that they are obligated to “preserve ephemeral, deleted, and other related kinds of data where counsel reasonably suspects such data is relevant” to the litigation.

Nature of Case: Trade secret misappropriation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI generally

Case Summary

Incardone v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. (S.D. Florida, Miami Division, 2019)

Aug 12 2019

Key Insight: The duty to preserve should be proportional and reasonable, not perfect and absolute.

Nature of Case: Rule 37(e) analysis of the defendant’s actions

Electronic Data Involved: Video Clips, CCTV and VDR

Keywords: Preserve, camera, viewable, “recorded continuously”, CCTV, RCCL

View Case Opinion

Tafolla v. County of Suffolk, No. CV-17-4897 (E.D.N.Y. July 8, 2019)

Jul 08 2019

Key Insight: Cost burden for recovery of backup tapes

Nature of Case: workplace discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: backup tapes

Keywords: undue burden or expense, discovery cost shift, cost sharing, excessive discovery costs, vendor estimate

View Case Opinion

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Performance Food Grp., No CCB-13-1712 (D. Md. Mar. 6, 2019)

Mar 06 2019

Key Insight: ESI protocol agreed to by parties precluded EEOC from arguing other tapes were spoiled since Defendant complied with protocol.

Nature of Case: Employment Discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: E-mails and Documents regarding employee hotline

Keywords: Spoilation; Agreements between Parties

View Case Opinion

Stovall v. Brykan Legends, LLC (D. KS, 2019)

Feb 07 2019

Key Insight: video surveillance showing incident on which part of complaint is based could not be found by D, P motions for sanction for spoliation of evidence.

Nature of Case: employment discrimination, sexual harassment, workers compensation

Electronic Data Involved: Video surveillance

Keywords: spoliation, sanctions, preservation, surveillance, harassment, employment discrimination, bad faith

View Case Opinion

OptoLum v. Cree, Inc., No, 1:17CV687 (M.D.N.C. Dec. 28, 2018)

Dec 28 2018

Key Insight: Defendant’s email archive system had had issues and was replaced before litigation filed, but servers were kept. Stubbed E-mail attachments were inaccessible. defendant showed attachments were potentially relevant and motion to compel was granted. Costs were to be split since it would be undue burden on plaintiff alone and they had not acted in bad faith.

Nature of Case: Patent Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Stubbed E-mail Attachments

Keywords: Restoration, undue burden, bad faith, cost shifting

View Case Opinion

The Physicians Alliance Corporation v. Wellcare Health Insurance of Arizona, Inc, et al., No. 3:16-cv-00203-SDD-RLB (M.D. La. Feb. 27, 2018)

Dec 01 2018

Key Insight: Discovery costs must be proportional to the amount in controversy ($20 million in dispute allows for at least $13,000 in discovery costs)

Nature of Case: Contract breach

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents/communications

Tag:Backup Tapes