O?Neill v. City of Shoreline, 240 P.3d 1149 (Wash. 2010)
Key Insight: Metadata is subject to disclosure pursuant to the Public Records Act
Nature of Case: Public Disclosure Act
Electronic Data Involved: Metadata
Interserve, Inc. v. Fusion Garage, Ltd., 2010 WL 3931100 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 6, 2010)
Key Insight: Where the court found that defendant?s source code?s metadata ?(i.e. programmer?s notes or comments and other annotations in the source code) ? may be relevant to [plaintiff?s] claims,? the court ordered defendant to produce the metadata but indicated that it could redact the actual source code from the production and produce the metadata subject to the parties? stipulated protective order
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of business ideas, false advertising, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud
Electronic Data Involved: Metadata for source code ?(i.e. programmer?s notes or comments and other annotations in the source code)”
Fleming v. Escort, Inc., 2010 WL 3833995 (D. Idaho Sept. 24, 2010)
Key Insight: Where plaintiff sought the unredacted source code of defendant?s allegedly infringing products, the court credited plaintiff?s expert testimony that because source code ?generally contains notes by the writer of that code ?that explain to others who come later what the [writer] of the code was trying to accomplish at that portion of the code??, all of the source code was necessary to ensure his correct understanding of all portions and ordered plaintiff to produce the source code pursuant to the parties protective order; in so holding, court noted that ?the dilemma? of having to produce source court for unrelated products was of defendant?s ?own making? because of its business practice of bundling the source code for all of its products together
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Source code
Romero v. Allstate, 2010 WL 4138693 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 21, 2010)
Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs? request for production of documents in native format and rejected defendants? arguments that plaintiffs must show a ?particularized need? for metadata where ?multiple courts? have held the burden falls to the objecting party to establish hardship or expense and where defendants failed to show how such a production would negatively impact them and noted that were such a showing necessary, plaintiff would have satisfied it; court ordered parties to meet and confer regarding the search terms, additional custodians, and other ?essential details about [defendants?] search methodology? going forward but declined to compel defendant to disclosure the methods utilized for past searching where such an order would result in undue burden to defendants; court declined to compel defendants to certify that they had complied with their discovery obligations absent evidence of spoliation
Nature of Case: Class action
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, metadata
Brinckerhoff v. Town of Paradise, 2010 WL 4806966 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 18, 2010)
Key Insight: Citing plaintiff?s failure to raise the issue of electronic discovery at the discovery conference, her failure to request ESI in discovery, and the lack of hardship in reviewing hard copy produced by defendants, the court generally denied plaintiff?s request to compel production of ESI in native format but, as to an evaluation of plaintiff, the court compelled the production of metadata and reasoned that the revelation of the date created and whether it was modified could be pivotal for the plaintiff
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Mintel Int?l Group, Ltd. v. Neerghen, 2010 WL 145786 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 12, 2010)
Key Insight: Court declined to grant spoliation sanctions for the destruction of metadata resulting from defendant?s continued use of his company-issued laptop where such use was not prohibited by the temporary restraining order and was not shown to destroy relevant evidence and where there was no evidence of defendant?s bad faith
Nature of Case: Violation of Trade Secrets Act, Computer Fraud Abuse Act and terms of employment contract
Electronic Data Involved: Metadata
Irwin v. Onondaga County Res. Recovery Agency, 895 N.Y.S.2d 262 (N.Y. App. Div. 2010)
Key Insight: Appellate court modified amended order of the lower court and granted plaintiff?s petition to compel production of certain electronically stored photographs and the associated ?system? metadata in response to plaintiff?s FOIL request; court was careful to limit scope of holding to the present case such that the opinion did not address ?the issue concerning whether and when metadata of any nature is subject to disclosure under the CPLR? (Civil Practice Law Rules)
Nature of Case: Freedom of Information request
Electronic Data Involved: Electronically stored photographs and associated “system” metadata
Lorentz v. Sunshine Health Prods., Inc., 2010 WL 1856265 (S.D. Fla. May 10, 2010)
Key Insight: Court granted motion for protective order where plaintiff?s request for inspection of defendants? hard drives was found ?per se overbroad and unduly burdensome when balanced against the need cited? and where plaintiff failed to explain whether a less intrusive option had been attempted, ?as per Rule 34?; despite granting the motion, court noted willingness to entertain a motion to inspect a particular hard drive if provided with a protocol for such inspection indicating a method to protect the non-responsive data
Camesi v. Univ. Pittsburgh Med. Ctr., 2010 WL 2104639 (W.D. Pa. May 24, 2010)
Key Insight: In an order addressing a number of discovery concerns, court ordered the parties to meet and confer to resolve ESI disputes and ordered defendants to ?at a minimum? ensure that all files stored in electronic format were produced in a ?searchable? format and to re-produce ESI in native format absent a showing of undue hardship or expense; court ordered defendants to produce metadata and indicated willingness to excuse plaintiff?s failure to request it earlier in light of plaintiff?s ?repeated, good faith requests to meet and confer?
Nature of Case: Fair Labor Standards Act
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Aponte-Navedo v. Nalcom Chem. Co., 268 F.R.D. 31 (D.P.R. 2010)
Key Insight: Upon plaintiff?s first motion to compel, the court found that while information regarding defendant?s information technology department and the hardware and software used by defendant is discoverable, plaintiff?s requests were overly broad and the court could not compel responses to the interrogatories as drafted but ordered defendants to identify the computer program or software used to created or transmit the already produced documents and for defendants to produce native documents with metadata intact
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Information regarding defendant’s information technology department, ESI