Key Insight: Upon plaintiff?s showing of good cause, court granted motion for expedited discovery to issue a subpoena to the relevant ISP seeking identifying information regarding one unknown defendant (Doe 1) but denied the motion as to the remaining 100 Does because of improper joinder
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Identifying information for ISP subscriber
Key Insight: Court held defendants in contempt for failing to preserve documents in compliance with a court order; reasoning that because documents had been destroyed, no monetary sanction would coerce their production, the court ordered that defendants pay the reasonable costs associated with the government having to bring and prosecute the motion
Nature of Case: SEC litigation
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court denied motion for spoliation sanctions absent evidence of fraud or bad faith and where the court did not find sufficient evidence of prejudice
Nature of Case: Breach of employment agreement
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court rejected plaintiff?s assertion that her January 22, 2009 letter to human resources put defendants on notice of its duty to preserve where the letter complained about her manager but did not threaten litigation and instead suggested ?a non-litigious resolution,? where plaintiff testified that she had no intention of suing at the time she sent the letter, where plaintiff waited over ten months after sending the letter to bring the instant litigation, and where the manager?s testimony that he thought the letter could give rise to legal ramifications was not sufficient to trigger the corporation?s duty to preserve
Nature of Case: Failure to accomodate, retaliation in violation of ADA
Electronic Data Involved: Emails
Key Insight: Court found duty to preserve arose upon defendant?s consultation with counsel regarding possible infringement on plaintiff?s patent but abated upon the parties? successful negotiation of licensing agreement; court found that defendant had no control and thus no obligation to preserve certain documents from an employee of a Hong-Kong based affiliate; regarding an email folder accidentally deleted following inadvertent ?exposure? to automated purge function, court declined to find the loss was a result of negligence and found that plaintiff failed to establish the relevance of information lost and declined to impose sanctions
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, emails
Key Insight: Court granted motion for expedited discovery to issue subpoenas to relevant ISPs seeking information sufficient to identify Doe defendants
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Identifying information from ISP
Key Insight: Court denied defendants? motion for a protective order precluding plaintiffs? inquiry (in deposition) into defendants? preservation efforts where, although a litigation hold letter is generally privileged, ?the basic details surrounding the litigation hold are not? and where the court found that the answers to certain of plaintiffs? questions, including inquiries into the ?overwrite function issue? (apparently related to a failure to stop automatic deletion), would ?allow the parties to craft a narrow, manageable ESI plan?
Nature of Case: Employment litigation
Electronic Data Involved: Information related to legal hold efforts
Key Insight: Court granted motion for sanctions and imposed permissive adverse inferences as to two categories of information which the court found had been intentionally shredded and/or deleted despite a duty to preserve
Nature of Case: Civil rights class action
Electronic Data Involved: Emails, ESI
Key Insight: Addressing defendant?s motion for sanctions, the court found that defendant?s CEO and outside counsel ?should have done more to ensure that relevant evidence was preserved? and that defendant had been prejudiced where certain documents had been lost due to plaintiff?s reliance on a verbal ?100 percent document retention policy? (i.e. the company deleted nothing) and because of plaintiff?s failure to inform its accountants of the need to preserve, but declined to impose drastic sanctions and ordered that the jury be informed of plaintiff?s failure to preserve certain relevant information
Nature of Case: Allegations of anticompetitive acts
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court denied motion for spoliation sanctions where plaintiff was unable to establish that the relevant hard drives were destroyed after the duty to preserve arose and where plaintiff was unable to establish that the in-car video at issue ever existed or was destroyed after the duty to preserve arose in light of defendants? testimony that because of a ?recorder malfunctioned? no video existed
Nature of Case: Civil claims arising from alleged mistreatment upon arrest
Electronic Data Involved: Four hard drives, officer’s in-car video
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