Motion for Sanctions – Page 23 – Electronic Discovery Law

Basra v. Ecklund Logistics, Inc., 8:16CV83, 2017 WL 1207482 (D. Neb., March 31, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: Plaintiff?s spouse was killed in a tractor-trailer accident when he collided with another tractor-trailer driven by Defendant?s employee. Plaintiff claimed Defendant destroyed or failed to preserve relevant documents in anticipation of litigation and requested sanctions in the form of an adverse inference instruction to the jury. The Court found Plaintiffs did not establish Defendant intentionally destroyed evidence with a desire to suppress the truth. Some of the information did not exist, some was purged per standard practice and much of the material requested by Plaintiffs was provided to them from other sources. The Court denied Plaintiff?s motion with respect to its claim for spoliation. Plaintiffs also requested attorney?s fees and costs as a sanction for Defendant?s failure to produce certain documents. Defendants inadvertently omitted its 2012 income statement but produced those from four other years. The Court held that sanctions were not warranted.

Nature of Case: Tort (Tractor-trailer accident)

Electronic Data Involved: ESI including Driver logs, Qualcomm data, PeopleNet server data

Rockman Co. (USA), Inc. v. Nong Shim Co., Ltd., No. 13-cv-04115-WHO, 2017 WL 275405 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 19, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: In US litigation, court found no duty to preserve was triggered by Korean Fair Trade Commission?s investigation of price-fixing in Korean markets absent case law establishing such a possibility (i.e., that a foreign investigation of domestic markets could trigger a duty to preserve in the US because litigation could someday be commenced) or any related complaints or lawsuits filed in the US or evidence that the price fixing conspiracy was directed at the US or that the KFTC?s investigation extended to impacts in the United States

Nature of Case: Antitrust

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Barry v. Big M Transp. Inc., No 1:16-cv-00167-JEO, 2017 WL 3980549 (N.D. Ala. Sept. 11, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: Court found Defendant?s failure to preserve a vehicle?s Electronic Control Module (ECM) data after it was aware of a severe accident, contrary to the Defendant?s ?normal practice,? constituted spoliation. Court denied Plaintiffs? motion for a negative inference under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37 (e) as the Plaintiffs were able to reconstruct the accident and vehicle?s speed from other sources and that the failure to preserve was not intentional based on the defendants? plausible, though erroneous, understanding that the data was overridden by the removal of the damaged vehicle from the scene. Court found a jury instruction that ECM data was not preserved and allowing both parties to present evidence and argument at trial regarding defendant?s failure to preserve the data to be a sufficiently effective sanction.

Nature of Case: Personal injury (auto accident)

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic Control Module (ECM)

Edelson v Cheung, No. 2:13-cv-5870 (JLL)(JAD), 2017 WL 150241 (D.N.J. Jan. 12, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff sought spoliation sanctions for Defendant?s deletion of emails and argued that Defendant intended to keep the at-issue account hidden and deleted emails after it was discovered through another party?s production and that those emails revealed Defendant?s intent to keep the at-issue account hidden and other elements of Plaintiff?s claims, the court found that the deletions were ?intended to deprive Plaintiff of the information? contained within and reasoned that Defendant?s claim that he deleted the emails because of computer performance lacked credibility, but declined to impose default judgment absent a sufficient degree of prejudice and instead ordered that a permissive adverse inference instruction would be given to the jury

Nature of Case: Breach of contract and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Moody v. CSX Transp., —-F.Supp.3d—, No. 07-CV-6398P, 2017 WL 4173358 (W.D.N.Y. Sept. 21, 2017)

Dec 01 2017

Key Insight: Where event data recorder information saved on a laptop computer (1) was transferred to a central repository (?the Vault?) without validation and later found to be unreadable and (2) the original files were destroyed, without validating the files in the Vault, with the laptop after a hardware malfunction, court granted plaintiff?s motion for an adverse inference but declined to strike defendants? answer. Court found defendants? failure to review and validate file uploads to the central repository for over 4 years after the accident ?unfathomable? and concluded that ?their failure to access the files uploaded to the Vault for the four-year period before 2010 conflicted with their duties under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.? Court found defendants? actions unreasonable and without credible explanation and therefore sufficient to support a finding that defendants acted with the intent to deprive plaintiff of evidence.

Nature of Case: Personal injury (railway accident)

Electronic Data Involved: Event Data Recorder Files

Coward v. Forestar Realty, Inc., 4:15-cv-0245-HLM (N.D. Georgia, Rome Division, 2017)

Nov 30 2017

Key Insight: Plaintiffs unable to access password protected video camera offered hard drive to Defendants; Court held inaccessible videos were spoliated.

Nature of Case: property damage claim

Electronic Data Involved: videos

Keywords: spoliation, prejudice, sanctions, adverse inference, attorney’s fees

View Case Opinion

Washington v. Rounds, No. PWG-16-320 (D. Md. Nov. 27, 2017)

Nov 27 2017

Key Insight: Spoliation. Court ordered discovery to determine if failure to preserve relevant evidence, and if so, whether 37(e) sanctions are warranted.

Nature of Case: civil action under 42 U.S.C. s. 1983

Electronic Data Involved: prisoner surveillance video

Keywords: Spoliation, failure to preserve relevant evidence.

View Case Opinion

IBM Corp. v. Naganayagam, No. 15 Civ. 7991 (NSR) (S.D.N.Y., 2017)

Nov 21 2017

Key Insight: spoliation sanctions

Nature of Case: breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: e-mails, electronic document

Keywords: spoliation, adverse inference, intent to deprive, 37(e)(2), prejudice 37(e)(1)

View Case Opinion

Yoe v. Crescent Sock (E.D. Tenn. , 2017)

Nov 14 2017

Key Insight: was there a duty to preserve, were reasonable steps taken to avoid loss of data, can lost data be restored or replaced, was other party prejudiced by loss

Nature of Case: employment law, intellectual property

Electronic Data Involved: unknown

Keywords: spoliation, intent to deprive, relevance of data, measures no greater than necessary to cure the prejudice

View Case Opinion

Howard v. Northwestern Mem. Hosp. (Ill. App., 2017)

Nov 09 2017

Key Insight: Should a court order a new trial as a discovery sanction to a party’s failure to produce documents?

Nature of Case: Wrongful death

Electronic Data Involved: Health documents

Keywords: New trial, Discovery misconduct, seasonably supplement

Tag:Motion for Sanctions