Motion for Sanctions – Page 104 – Electronic Discovery Law

E.E.O.C. v. Boeing Co., 2007 WL 1146446 (D. Ariz. Apr. 18, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where court had previously denied plaintiff’s motion to compel on the grounds that defendant had made the showing, pursuant to Rule 26(b)(2)(C), that email sought was “not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or costs,” and because plaintiff had not shown good cause to justify the expense of the proposed discovery, court denied subsequent motion to compel defendant’s Rule 30(b)(6) designee to provide testimony on how email production cost estimate was determined

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Rafael Town Center Investors, LLC v. Weitz Co., LLC, 2007 WL 2261376 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 6, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court ruled plaintiff was entitled to monetary sanctions arising from defendant’s document production, stating: “It is undisputed that the first two productions were essentially unusable, and that as a result, plaintiff’s law firm wasted a considerable amount of time attempting to organize the electronic documents. It was the responsibility of defense counsel to ensure that the document production complied with Rule 34(b)(i), and to oversee the work of defendant’s document management company.”

Nature of Case: Construction litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents

Benton v. Dlorah, Inc., 2007 WL 3231431 (D. Kan. Oct. 30, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Magistrate judge ordered plaintiff to produce responsive emails, and if emails had been deleted, to produce for inspection her computer hard drive from which those emails were sent to allow defendants to use services of computer forensic specialist, if necessary, to retrieve them; request for sanctions denied without prejudice to a further request for a ?negative inference instruction? to be determined by trial judge

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Deleted email, hard drive of plaintiff’s personal computer

Claredi Corp. v. Seebeyond Tech. Corp., 2007 WL 735018 (E.D. Mo. Mar. 8, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where plaintiff showed that defendant failed to produce hundreds of responsive emails which plaintiff ultimately obtained through third-party discovery, court found defendant’s discovery conduct to be dilatory and inadequate and imposed sanction of $54,000 for plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees, and another $20,000 payable to the court as sanction for unnecessarily prolonging and increasing the expense of the litigation

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Email and other electronic documents

Palgut v. City Of Colo. Springs, 2007 WL 1238730 (D. Colo. Apr. 27, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Finding that defendant’s failure to identify certain backup tapes in its initial disclosures was inadvertent and was not intentional, willful, or wanton, court ruled that defendant need not produce such backup tapes because production would be unduly burdensome and not reasonably calculated to lead to relevant information; court further found that inadvertent disclosures of protected work product by each of the parties did not effect waiver and prohibited defendant from using or referring to any ?embedded data? contained in plaintiff?s discovery requests and responses

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Backup tapes and embedded data

In re Tri-State Armored Servs., Inc., 366 B.R. 326 (D.N.J. 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: District Court affirmed Bankruptcy Court’s ruling dismissing trustee’s claim for spoliation of evidence since the trustee failed to establish the fifth element of the claim

Nature of Case: Insurer brought adversary proceeding against Chapter 7 trustee

Electronic Data Involved: Email

In re Hawaiian Airlines, Inc., 2007 WL 3172642 (Bankr. D. Haw. Oct. 30, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Finding that Mesa?s CFO deleted files that Mesa had duty to preserve, used special software to wipe hard drives and changed computer’s clock in an attempt to conceal what he had done, and that Mesa could have taken reasonable, inexpensive and non-burdensome steps that would have prevented or mitigated the consequences of CFO’s destruction of evidence, court concluded that adverse inference was appropriate and made certain findings of fact which were binding and conclusive for all purposes in the case

Nature of Case: Airline undergoing reorganization alleged that prospective investor (Mesa) breached confidentiality agreement and misused confidential information

Electronic Data Involved: Confidential information stored on secure website

Lohmann & Rauscher, Inc. v. YKK (U.S.A.), Inc., 2007 WL 677726 (D. Kan. Mar. 2, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Court denied discovery motion because counsel’s exchange of emails did not satisfy Rule 37 meet and confer requirement; notwithstanding such denial, court found that defense counsel’s email attaching additional documents and advising that there were no other responsive documents did not satisfy the letter or spirit of court’s prior discovery order or the federal rules; court ordered defendant to prepare written response in accordance with Rule 34(b) and pay sanctions of $500 to plaintiff

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Synergy Tech & Design Inc. v. Terry, 2007 WL 1288464 (N.D. Cal. May 2, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendants produced only 82 pages of emails without their attachments, and the record indicated that other responsive material existed, including the email attachments and data being mined by forensic expert hired by defendant, court found that defendants had not fully complied with prior discovery order, imposed monetary sanctions, and ordered defendant to produce additional documents and/or provide declarations detailing their specific efforts to locate responsive material

Nature of Case: Patent litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email attachments and other data obtained through forensic means

Perez-Farias v. Global Horizons, Inc., 2007 WL 2327073 (E.D. Wash. Aug. 10, 2007)

Dec 01 2007

Key Insight: Where defendants failed to produce email, failed to properly preserve email, and had not complied with orders to timely produce discovery, nor paid plaintiffs’ costs of bringing discovery motions as ordered nor paid sanctions to court as directed, and repeatedly failed to follow local rules with respect to timely and properly filing documents, court granted plaintiff’s motion for case dispositive sanctions; trial would be on the issue of damages only, and only plaintiff’s evidence would be admitted given defendants’ failure to file witness or exhibit lists

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Tag:Motion for Sanctions