Inspection – Page 13 – 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

Leviton Mfg. Co., Inc. v. Nicor, Inc., 2006 WL 1305036 (D.N.M. Jan. 6, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Citing concerns that defendant had not accounted for documents that at one time were in its files, court ordered defendant to produce all responsive documents, submit a sworn declaration from a corporate officer setting forth precisely why it did not produce the documents that had been shown to the court, make its computers available for inspection by Leviton and its experts, and provide Leviton with an authorization to defendant’s email service company to produce all of defendant’s communication with its customers

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents

Arista Records, LLC v. Tschirhart, 2006 WL 2728927 (W.D. Tex. Aug. 23, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court entered default judgment as discovery sanction where forensic evidence showed that defendant deliberately used ?wiping? software to permanently remove data from her hard drive and stated: “The sanction in the present case is to deter other defendants in similar cases from attempting to destroy or conceal evidence of their wrongdoing.”

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

Plasse v. Tyco Elecs. Corp., 448 F. Supp. 2d 302 (D. Mass. 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Where forensic inspection of plaintiff?s laptop and disks showed evidence of tampering, including: deleted files, system date and time manipulations, access histories showing that various relevant documents were accessed after court?s order and before plaintiff?s second deposition, and other fragments of relevant documents and emails that had not been produced, and plaintiff’s explanations “verge[d] on the absurd,” court found that plaintiff had engaged in an egregious pattern of misconduct, dismissed complaint with prejudice, and invited defendant to submit an application for costs and attorneys? fees

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop; drafts of plaintiff’s resume

Afremov v. Amplatz, 2006 WL 44341 (Minn. Ct. App. Jan. 10, 2006) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Lawyer for party successfully appealed sanctions imposed on him by trial court following emergency evidentiary hearing regarding the deletion of files from party’s home computer that was subject to inspection order; trial court violated lawyer’s due process protections by failing to provide sufficient notice of the purpose of the emergency hearing or the potential for sanctions

Nature of Case: Underlying claims were settled, and court appointed a receiver

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop computer, emails

Kay S. v. Mark S., 142 P.3d 249 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Appellate court found there was appearance of impropriety which warranted trial judge’s disqualification; on remand, new judge to consider, among other things, mother’s request for production of hard drive from father’s work computer

Nature of Case: Divorce proceedings

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive

Madden v. Wyeth, 2006 WL 568015 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 7, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Court awarded plaintiff $47,970 in sanctions representing attorney’s fees and expenses reasonably incurred in bringing motion to compel discovery of Wyeth’s adverse event database and production of prior versions of certain reports and source documents; court had earlier granted plaintiff and her expert supervised access to defendant’s database

Nature of Case: Drug products liability

Electronic Data Involved: Database and source documents for certain reports

Jordan v. Dillards, Inc., 2006 WL 2873472 (D. Kan. Oct. 5, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Defendant’s motion to compel production of plaintiff’s hard drive for inspection denied, since defendant “provided no justification for so broad or invasive a request” and there was no showing that the request was reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Plaintiff’s hard drive

Williams, Cohen & Gray, Inc. v. CPS Group, Inc., 2006 WL 3316783 (S.D. Tex. Nov. 14, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Where defendant objected to providing hard copies of payment data and offered instead to make its database available to plaintiff in New York, court questioned prudence of offer and ordered production to take place in Houston, adding that parties should attempt to arrange for materials to be produced electronically and directing them to confer on method of production

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Database

Happel v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 2006 WL 642562 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 8, 2006)

Dec 01 2006

Key Insight: Where plaintiff alleged that Wal-Mart Pharmacy wrongly filled a prescription for a drug to which she was allergic, and that Wal-Mart’s computer system would have listed plaintiff’s drug allergies, flashed a warning and required further protocols before the drug could be dispensed to plaintiff, court granted motion to compel production of the computer used by the pharmacist (on August 4, 1993) and any reports or logs relating to the computer’s repair, maintenance or malfunction

Nature of Case: Personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: Computer used by particular Wal-Mart Pharmacy in 1993 and reports or logs relating to computer’s repair, maintenance or malfunction

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