Data Preservation – Page 91 – Electronic Discovery Law

Perez-Farias v. Global Horizons, Inc., 2007 WL 2327073 (E.D. Wash. Aug. 10, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendants failed to produce email, failed to properly preserve email, and had not complied with orders to timely produce discovery, nor paid plaintiffs’ costs of bringing discovery motions as ordered nor paid sanctions to court as directed, and repeatedly failed to follow local rules with respect to timely and properly filing documents, court granted plaintiff’s motion for case dispositive sanctions; trial would be on the issue of damages only, and only plaintiff’s evidence would be admitted given defendants’ failure to file witness or exhibit lists

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Muro v. Target Corp., 2007 WL 3254463 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 2, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District court upheld magistrate judge?s ruling that Target’s ?litigation hold? notices were subject to attorney-client privilege and work product protection since notices were communications of legal advice from corporate counsel to corporate employees regarding document preservation; however, court sustained objection to magistrate’s ruling that privilege log was inadequate for failing to separately itemize each individual email quoted in an email string, concluding that Rule 26(b)(5)(A) does not require separate itemization of each individual email quoted in an email string

Nature of Case: Putative class action alleging violations of Truth in Lending Act

Electronic Data Involved: Litigation hold notices; privileged email

Reino de Espana v. Am. Bureau of Shipping, 2007 WL 1686327 (S.D.N.Y. June 6, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Declining to grant sanction of dismissal since there was insufficient evidence of intentional or bad faith conduct, or adverse inference instruction since it was unclear how relevant the missing email was, court awarded monetary sanctions since Spain?s failure to timely implement adequate litigation hold and failure to conduct timely and diligent search for electronic discovery was negligent and resulted in loss of email; court further directed Spain to complete its forensic search for email records and produce such records on rolling basis

Nature of Case: Litigation brought by the government of Spain arising from shipping casualty and oil spill

Electronic Data Involved: Email

O’Bar v. Lowe’s Home Centers, Inc., 2007 WL 1299180 (W.D.N.C. May 2, 2007)

Key Insight: Court ordered parties to develop joint precertification discovery plan and articulated detailed guidelines for discovery of ESI adapted from the ?Suggested Protocol for Discovery of Electronically Stored Information? set forth by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Am. Fast Freight, Inc. v. Nat’l Consol. & Distrib., Inc., 2007 WL 3357694 (W.D. Wash. Nov. 7, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs’ motion to compel production of: (1) electronic data used to answer interrogatories, (2) information systems organizational charts, (3) policies and records regarding electronic data, electronic backup, electronic data retention and destruction, finding that the requests could lead to relevant evidence regarding what efforts defendant made to preserve ESI, since plaintiffs alleged that defendant failed to produce ESI with its initial disclosures under FRCP 26(a)(1)

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, unjust enrichment

Electronic Data Involved: ESI used to answer interrogatories; backup and retention policies

Cyntegra, Inc. v. Idexx Labs., Inc., 2007 WL 5193736 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 21, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where plaintiff stored majority of its documents on third-party servers and failed to make payment to maintain the service, resulting in deletion of relevant documents, court declined to enter default judgment and monetary sanctions but instead would allow lesser sanction of adverse inference instruction, since (1) plaintiff had control, albeit indirectly, over destroyed information; (2) plaintiff was at least negligent in not taking any affirmative steps to preserve documents, and (3) evidence was relevant to defense

Nature of Case: Antitrust, tortious interference with contractual relations

Electronic Data Involved: Documents stored by plaintiff on third-party computer servers

RMS Servs.-USA, Inc. v. Houston, 2007 WL 1058923 (E.D. Mich. Apr. 5, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied motion for protective order since record was incomplete, but ordered parties to meet and confer to develop a proposed discovery plan; court set forth specific instructions regarding preservation of documents to be observed by parties until they reached agreement on preservation plan

Electronic Data Involved: Email, hard drives, metadata, and other forms of electronic documents

Interface Sec. Sys., L.L.C. v. May, 2007 WL 1300394 (E.D. Mo. May 2, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied motion for expedited discovery but granted motion for preservation order since defendant did not raise any issues regarding the appropriateness of preservation of evidence and court agreed that “all documents, software and things” relating to the matter should be preserved

Nature of Case: Unfair competition

Electronic Data Involved: Documents, software and things

Bakhtiari v. Lutz, 2007 WL 3377215 (8th Cir. Nov. 15, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to impose spoliation sanctions against defendant university for deletion of former teaching assistant’s email account, where university backed-up the contents of the account onto two CDs before deleting it, and the deletion occurred before the lawsuit was filed

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination, civil rights

Electronic Data Involved: Email

APC Filtration, Inc. v. Becker, 2007 WL 3046233 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 12, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendant traveled 20 miles to dispose of his computer in a construction site dumpster within days of receiving notice of lawsuit, court found that defendant acted in bad faith but that sanction of default judgment was too severe since plaintiff’s claims were not “severely” or “incurably” prejudiced as a result; court instead deemed certain facts conclusively proven and ordered defendant to pay plaintiff?s reasonable attorneys? fees and costs associated with motion and related discovery

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of employment contract

Electronic Data Involved: Computer

Tag:Data Preservation