Data Preservation – Page 94 – Electronic Discovery Law

Corporate Healthcare Fin., Inc. v. Breedlove, 2006 WL 2400073 (Md. Cir. Ct. Apr. 19, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court granted plaintiff’s motion for expedited, limited discovery relating to the fate of five emails containing proprietary and trade secret information, which were sent by defendant from his business email account to his personal email account before his termination; plaintiff allowed limited access to defendant’s personal email account and hard drive, and would be allowed to depose defendant regarding actions taken with respect to subject emails and attachments

Nature of Case: Breach of employment agreement, misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Emails and attachments, personal computer hard drive

Recinos-Recinos v. Express Forestry, Inc., 2006 WL 2349459 (E.D. La. Aug. 11, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court imposed monetary sanctions of $36,391 where defendants “made no effort whatsoever to locate and provide either documentary or electronic data discovery,” and erroneously represented that relevant electronic evidence was irretrievable, thus giving plaintiffs no choice but to incur the extraordinary expense of hiring a computer consulting firm to retrieve what was purportedly ?irretrievable?

Nature of Case: Class action alleging claims under Fair Labor Standards Act and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act

Electronic Data Involved: Payroll data

Wendle Motors, Inc. v. Honkala, 2006 WL 3842146 (E.D. Wash. Dec. 29, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court’s preliminary injunction included the following provision: “Pending resolution of this litigation, the Defendants shall not destroy, delete, or alter electronically stored file information.”

Nature of Case: Plaintiff claimed damage to its goodwill and business reputation based upon Internet postings regarding a particular vehicle

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Lewis v. Sch. Dist. #70, 2006 WL 2506465 (S.D. Ill. Aug. 25, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel further response to overbroad request for all emails, finding that defendants’ production of all existing emails sent to or from plaintiff, or pertaining to plaintiff’s performance during relevant time period was a reasonable attempt to provide responsive information; court further rejected plaintiff’s motion for an order to show cause regarding possible spoliation, concluding that it was not reasonable for defendants “to have foreseen that all e-mails would be relevant to plaintiff’s situation”

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Malletier v. Dooney & Bourke, Inc., 2006 WL 3851151 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court directed defendants to confirm in writing whether it searched particular email accounts or conduct such search if it had not already done so; court further denied plaintiff’s request for spoliation sanctions based upon defendant’s alleged failure to preserve chat room comments since it was highly unlikely that any comments by members of the public that would be pertinent to the lawsuit would have been received, since chat room was opened after relevant time period and technology to save chat room comments was not installed until over a year later

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Chat room comments; email

Wells v. Orange County Sch. Bd., 2006 WL 4824479 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 7, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Where defendant’s initial email search was not appropriate and incomplete and court observed that ?better communications and diligence ? e.g., through personal interaction rather than email between general counsel and the IT director ? would have avoided one year?s delay in producing relevant documents,? court denied motion to compel since record indicated that further searches would be futile, but awarded plaintiff costs of motion

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination, employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Leon v. IDX Sys. Corp., 2004 WL 5571412 (W.D. Wash. Sept. 30, 2004), affirmed, 464 F.3d 951 (9th Cir. 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Where plaintiff deleted whole directories without looking at their contents and designed drive wiping program to write over data indiscriminately after he had notice of the pendency of the litigation, court concluded that ?the extreme nature? of plaintiff?s bad faith behavior, combined with harm done to defendants, merited dismissal of plaintiff?s claims with prejudice; court further ordered plaintiff to pay defendants $65,000 to reimburse them for expenses incurred in investigating and litigating spoliation issue

Nature of Case: Retaliation under False Claims Act and other federal statutes, and Washington state law claims

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop

Phoenix Four, Inc. v. Strategic Res. Corp., 2006 WL 2135798 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 1, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: In follow-up to earlier decision awarding sanctions for discovery failings (Phoenix Four, Inc. v. Strategic Res. Corp., 2006 WL 1409413 (S.D.N.Y. May 23, 2006)), court awarded Phoenix its attorney’s fees and costs associated with bringing the motion for sanctions in the amount of $45,162, to be paid equally by the SRC Defendants and their law firm; court further ruled that the SRC Defendants’ share ?may not be borne by their insurance carriers?

Nature of Case: Investment company sued former advisor for breach of fiduciary duty, common law fraud, and negligent misrepresentation

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drives and servers

Dorel Juvenile Group, Inc. v. DiMartinis, 2006 WL 3240116 (S.D. Ind. Sept. 29, 2006) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel production of an exact image of the hard drive of defendant’s personal computer and instead ordered that the examination of and production from defendant’s personal computer proceed on the terms spelled out in defendant’s responses to the motion to compel

Electronic Data Involved: PC hard drive

Buskey v. Boston Market Corp., 2006 WL 2527826 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 14, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Defendants’ failure to produce accident report amounted to spoliation of evidence and provided additional ground for denying defense motion for summary judgment

Nature of Case: Slip and fall personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: Accident report prepared by defendant

Tag:Data Preservation