Key Insight: Court granted defendant?s motion to compel production of ?computer images and dumpster files? for 29 custodians upon finding that the information sought was relevant and that production would not be unduly burdensome
Nature of Case: Patent Infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Computer images and “dumpster files”
Key Insight: Trial court abused discretion in granting motion to compel forensic imaging of third party?s devices where the record did not present a history of discovery violations or non-compliance sufficient to justify such intrusion and where the court?s order permitted ?unfettered forensic imaging? and contained none of the protections required to conduct forensic analysis (e.g., a neutral third-party examiner, production to counsel for privilege review prior to production to opposing counsel, etc.)
Nature of Case: Violation of non-compete
Electronic Data Involved: Forensic imaging
Key Insight: Addressing the sufficiency of defendant?s search for responsive ESI, among other discovery disputes, court found that defendant failed to conduct a reasonable search and ordered additional searching as specified by the court and that defendant produce mirror images of the computers and external drives of a former supervisor for defendant that was particularly relevant to the litigation (the court called the failure to search his computers ?inexcusable and inexplicable?); court granted protective order precluding defendant?s expert from requirement to produce hardware (computers, etc.) already subject to production by defendant pursuant to court?s order where such duplication was unnecessary and would unnecessarily increase costs
Nature of Case: civil rights and employment law
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court granted motion to quash third party subpoenas seeking production of defendants? email records, emails, text messages, and other related information (from Yahoo and Verizon) where the court found defendants did have standing to challenge the subpoenas and where the court further found that the subpoenas violated the Stored Communications Act, which does not allow for the production of such information pursuant to civil subpoena
Nature of Case: Breach of employment contract
Electronic Data Involved: Email records and messages; phone records and text messages
Key Insight: President and owner of corporation waived privileged as to emails on company servers by consenting to the sale of all company assets, including the company?s servers and emails, without asserting his privilege; shareholders/officers of corporation waived privilege as to messages sent from company email where subjective belief that their communications were confidential was not reasonable in light of company?s email policy which claimed ownership of emails on company systems and reserved the right to access them; court?s analysis applied Asia Global Crossing factors, but acknowledged that privilege waiver inquiries require case-by-case analysis
Nature of Case: Claim of fraudulent sale of business to avoid judgment
Electronic Data Involved: Allegedly privileged emails
Key Insight: In this case, following analysis of several discovery motions, Magistrate Judge Facciola wrote of the need for cooperation: “III. High Noon. As explained at the discovery status hearing held on April 30, 2012, there is a new sheriff in town-not Gary Cooper, but me. The filing of forty-page discovery motions accompanied by thousands of pages of exhibits will cease and will now be replaced by a new regimen in which the parties, without surrendering any of their rights, must make genuine efforts to engage in the cooperative discovery regimen contemplated by the Sedona Conference Cooperation Proclamation.FN3 First, the parties will meet and confer in person in a genuine, good faith effort. . . .”; also, court ruled that where Clawback agreement imposed no conditions on right to recall privileged documents, defendant could do so irrespective of alleged negligence
Nature of Case: Patent Infringement
Electronic Data Involved: All discovery
Key Insight: Where the public contents of one plaintiff?s Facebook account established that it was ?reasonable to believe? that other relevant information may also be present but where lower court only directed plaintiff to produce certain relevant photographs, appellate court remanded with instruction that the court conduct in camera review of ?all status reports, emails, photographs, and videos? to determine which of those materials, if any, were relevant; as to a separate plaintiff where no showing of potential relevance was made, appellate court found lower court properly granted her motion for a protective order
Nature of Case: Personal injury arising from auto accident
Electronic Data Involved: Social Network contents
Key Insight: Court granted motion to quash subpoena issued pursuant to 28 U.S.C. ? 1782 upon finding the subpoena was unduly burdensome because of the time and/or cost that would be required to retrieve the information requested from the non-profit organization?s server, particularly in light of the availability of the information from the organization?s publically available website, and where the request implicated the First Amendment rights of the organization?s members who were subject to a privacy policy that assured them that their private information would be protected
Nature of Case: Foreign prosecution involving claims of libel and slander
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, messages from online forum(s)(stored in Structured Query Language)
Key Insight: Where defendant preserved 4 terabytes of electronically stored information and 744 boxes of paper documents to be reviewed for production, court cited Rule 26(b)(2)(B) for the proposition that burdensome discovery should be limited but found that plaintiff had good cause for requesting relevant information and ordered the parties to meet and confer to develop search terms or objective search criteria for identifying responsive ESI as well as to develop a search plan for the hard copy
Nature of Case: RICO
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, hard copy
Key Insight: Where a small town with ?limited financial and technological resources? sought a protective order to allow phased discovery of ESI in light of the alleged burden and expense of the requested discovery, the court granted in part the defendant?s motion and crafted a protective order which established the search terms to be employed and allowed plaintiff the opportunity to provide suggestions and which provided that if the search returned an unreasonable amount of documents that plaintiff?s counsel should assist in ?restructuring the search? to reduce that number
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
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