Key Insight: Defense counsel’s failure to produce computer records and to retain all drafts of settlement documents reflected lack of diligence rather than intentional effort to abuse discovery process; testimony of witness barred and $500 awarded as sanctions
Nature of Case: Sexual harassment
Electronic Data Involved: Computer records
Key Insight: After jury awarded plaintiffs $225,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, court considered as a post-judgment matter the issue of whether to impose sanctions against defendant for discovery abuse, allowing parties to conduct further discovery on the impact of defendant’s noncompliance and scheduling an evidentiary hearing on the issue
Nature of Case: Heirs of insured sued insurance company for breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing, false representation and deceit
Electronic Data Involved: Computerized claims information
Key Insight: Government’s motion for “protective order clarifying that it may produce email in response to discovery requests by producing from paper records of email messages rather than from backup tapes and may overwrite backup tapes in accordance with Departmental directives” denied as inappropriate given history of dispute; plaintiffs awarded attorneys’ fees and costs associated with motion
Nature of Case: Suit against the government alleging mismanagement of Indian trust funds
Electronic Data Involved: Email stored on backup tapes
Key Insight: EPA violated preliminary injunction that prohibited destruction of potentially responsive documents by reformatting hard drives and erasing or overwriting backup tapes containing potentially responsive email; EPA held in civil contempt and ordered to pay plaintiff’s reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred as a result of EPA’s contumacious conduct
Nature of Case: FOIA action
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives and email stored on backup tapes
Key Insight: Order allowing plaintiff unrestricted access to defendant’s computer system quashed, because the order allowed plaintiff unrestricted access to defendant’s computer system, including all of his programs and directories, without protection for any privileged or confidential information and without safeguards or restrictions to minimize any potential harm to the computer system
Nature of Case: Breach of contract suit between former partners
Electronic Data Involved: Inspection of computer system to search for financial information
Key Insight: Magistrate granted various discovery sanctions requested by plaintiff, including monetary sanctions and a jury instruction adverse to defendants based on destruction and non-production of email
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Where defendants intentionally and willfully refused to comply with court’s discovery orders regarding electronically stored information, sanctions in form of striking defendants’ answer, preventing them from defending against plaintiff’s claims, and granting default judgment was not an abuse of discretion
Nature of Case: Wage and Hour Act violations
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic data
Key Insight: Court granted motion for monetary sanctions against defendant for violating TRO by failing to return proprietary information and data to plaintiff, but reserved judgment on amount of award pending further proceedings
Nature of Case: Employer sued former employee for misappropriation of trade secrets and related torts
Electronic Data Involved: Database containing sales and customer information, email, laptop, zip disk
Key Insight: Affirming jury award for plaintiff, where plaintiff had been permitted to add claim for negligent destruction of evidence based on defendant’s failure to preserve electronic records and computer hard drive, court found no error in allowing plaintiff to introduce at trial evidence of defendant’s discovery misconduct. Court further concluded that strong statements of disapproval of defendant’s discovery abuses did not require trial judge’s recusal.
Nature of Case: Breach of contract suit between former partners
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive
Key Insight: Following additional briefing by parties on attorneys’ fees and adverse inference instruction, magistrate awarded plaintiff $563,843 in fees and $2,998 in costs for its counsel’s efforts on sanctions motion and to secure discovery and crafted jury instruction based upon that adopted in Zubulake V
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Email
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