Metadata – Page 12 – Electronic Discovery Law

Am. Express Co. v. Goetz, 515 F.3d 156 (2nd Cir. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Second Circuit found no error in trial court’s order denying plaintiff’s request to examine in their entirety numerous computer hard drives belonging to Ogilvy and American Express employees and granting the request only to the extent it involved electronic records pertinent to disputed dates of creation of two documents, since plaintiff failed to show any error in district court’s determination that ?such wholesale rummaging? through American Express’s electronic records was not appropriate

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement and misappropriation

Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drives of employees of American Express and Ogilvy who worked on a particular ad campaign

U.S. v. Bunty, 2008 WL 2371211, (E.D. Pa. June 10, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where government agents altered the ?last accessed? date of relevant files by opening the files to investigate their contents, court denied defendant?s motion for spoliation sanctions upon finding that 1) the agents used the least intrusive means of determining the content of the disks in good faith and 2) the defendant suffered ?minimal? prejudice as a result of the alteration

Nature of Case: Possession of child pornography

Electronic Data Involved: Last accessed data

Overlap Inc. v. Alliance Bernstein Invs., Inc., 2008 WL 5780994 (W.D. Mo. Dec. 29, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court found defendant failed to establish burden of proving ESI was not reasonably accessible where testimony established the relevant computer system could b searched in-house with ?minimal? time spent and ordered defendant to search for and produce the information requested and to bear the associated costs; court ordered search of backup tapes without deciding the issue of reasonable accessibility where plaintiff established ?good cause? for why the tapes should be searched and ordered defendants to search for and produce the information requested and to bear the associated costs

Nature of Case: Breach of contract/warranty

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Binary Semantics Ltd. v. Minitab, Inc., 2008 WL 2020362 (M.D. Pa. May 5, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court denied as overly-broad and intrusive defendant’s request that its forensic expert be permitted to make complete forensic copy of plaintiff’s File Server and FTP server; court instead would allow forensic expert to make forensic copy of relevant folders on plaintiff’s FTP server

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Metadata

WIREdata, Inc. v. Village of Sussex, 751 N.W.2d 736 (Wis. 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Wisconsin Supreme Court disagreed with certain of the court of appeals’ specific holdings, including: that municipalities denied open records requests of WIREdata and, thus, violated open records law; that PDFs were insufficient to comply with such open records requests; and that open records law required access to computerized database; decision of court of appeals reversed in part and affirmed in part, and cases remanded to trial courts

Nature of Case: Company sued municipalities under Wisconsin’s Open Records Law

Electronic Data Involved: Database containing property assessment records

Dean v. New Werner Holding Co., Inc., 2008 WL 2560707 (D. Kan. June 26, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Where defendant had nearly six months to review and accumulate responsive ESI, and represented to court that it intended to produce responsive ESI but provided no date for such production, court ordered defendant to produce ESI within 30 days of court?s order

Nature of Case: Personal injury product liability

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Goshawk Dedicated Ltd. v. Am. Viatical Servs., LLC, 2008 WL 2901864 (N.D. Ga. July 23, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Ruling on various discovery issues, court set protocol for production of certain documents by non-party: (1) plaintiffs to specify documents sought in native format with metadata; (2) within 10 days, non-party to file with court an estimate of the cost of production of all documents; (3) within 10 days, plaintiffs to pay into court?s registry total sum of non-party?s estimate, or limit request to reduce estimated costs; (4) within 21 days, non-party to produce those documents or electronic files to plaintiffs in their original format with metadata; (5) within 10 days, non-party to file bill of actual costs incurred; (6) court to review costs and may appoint expert to help court determine reasonableness; (7) court to enter order directing clerk to pay non-party reasonable sum

Nature of Case: Fraud and negligence claims

Electronic Data Involved: Unspecified electronic documents

Mich. First Credit Union v. CUMIS Ins. Soc., Inc., 2008 WL 2915077 (E.D. Mich. July 22, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: District court overruled plaintiff?s objections to magistrate judge?s order denying sanctions and clarifying that defendant was not required to produce ESI in ?native format? or to produce metadata, where limited evidentiary value of producing ?native format? documents with accompanying metadata was outweighed by overly burdensome task of generating such documents

Nature of Case: Breach of insurance contract, unfair trade practices

Electronic Data Involved: APEX files, Lotus Notes email files, and Microsoft Office spreadsheet files

Super Future Equities, Inc. v. Wells Fargo Bank Minn., N.A., 2008 WL 3261095 (N.D. Tex. Aug. 8, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: For plaintiff?s and its principals? egregious discovery abuses and bad faith conduct, including intentional spoliation of ESI and willful deception and concealment, magistrate judge set out findings of fact and conclusions of law and recommended sanctions in form of adverse inference instruction and monetary sanctions representing all of defendants? fees and costs incurred in connection with sanctions motion; district court overruled plaintiff’s objections and adopted magistrate judge?s rulings

Nature of Case: Breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, RICO violations, negligence, gross negligence and injunctive relief

Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives, DVD, various ESI

White v. Graceland Coll. Ctr. for Prof’l Dev. & Lifelong Learning, Inc., 2008 WL 4427269 (D. Kan. Sept. 25, 2008)

Dec 01 2008

Key Insight: Court denied without prejudice plaintiff’s request for order compelling defendants to produce emails and attachments in native electronic format with metadata intact, pending plaintiff’s obtaining a computer expert to advise on the issue; court further allowed plaintiff?s request for additional time to retain expert to analyze ESI produced by defendants, and, if necessary, to designate such expert as trial witness

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination, FMLA violations, retaliation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, primarily email and attachments

Tag:Metadata