Keyword Search – Page 11 – Electronic Discovery Law

Potts v. Dollar Tree Stores, Inc., No. 3:11-cv-01180, 2013 WL 1176504 (M.D. Tenn. Mar. 20, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Court declined to compel production of Plaintiffs? Facebook or other social media pages absent a threshold showing that the accounts would contain information within the scope of discovery but concluded that information stored on Plaintiff?s computer ?could lead reasonably to the discovery of admissible evidence? and required that the parties agree to a word search of Plaintiff?s computer by a neutral third party to ?asses whether Plaintiff?s computer contains relevant information?

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination/harassment

Electronic Data Involved: Facebook and social media, personal computer

Neustar, Inc. v. F5 Networks, Inc., No. C 12-02574 EJD, 2013 WL 1755489 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 24, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: In dispute over search terms and the appropriate date range for discovery, court cited Defendant?s declarations showing that Plaintiffs? proposed terms would result in a far greater volume of ESI to be reviewed and would triple the costs of production and found ?no reason? not to use Defendant?s proposed terms and reasoned that ?no search is ever perfect,? but that Defendant?s terms would ?likely yield sufficient documents?; date range was restricted to time period of the date of the contract to the present rather than Plaintiffs? proposal to begin two years before the agreement was formed

Nature of Case: Breach of licensing agreement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Cotton v. Costco Wholesale Corp., No. 12-2731-JW, 2013 WL 3819974 (D. Kan. July 24, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Addressing Plaintiff?s motion to compel, court declined to compel Defendant to search the email accounts of four Costco employees and to produce any messages containing any of sixty-four search terms where many of the terms were not ?racially charged? and some were duplicative and where, save two of the terms, Plaintiff had not alleged that the terms were ever used by any of Costco?s employees; court denied motion to compel production of text messages sent from certain of Costco?s employees? personal cell phones where the court reasoned that Costco had not issued the phones to the employees for a work purpose and did not have ?possession, custody or control? of the text messages

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination based on race

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, text messages on employees’ personal cell phones

First Fin. Bank N. A. v Bauknecht, No. 12-CV-1509, 2013 WL 3833039 (C.D. Ill. July 23, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Magistrate Judge granted a motion to compel a search of all of defendant?s email accounts , not limited to the 4 specific individuals listed in the Rule 26(a) disclosures, reasoning that the 26(a) disclosure ?only meant? that the individuals identified may be used to support defendant?s claims or defense and that defendant did not indicate that the specified employees were the only ones to have responsive documents. The court denied Plaintiff?s request to compel Defendant to conduct separate searches of its email, one by ?recipient/sender? and one ?by subject matter? using specified search terms and reasoned that the latter search was broader, but indicated that Plaintiff could pay for the second search. Having declined to limit the accounts to be searched, the court acknowledged the likelihood that accounts unlikely to have relevant information would be included, and shifted 25% of the cost to the requesting party (Plaintiff).

Nature of Case: Breach of Employment Contract

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Momentive Specialty Chems., Inc. v. Alexander, No. 2:13-cv-275, 2013 WL 2151477 (S.D. Ohio May 16, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Where plaintiff sought to discover whether flash drives containing its sensitive information had been accessed by defendant since he started working for his new employer and also sought production of all relevant information contained on defendant?s laptop, the court indicated that Plaintiff?s expert would be allowed to image and search defendant?s laptop to determine if the flash drives had been accessed and to produce to Plaintiff any ?actual files? from those drives determined to be on defendant?s computer without first allowing defendant to conduct a review for relevance or privilege; as to other relevant documents found on the laptop which were not taken from the at-issue flash drives, the court ordered that any keyword hits be provided to defendant to review before production; to assuage concerns that relevant information would be withheld, court ordered defendant to prepare a log of any documents withheld on relevance grounds to allow the parties to have ?reasoned discussions? regarding those withholdings

Nature of Case: Breach of non-compete agreement, misappropriation of proprietary information

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Master Hand Contractors, Inc. v. Convent of the Sacred Heart of Chicago, No. 1-12-3788, 2013 WL 5940641 (Ill. App. Ct. Nov. 4, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Trial court did not err in dismissing mechanics lien case with prejudice as sanction for plaintiff’s failure to comply with its discovery obligations for approximately 18 months and its violations of seven orders of the court, including three expressly final deadlines to produce electronic discovery materials, as the trial court applied progressive discipline to coerce compliance and gave plaintiff ample opportunities to escape possible discovery sanctions; appellate court criticized plaintiff?s approach to the ESI request, ?under which the company owner — who called himself a ?computer idiot? in open court — self-selected emails relating to the Sacred Heart project instead of using a search tool to find them, and printed them out one at a time, all without supervision of counsel.?

Nature of Case: School building construction litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, including email

Soffer v. Five Mile Capital Partners, LLC, No. 2:12-cv-01407-JAD-GWF, 2013 WL 4499011 (D. Nev. Aug. 19, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Court indicated that dispute over whether to compel Defendants to conduct additional searches in an expanded date range turned on Rule 26(b)(2)(C)(iii) and the question of whether the burden outweighed the likely benefit but, citing Plaintiff?s prior offer to more narrowly tailor the search terms to be utilized and to contribute to the reasonable costs of Defendants? review, ordered the parties to meet to attempt to reach agreement on a more focused search and to negotiate a reasonable cost sharing agreement and indicated that the court would consider shifting ?an appropriate share of the costs of production? once a determination of the cost was made

Nature of Case: Interference with a contract and prospective economic advantage, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

FDIC v. Giannoulias, No. 12 C 1665, 2013 WL 5762397 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 23, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Where defendants propounded 242 requests for documents, trial court declined to require FDIC to review thousands of documents ?to weed out a presumably small subset of irrelevant materials,? or to organize its Phase II production according to defendants? numerous discovery requests; court granted in part and denied in part the parties? respective motions concerning search terms to be used to identify responsive material, and ruled that FDIC would bear the costs of production as they arose subject to the possibility that the court may later require contribution from the defendants; court further directed FDIC to submit to the court a revised proposed ESI protocol

Nature of Case: Receiver sued former directors and officers of bank to recover approximately $114 million in losses bank suffered on 20 commercial real estate loans

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, including email

Mastr Adjustable Rate Mortgages Trust v. UBS Real Estate Secs. Inc., No. 12 Civ. 7322(HB)(JCF), 2013 WL 5651290 (S.D.N.Y. Oct.15, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Where review of sample of unproduced documents revealed possibility that more responsive documents had been missed than had been produced, court ordered producing party to re-review at-issue custodians? files and to confer with requesting party regarding expansion of search terms; court rejected producing party?s arguments that its initial review was ??on par with and likely more accurate than typical document reviews,? citing cases and studies finding that human reviewers are disconcertingly error-prone? reasoning in part that producing party ?can, and has, utilized review technologies that can, if used properly, be expected to identify more than a mere half of the potentially responsive documents.?

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, declaratory judgment

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Westdale Recap Props., Ltd. v. NP/I & G Wakefield Commons, LLC, No. 5:11-CV-659-D, 2013 WL 5424844 (E.D.N.C. Sep. 26, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Where producing party defended tardiness of production by explaining it had been awaiting agreement on protocol for ESI, as contemplated in parties? discovery plan, and proposed search terms from plaintiffs to conduct a supplemental search of ESI pursuant to such protocol, court granted in part and denied in part plaintiffs? motion to compel, setting deadlines for plaintiffs to provide different custodians, dates and/or keyword search terms, and for production, resolving that production should be in the form of searchable PDF?s with the option of requesting particular ESI in native format if there is a demonstrable need, and requiring defendant to prepare privilege log meeting requirements of Rule 26(b)(5)(A) and duly signed by counsel for any otherwise responsive documents withheld on grounds of privilege

Nature of Case: Fraud, civil conspiracy, unfair and deceptive trade practices and negligent misrepresentation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Tag:Keyword Search