Keyword Search – Page 20 – Electronic Discovery Law

MSC Software Corp. v. Altair Eng?g, Inc., 2008 WL 5381864 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 22, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Despite their production?s compliance with Fed. R. Civ. P. 34, court ordered defendants to specifically identify documents responsive to particular requests where plaintiff could not ?easily locate the documents? responsive to those requests within the production; court ordered defendant to use search terms provided by plaintiffs, despite objections of burden and privilege, but ordered use of connector term ?and? rather than ?or? to return documents ?more responsive? to the requests; court declined to order forensic imaging of hard drive but ordered defendant?s expert to produce attorney?s eyes only report of examination of the hard drive to address specific concerns and to provide plaintiffs with a directory list for all defendant?s non-Altair computer hard drives

Nature of Case: Theft of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email, hard drives

Cache La Poudre Feeds, LLC v. Land O’ Lakes, Inc., 244 F.R.D. 614 (D. Colo. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court concluded that defendants’ duty to preserve was triggered by filing of complaint, and not by earlier demand letters that were equivocal and “less than adamant”; court further denied most of the sanctions requested but imposed $5,000 monetary sanction for defendants? failure to preserve hard drives of departed employees and failure to confirm the accuracy and completeness of production; court further rejected plaintiff’s argument that Zubulake V created a new obligation for litigants to conduct “system-wide keyword searches”

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

O’Bar v. Lowe’s Home Centers, Inc., 2007 WL 1299180 (W.D.N.C. May 2, 2007)

Key Insight: Court ordered parties to develop joint precertification discovery plan and articulated detailed guidelines for discovery of ESI adapted from the ?Suggested Protocol for Discovery of Electronically Stored Information? set forth by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Frees, Inc. v. McMillian, 2007 WL 1308388 (W.D. La. May 1, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District court upheld magistrate judge’s January 22, 2007 memorandum order and related protective order, as such orders were not clearly erroneous or contrary to law

Nature of Case: Design firm sued former vice president under Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Electronic Data Involved: Former employee’s home computer and new work computer

Woodburn Const. Co. v. Encon Pacific, LLC, 2007 WL 1287845 (W.D. Wash. Apr. 30, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied defendant’s motion to compel and for sanctions where parties had agreed on detailed ESI discovery protocol and defendant had opportunity to discover ESI from plaintiff pursuant thereto but never availed itself of that opportunity notwithstanding plaintiff’s continued cooperation; court further awarded sanctions to plaintiff for having to oppose the motion

Nature of Case: Construction litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Ameriwood Indus., Inc. v. Liberman, 2007 WL 685623 (E.D. Mo. Feb. 23, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: On joint motion for clarification of court’s December 27, 2006 order, court approved parties’ agreed search term protocol but denied plaintiff’s request for list of ?hits? generated by searches; court further approved joint request for expert to provide information concerning defendants’ usage of their computer equipment, specifically: (1) use of erasure software or ?defragmentation? software; (2) use of detachable, portable storage media to access or download files; (3) evidence of mass deletions of files; and (4) evidence of large gaps in the contents of the files

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives, deleted email and other files

Lockheed Martin Corp. v. L-3 Communications Corp., 2007 WL 2209250 (M.D. Fla. July 29, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ordered plaintiff to produce certain documents related to forensic examinations of former employee’s computers, including electronic documents or portions thereof retrieved from the computers, and all related “fact” work product since substantial need had been demonstrated; court further ordered plaintiff’s IT employee to answer questions regarding forensic examinations at deposition, finding inadequate plaintiff’s proposal that witness respond to unanswered questions through an errata sheet since LMC’s counsel instructed witness not to testify on broad areas of inquiry and counsel was unable to fully develop lines of questioning

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Results of forensic computer analysis

Ameriwood ind., Inc. v. Liberman, 2007 WL 5110313 (E.D. Mo. July 3, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendants used “Window Washer” disk scrubbing software on hard drives just days before they were to be turned over to forensic expert, and also performed “mass deletions” of electronic files, court found that defendants’ intentional actions evidenced a serious disregard for the judicial process and had prejudiced plaintiff; court entered default judgment in favor of plaintiff and shifted to defendants plaintiff’s costs, attorney’s fees, and computer expert’s fees relating to motions for sanctions and forensic imaging and recovery of defendants’ hard drives; jury trial to proceed solely on issue of plaintiff’s damages

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives

Clearone Communications, Inc. v. Chiang, 2007 WL 3275300 (D. Utah Nov. 5, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where object of two prior orders granting plaintiff’s motion for sanctions and to compel immediate backup and imaging of certain defendants’ computers was preservation of evidence, court denied plaintiff’s later motion for order adopting 170-word search protocol that was separate and apart from any particular discovery request, since prior orders did not “contemplate that ClearOne have carte blanche access to the electronic data filtered only by keyword searching and privilege objections”

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, conversion

Electronic Data Involved: Mirror images of hard drives

3M Co. v. Kanbar, 2007 WL 2972921 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 10, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where responsive emails which had been inadvertently omitted from initial production as a result of human error in manual search were promptly produced after being mentioned in deposition, court ordered defendant to submit a declaration certifying that all non-privileged documents had been produced and detailing what defendants and their employees did to ensure a complete production

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Tag:Keyword Search