Key Insight: Where defendants “deliberately and willfully” failed to produce responsive documents, court concluded that defendants had not substantially complied with its prior discovery order and awarded civil contempt sanctions against defendants in the amount of plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees and costs
Nature of Case: Securities litigation
Electronic Data Involved: Documents on individual defendant’s personal computer
Key Insight: In related action, court granted defendant’s ex parte application to allow its consultants to create mirror images of plaintiff’s computer hard drives, backup tapes and other storage media, in light of allegation that critical document and email were fabricated; after granting unopposed motion to dismiss, court awarded defendant $24,845.99 in fees and costs, including computer consultant fees of $5,650
Nature of Case: Alleged breach of lease agreement
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives and other storage devices
Key Insight: Court denied defendant’s motion to strike the testimony of plaintiff’s computer expert (who recovered “plethora” of deleted documents from defendant’s old YCA computer) since any delay in disclosing the expert and the recovered material was justified given defendant’s failure to disclose that his old computer might contain relevant evidence
Nature of Case: Breach of nondisclosure agreement, tortious interference
Electronic Data Involved: Deleted documents, computer hard drive
Key Insight: Concluding that plaintiff’s discovery abuse warranted sanctions, district court ruled that appropriate sanction would be to inform the jury about plaintiff’s misconduct, since monetary sanctions previously imposed had not deterred further misconduct and extreme sanction of dismissal was not warranted by the facts
Electronic Data Involved: Breach of distributorship agreement, fraud, unfair trade practices and related torts
Key Insight: Plaintiff failed to comply with court order by making various misrepresentations about whether all original input files were produced and whether software program changed over time it was used; sanction in form of attorneys’ fees and costs warranted
Nature of Case: Construction litigation
Electronic Data Involved: Software program and input files used to make design calculations
Key Insight: Defendant’s failure to preserve integrity of computer (dropping it repeatedly and apparent tampering, including disconnecting internal cables prior to court-ordered inspection) and failure to produce responsive electronic material warranted monetary sanctions
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drive, deleted files, electronically stored invoices
Key Insight: No abuse of discretion for trial court to strike defendant’s answer and enter judgment for plaintiff on issue of liability, where defendant reformatted computer’s hard drive, effectively erasing any information the computer may have contained, a day before surrendering it for court-ordered inspection
Nature of Case: Dispute between former business partners
Electronic Data Involved: Laptop
Key Insight: Court ordered nonparty to comply with subpoenas seeking electronic records, imposing monetary sanctions for nonparty’s unsupported argument that bankruptcy court’s automatic stay prevented it from having to comply with the subpoenas and ordering nonparty and plaintiff to meet and confer on means for compliance
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Electronic records, including email
Key Insight: District Court affirmed sanctions award of $147,635.74 imposed by Bankruptcy Court under its inherent powers on law firm representing estate, where among other things, law firm “got caught time and time again with having made misrepresentations about the completeness of what was provided,” even after the evidence indicated otherwise and after additional documents continued to be found
Nature of Case: Bankruptcy proceeding
Electronic Data Involved: Email and documents in electronic format
Key Insight: Plaintiff?s discovery misconduct, including disregard of discovery obligations, misleading statements regarding existence and location of evidence and failure to make reasonable inquiries, warranted sanctions in the form of costs and reasonable attorneys? fees expended by defendant in connection with sanctions motion and certain discovery events
Nature of Case: Insurance coverage
Electronic Data Involved: Email and hard drives
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