Keyword Search – Page 16 – Electronic Discovery Law

Habtegiorgis v. OIC of Washington, 2010 WL 2232142 (E.D. Wash. June 2, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Finding plaintiff?s requests ?reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence,? court granted plaintiff?s motion to compel and ordered defendants to produce certain ESI and to allow plaintiffs to search defendant?s server and network using the terms of plaintiff?s choosing and ordered that defendant provide information regarding the creation of backup disks and other evidence; court granted plaintiff?s motion for the costs of bringing the motion

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Am. Family Mut. Ins. Co. v. Gustafson, 2009 WL 641297 (D. Colo. Mar. 10, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court ordered specific protocol for search of mirror images of defendant?s hard drive allowing defendant to first remove privileged and irrelevant material and create a detailed privilege log and then to produce the redacted drive to plaintiff; upon receipt of redacted drive, plaintiff was ordered to confer with defendant to establish search terms and to use those terms to identify potentially relevant information on the drive; where plaintiffs accessed information later claimed to be privileged, court would resolve dispute and privilege would not be waived

Nature of Case: Violation of Computer Fraud Abuse Act, Colorado Consumer Protection Act, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, interference with contractual obligations

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, hard drive

Asarco, Inc. v. U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency, 2009 WL 1138830 (D.D.C. Apr. 28, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where plaintiff argued it made a sufficient showing of bad faith to justify discovery regarding the adequacy of defendant?s search and the exemptions claimed but where plaintiff presented no genuine issue of material fact to which discovery would be devoted and where the remedy for a deficient search is to remand to the agency for a more adequate search, court denied plaintiffs? motion to take discovery; where defendant used only one search term — ?recontamination? ? court ordered ?one last search? using the terms: ?recontaminate,? ?recontaminat,? ?recontamination,? and ?contaminate again?

Nature of Case: FOIA

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Surplus Source Group, LLC v. Mid-Am. Engine, 2009 WL 961207 (E.D. Tex. Apr. 8, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where the need for a third search of defendants? electronically stored information resulted from plaintiffs? delay in providing search terms, court ordered defendants to undertake third search, using terms provided by plaintiffs, but ordered plaintiffs to bear the cost of the third search, up to the amount equal to the second search, reasoning that such an order would essentially result in plaintiffs bearing the cost of the second search which was insufficient because of their delay

Nature of Case: Claims arising from defendants? alleged failure to split profits from sales of industrial equipment

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Feig v. The Apple Org.., 2009 WL 1515506 (S.D. Fla. May 29, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendant alleged that identifying responsive employee emails was too burdensome in light of inability to search emails electronically, court found defendant had not satisfactorily established inability to search and ordered production of requested emails; court acknowledged that if defendant established the inability to search electronically, identifying requested emails would be overly burdensome and, in the event searching was truly impossible, ordered defendants to move for a protective order supported by an affidavit of a forensic expert providing an explanation

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

In re Zurn Plex Plumbing Prods. Liab. Litig., 2009 WL 1606653 (D. Minn. June 5, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendants objected to plaintiffs’ motion to compel arguing the requested search of emails and various computer drives would be unduly burdensome, court dismissed attorney?s affidavit in support of such objections as ?not compelling evidence? where attorney was not ?an expert on document search and retrieval? but, ?in an effort to control costs,? limited defendants? search to particular locations and ordered the use of 14 terms as supplied by the court or agreed upon by the parties; court invited defendants to renew their objections if the search nonetheless proved overly burdensome by submitting evidence, including evidence from ?computer experts,? in support of those objections

Nature of Case: Claims that defendants’ choice of plumbing fittings caused damage to plaintiffs’ property

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Artie?s Auto Body, Inc. v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 2009 WL 1578251 (Conn. Super. Ct. May 7, 2009) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendant?s response to plaintiffs? discovery requests encompassed as many as 20 supplemental responses over 5 years, including the production of 1,487,824 pages of electronically unsearchable ESI 5 years after plaintiffs? first request (which plaintiffs paid to convert to a searchable format), court found defendant?s efforts ?did not represent a good faith effort to comply with the rules of practice or the case management orders of this court? and violated ? 13-14(a) of the Practice Book and accordingly ordered sanctions including allowing re-deposition of witnesses at defendant?s cost, reimbursement of plaintiffs for conversion costs, and payment of plaintiffs? attorney?s fees

Nature of Case: Class action

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition v. Salazar, 2009 WL 1703232 (D.D.C. June 18, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: ?Unconvinced? that defendants had not unduly limited the scope of their search for responsive documents, court ordered additional searching but limited the scope of plaintiff?s proposed terms and parameters and ordered the parties to meet and confer regarding: an agreeable search methodology consistent with the court?s opinion, the identification of potentially responsive databases and custodians likely to maintain relevant information, and ?a list of search directives? likely to result in the identification of relevant documents

Nature of Case: Constitutional claims

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Continental Group, Inc. v. KW Prop. Mgmt., 2009 WL 425945 (S.D. Fla. Feb. 20, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where parties failed to establish filtering protocol to segregate privileged materials from portable devices because of a disagreement as to the meaning of the court?s prior order, court ordered production of images of defendant?s portable devices to plaintiff prior to performing a privilege review but held that such production would not result in waiver and indicated its belief that no prejudice to defendant?s would result, despite acknowledgement that plaintiff would have ?a few days to view the images which may contain privileged material? prior to defendants identification of privileged material

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged ESI on portable devices

Dunkin? Donuts Franchised Rests. LLC v. Grand Cent. Donuts, Inc., 2009 WL 1750348 (E.D.N.Y. June 19, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Finding the information sought to be ?largely relevant and discoverable,? court granted defendants? motions to compel in part and ordered parties to meet and confer to develop a ?workable search protocol to obtain the information sought by the defendants in light of what was discussed at the motion hearing?; specifically, the court noted that defendants? proposed terms could be ?narrowed temporally? and that the scope of the terms could be tailored to individual employees identified by defendants and ordered defendants to provide plaintiffs with a list of employees whose email they wanted searched and the specific terms to be used for each person

Nature of Case: Action to enforce termination of franchise agreement alleging breach of contract and trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

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