Lack of Cooperation / Inaccurate Representations – Page 17

Domanus v. Lewicki, —F.3d—, 2014 WL 408723 (7th Cir. Feb. 4, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Circuit court found no abuse of discretion for District Court?s imposition of default judgment (or its prior finding of contempt) – which was a more drastic sanction than was originally imposed by the magistrate judge – where Defendants? discovery behaviors, including failing to produce documents as ordered, avoiding depositions, and failing to preserve potentially relevant ESI (and providing conflicting stores about what happened to the hard drive, including that it had been taken apart and given to a defendant?s children to play with) justified the harsh sanction imposed

Nature of Case: Fraud

Electronic Data Involved: ESI on hard drive (emails), bank records

In re Actos (Pioglitazone) Prods. Liab. Litig., MDL No. 6:11-md-2299, 2014 WL 355995 (W.D. La. Jan. 30, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Despite defendants? claims that litigation regarding claims of bladder cancer were not reasonably foreseeable until 2011, and thus the preservation obligation did not attach as to evidence related to those claims, the court found that the duty to preserve began in 2002, when defendants disseminated a broad and general litigation hold requiring the preservation of documents and ESI which ?discuss, mention, or relate to Actos? and that documents destroyed after that (including the files of 46 employees) were spoliated; court ordered that the jury would hear about the destruction and be instructed by the court on how to proceed (instruction would be crafted after hearing all the evidence)

Nature of Case: Products Liability

Electronic Data Involved: ESI (46 “custodial files”)

Knoderer v. State Farm Lloyds, No. 06-13-00027-CV, 2014 WL 4699136 (Tex. App. Sep. 19, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Trial court erred in granting remarkable discovery sanctions of procedural “death penalty” together with over $1 million in sanctions against plaintiffs, as destroyed evidence did not go to heart of case, but was, instead, impeachment evidence; record did not reflect the required consideration by trial court of appropriate lesser sanctions or an explanation of why case was exceptional and lesser sanctions would be inadequate; and court wrongly awarded attorneys’ fees, expert fees, and costs for the entire case rather than those related only to the sanctionable conduct

Nature of Case: Insurance dispute

Electronic Data Involved: Digital photographs

Cusato v. Greenberg Traurig, LLP, No. B242696, 2014 WL 1349493 (Cal. Ct. App. Apr. 7, 2014) (unpublished)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Terminating sanctions dismissing cross-complaint deemed proper where cross-complainants used “File Shredder” to delete gigabytes of data from their computers in violation of orders requiring cross-complainants to preserve computer data and to turn over their computers to computer expert; however, trial court instructed to reconsider monetary sanctions imposed against cross-complainants given that computer expert hired by plaintiff began its forensic examination of the computer media months before it was authorized to do so, in violation of the court’s orders

Nature of Case: LLC members asserted claims and cross-claims after failed business venture

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives of individual cross-claimants

Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Ogandzhanova, No. CV-12-00372-PHX-GMS, 2014 WL 2616523 (D. Ariz. June 12, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where defendant had testified regarding frequent use of computers but the two computers she produced after being ordered by the court to do so showed very little activity, court found that defendant had willfully failed to comply with court’s order to identify and provide the computers she used during the relevant time period; court further found that defendant failed to produce relevant documents within her control and applied five-factor test to impose sanctions in the form of a permissive adverse inference instruction and payment of plaintiff?s attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred in bringing the motion

Nature of Case: Disability insurance dispute

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives, ESI

BancorpSouth Bank v. Kleinpeter Trace, LLC, No. 2013 CA 1396, 2014 WL 4925698 (La. Ct. App. Oct. 1, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Appellate court concluded that trial court did not err in ordering that adverse inference instruction be given to jury as to contents of particular file where plaintiff had notice that file, which was within plaintiff?s control, was relevant to pending litigation, it attempted to refer to contents of file in support of motion for summary judgment, and plaintiff?s explanation for loss of the file was pretextual and not reasonable; appellate court reversed trial court?s decision to impose ultimate sanction of dismissal because record did not support conclusion that plaintiff willfully or in bad faith failed to comply with trial court?s orders, since dismissal rested on conduct that did not relate to court-ordered discovery and in most instances occurred prior to the first discovery order; appellate court vacated trial court?s award of attorneys? fees in favor of defendant and remanded the matter to the trial court for a determination of reasonable expenses because the basis for the award was unclear and the award appeared to include other fees and costs unrelated to the particular discovery motion for which they were awarded

Nature of Case: Suit to enforce obligations arising out of promissory notes

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email, spreadsheets

Ingrid & Isabel, LLC v. Baby Be Mine, LLC, No. 13-cv-01806, 2014 WL 1338480 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 1, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied issue preclusion sanctions without prejudice, ordering defendants to pay monetary sanctions of $20,444, produce all hard drives and any other electronic storage media subject to court-approved protocol for inspection, and provide plaintiff’s experts with access to defendants’ various e-mail, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and eBay accounts, in light of serious concern as to whether defendants met their discovery obligations and real danger that evidence may be destroyed

Nature of Case: Breach of settlement agreement resolving trademark infringement and unfair competition claims

Electronic Data Involved: Defendants’ hard drives and various e-mail, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and eBay accounts

Shaw Group Inc. v. Zurich Am. Ins. Co., No. 12-257-JJB-RLB, 2014 WL 1891543 (M.D. La. May 12, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Finding that defendant had failed to obey previous discovery orders by not timely searching for and producing ESI in response to plaintiff’s requests for production and that defendant?s representations regarding compliance were not completely correct, court once again ordered defendant to produce complete responses, without objections or redactions, ordered defendant to pay plaintiff?s expenses incurred in filing second motion, and ordered parties to endeavor to agree on search terms to be used to obtain responsive ESI; in the event parties could not agree to search terms, custodians and date ranges, then defendant must use those proposed by plaintiff

Nature of Case: Insurance dispute

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Savage v. City of Lewisburg, No. 1:10?0120, 2014 WL 6827329 (M.D. Tenn. Dec. 3, 2014 )

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: District court said that where Defendant was under a duty to preserve audio recordings and should have taken steps to prevent their destruction; and where Defendant refused to produce payroll and promotion data ordered by the court; and where Defendant had not produced documents ordered by the court; Plaintiff would be permitted to argue adverse inferences to the jury and file an affidavit of reasonable costs and attorneys? fees in bringing its sanctions motion.

Nature of Case: Employment Discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Audio recordings, payroll and promotion data, documents

Lozoya v. Allphase Landscape Constr., Inc., No. 12-cv-1048-JLK, 2014 WL 222068 (D. Colo. Jan. 21, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: In case where defendants estimated: (1) production costs for discovery from computers and smart phones would run $35,000 to $45,000 for uploading and processing of data, and (2) plaintiffs’ potential recovery as between $10,350 to $29,700, court granted plaintiffs’ motion to compel finding that plaintiffs’ conduct was far more accommodating and professional than defendants’ and that production in Bates numbered .pdf format would not place undue burden on defendants

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, emails, texts

Tag:Lack of Cooperation / Inaccurate Representations