Key Insight: Court narrowed scope of subpoena and ordered plaintiff and third party to negotiate a reasonable “sample” protocol and search protocol to expedite production, limit the burden and perhaps develop information to return to court to refine the court’s ruling
Nature of Case: Securities class action
Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheets
Key Insight: Denying plaintiff’s motion for entry of default judgment as sanction for tardy production of documents, court found that plaintiff had suffered little prejudice from delay and that defendant had worked diligently, did not willfully withhold responsive documents, and did not improperly modify or delete files froom hard drive before voluntarily producing it
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive
Key Insight: Where, after months of discovery disputes, reports upon which defendant urged plaintiff to rely in lieu of full database turned out to be inaccurate, court denied plaintiff’s motion for entry of default judgment for discovery abuse and instead postponed trial so that defendant could produce accurate information; however, court imposed monetary sanctions against defendant representing plaintiff’s legal and expert fees for time spent working with inaccurate data
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Database, reports, electronic data
Key Insight: Motion to compel production of computer-generated salary data granted; court further ordered parties to preserve all relevant evidence including all data compilations, computerized data and other electronically-recorded information
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Computerized payroll records
Key Insight: Scheduling and case management order provides, inter alia, that document requests shall be responded to and documents produced within ten days after service, and that parties will produce documents in either hard copy form, or, in the case of electronic documents, in the native electronic format (or a mutually agreeable format)
Key Insight: Granting plaintiff’s’ motion to compel production of computerized images of employment records which were created to facilitate review of the documents by geographically-dispersed defense counsel, court held that images did not constitute attorney work product since images did not contain mental impressions or legal theories and would not give plaintiffs insight into defense strategy or opinions; plaintiffs to pay only nominal copying costs and not portion of $250,000 imaging cost incurred by defendant
Nature of Case: Race discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Computerized images of employment records
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
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
Key Insight: Court did not abuse discretion in denying request for computer tapes where requesting party already possessed all information from tapes on wage cards and were not deprived of any data
Electronic Data Involved: Computer tapes containing wage information
Key Insight: Court denied defendant’s motion to extend expert discovery deadline for purposes of reviewing plaintiff’s experts computer data and computerized versions of preliminary and superseded versions of work, where material was produced in hard copy form months earlier and defendant had been dilatory in reviewing it
Nature of Case: Breach of contract and tort claims
Electronic Data Involved: Computerized data and superceded and preliminary drafts of expert
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