Zonaras v. Gen. Motors Corp., 1996 WL 1671236 (S.D. Ohio Oct. 17, 1996)
Key Insight: Defendant ordered to produce crash test data, but plaintiff to share in cost
Nature of Case: Product liability
Electronic Data Involved: Crash test data
Lipco Elec. Corp. v. ASG Consulting Corp., 2004 WL 1949062 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Aug. 18, 2004) (Unpublished)
Key Insight: Noting differences between federal law and New York law regarding cost-shifting in discovery, court stated it did not have sufficient information about the costs associated with the requested discovery, but concluded that until plaintiffs indicated a willingness to pay for the requested electronic discovery (whatever its cost), court would not order its production
Nature of Case: Claims based on breach of contract and for an accounting
Electronic Data Involved: Computer data
Pamlab, L.L.C. v. Rite Aid Corp., 2004 WL 2988482 (E.D. La. Dec. 9, 2004)
Key Insight: Where certain information was not available through defendant’s computer system and cost of recovering information through physical search could exceed damages claimed, court ruled that “prudent course” would be to place cost of physical search on plaintiff and instructed parties to develop a protocol for manual inspection of records at ten (of 3,000) stores; court further ordered defendant to provide available computer records
Nature of Case: Drug company claimed drug store chain improperly substituted one drug for another
Electronic Data Involved: Computer databases
In the Matter of Certain Network Interface Cards, 2001 WL 1217233 (U.S.I.T.C. Oct. 12, 2001)
Key Insight: Where there were gaps in plaintiff’s production of email, administrative law judge granted motion to compel production of email from plaintiff’s backup tapes but ordered parties to share the costs of such production
Nature of Case: Case before the U.S. International Trade Commission
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Multitechnology Servs., L.P. v. Verizon Southwest, 2004 WL 1553480 (N.D. Tex. July 12, 2004)
Key Insight: Court ordered cost-shifting (50/50) where plaintiff sought information about Verizon’s past and present customers even though material was not “inaccessible” under Zubulake analysis, since data was available in Verizon’s computer databases or archives
Nature of Case: Breach of contract and related claims
Electronic Data Involved: Computerized customer data
Dean v. Priceline.com, Inc., 2002 WL 34155897 (D. Conn. Sept. 10, 2002)
Key Insight: Court ordered defendant to produce to plaintiff information in the possession of a third party storage facility, with each side paying one-half of the charges billed by the third party for retrieving the information; court further ruled that the prevailing party would be entitled to recover from the losing party its share of the costs associated with retrieval of the information
Nature of Case: FLSA claim
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents
OpenTV v. Liberate Tech., 219 F.R.D. 474 (N.D. Cal. 2003)
Key Insight: Applying Zubulake balancing test, court ordered parties to share equally the cost of extracting source code from defendant’s database; however, defendant solely to bear cost of copying source code for production once it is extracted
Nature of Case: Infringement action
Electronic Data Involved: Source code
Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340 (1978)
Key Insight: Requiring defendant to bear expense of identifying class members was abuse of discretion where cost of effort (over $16,000), which included manually sorting records, keypunching and creating software programs, would be same for plaintiff and no special circumstances existed
Nature of Case: Securities fraud class action
Electronic Data Involved: Computer tapes