Motion for Sanctions – Page 116 – Electronic Discovery Law

Advantacare Health Partners, LP v. Access IV, 2005 WL 1398641 (N.D. Cal. June 14, 2005) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court denied individual defendant’s motion for reconsideration of default judgment entered against her and other defendants for continued destruction of evidence and continued possession of plaintiff’s proprietary files; although there was no evidence that individual defendant personally engaged in wrongful acts, she was not insulated by simply leaving compliance with court orders to other defendant; further, individual had numerous opportunities to disavow knowledge of misconduct or detail what efforts she personally took to comply with court orders but never did so

Nature of Case: Misapproriation of trade secrets and related torts

Electronic Data Involved: Proprietary information in electronic form

Clark Constr. Group, Inc. v. City of Memphis, 229 F.R.D. 131 (W.D. Tenn. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court imposed sanctions against city in the form of a rebuttable adverse inference, and fees and costs related to the discovery dispute, based upon city’s grossly negligent failure to institute litigation hold and consequent destruction of relevant hard copy documents

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation

Electronic Data Involved: Email printouts and other hard copy documents

Appraisal Mgmt. Co. III v. FNC, Inc., 2005 WL 3088561 (N.D. Ohio Nov. 17, 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court dismissed complaint as discovery sanction finding that: (1) plaintiff’s failure to cooperate in discovery was willful, (2) plaintiff’s conduct had prejudiced the defendant by impairing its ability to prepare its defense, (3) plaintiff had received sufficient warnings that its failure to cooperate could lead to dismissal, and (4) lesser sanctions would not protect the integrity of pretrial procedures or ameliorate the prejudice already visited upon the defendant

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email and computer code

Okoumou v. Safe Horizon, 2005 WL 2431674 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Although plaintiff was free to pursue discovery of archived emails on obsolete email system, the extent to which those emails were discoverable and the allocation of costs to restore them would require further analysis; court directed plaintiff to notify the court if she intended to pursue the archived email

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Archived email from obsolete email system

Jinks-Umstead v. England, 232 F.R.D. 142 (D.D.C. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion to reject defendant’s attorney-client privilege and work product claims, finding that crime/fraud exception did not apply, that defendant had not waived privilege, and that plaintiff had not demonstrated a substantial need for the material; court also noted that defendant had previously been sanctioned for the discovery conduct complained of and that it would be inappropriate to sanction defendant again for the very same conduct

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Drafts of discovery responses and email claimed to be privileged

Inventory Locator Serv., LLC v. PartsBase, Inc., 2005 WL 6062855 (W.D. Tenn. Oct. 19, 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Where there was no evidence that server logs were erased in bad faith and facts suggested that defendant was, at most, merely negligent, since it took reasonable steps to preserve relevant data — it retained and consulted with technical expert; on advice of its expert, it made a copy of the relevant server logs on CDs that could not be overwritten; it stored copies of the data on its server; and it made the data on the server available for inspection by plaintiff prior to the time it was overwritten — and where plaintiff was unable to demonstrate any real prejudice from the loss of some metadata in server logs, magistrate judge found no basis for spoliation sanctions of any kind and recommended denial of plaintiff’s sanctions motion

Nature of Case: Parties asserted claims under Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, each arguing that the other had obtained unlawful access to databases

Electronic Data Involved: Metadata; server logs

Aero Products Int’l, Inc. v. Intex Recreation Corp., 2005 WL 4954351 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 11, 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Denying defendant’s motion for a new trial, court concluded that adverse inference jury instruction based upon defendant’s mistaken failure to suspend document retention policy that deleted email every 30 days was not misleading or unduly prejudicial

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Larson v. Bank One Corp., 2005 WL 4652509 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 18, 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Where defendant breached its duty to preserve by failing to establish a “comprehensive document retention policy” and by failing to properly disseminate the policy to its employees, and conduct evinced ?extraordinarily poor judgment? and ?gross negligence” but not willfulness or bad faith, magistrate recommended that prejudice to plaintiff could be remedied by precluding defendant from cross-examining plaintiff’s financial expert and by instructing the jury about the sanction

Nature of Case: Securities class action

Electronic Data Involved: Underlying data and calculations

Myrick v. Prime Ins. Syndicate, Inc., 395 F.3d 485 (4th Cir. 2005)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Court imposed sanctions and allowed plaintiff to question defendant’s witnesses before the jury regarding its failure to disclose documents immediately, where plaintiff learned through depositions that a tape recording, the complete underwriting and claims file, and other electronic information had not yet been produced

Nature of Case: Insurance coverage

Electronic Data Involved: Tape recording and electronic information

Krausz Puente LLC v. Westall, 2005 WL 236862 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan. 25, 2005) (Unpublished)

Dec 01 2005

Key Insight: Trial judge did not err in imposing monetary sanctions and evidentiary sanction against individual defendant limiting the scope of his testimony, where defendant delayed for several days and deleted relevant computer files in violation of court’s order requiring defendant to “immediately make available to Plaintiff’s designated expert all computers, including hard drives and all other electronic storage media in [defendant’s] possession, custody and/or control”

Nature of Case: Breach of contract and fraud

Electronic Data Involved: 5,300 computer files

Tag:Motion for Sanctions