Motion for Sanctions – Page 55 – Electronic Discovery Law

Clauss Constr. v. UChicago Argonne, LLC, No. 13 C 5479, 2014 WL 5390665 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 20, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where plaintiff discovered numerous boxes of relevant or potentially relevant documents that had not been previously produced, but did not produce them in electronic format with Bates-labeling in accordance with parties’ agreed production protocol and instead provided photographs of the documents and boxes and some incomplete indexes, defendants successfully argued that plaintiff either should have to comply with parties’ agreement and produce material in correct format or nonconforming documents should be excluded; plaintiff chose to have newly discovered documents excluded from evidence; court found that monetary sanctions were appropriate and awarded defendant its attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred in filing the motion and attending hearing

Nature of Case: Breach of contract claims

Electronic Data Involved: Hard copy documents

Flagstar Bank, FSB v. Walker, No. 05-13-00724-CV, 2014 WL 6065713 (Tex. App. Nov. 14, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff’s request for adverse inference instruction as sanction for defendant?s inability to produce additional communications – which defendant had explained were not available because defendant had replaced its servers and had not backed-up the data – because there was no proof that defendant intentionally concealed evidence or that the spoliation irreparably deprived plaintiff of any meaningful ability to present its claims

Nature of Case: Claims arising from misappropriation of over $8 million in load proceeds designated to fund a series of residential loan transactions

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Luellen v. Hodge, No. 11-CV-6144P, 2014 WL 1315317 (W.D.N.Y. Mar. 28, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Although severe sanctions were not warranted where plaintiff did not establish bad faith or egregious gross negligence by defendant, or that he had been prejudiced by the loss of bank account records, lesser monetary sanctions to cover fees and costs of motion were appropriate given that defendant was negligent in failing to preserve the records

Nature of Case: RICO and related state law claims

Electronic Data Involved: Bank records

Mpala v. City of New Haven, No. 3:12-CV-01580 (VLB), 2014 WL 883892 (D. Conn. Mar. 6, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Plaintiff’s motion for sanctions based on spoliation of evidence denied, where two surveillance videos that plaintiff claimed had been destroyed never actually existed, and relevance of the third video that may have existed was “tenuous at best”

Nature of Case: Pro se plaintiff alleged constitutional violations stemming from his suspension from the New Haven Public Library

Electronic Data Involved: Surveillance videos

Peerless Ind., Inc. v. Crimson AV LLC, No. 11 C 1768, 2014 WL 3497697 (N.D. Ill. July 14, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: District court judge adopted magistrate judge’s 2/27/2014 Report and Recommendations, except to the extent it found plaintiff had complied with prior discovery orders, and as sanction for failure to comply with orders, ordered plaintiff to pay defendants’ reasonable expenses and attorneys’ fees associated with briefing and hearings; judge further adopted in full magistrate judge’s 3/13/2014 Report and Recommendation which found that defendant failed to preserve or produce all documents it should have and recommended burden-shifting sanction rather than adverse inference instruction; judge awarded plaintiff its reasonable expenses and attorneys’ fees associated with its motion for sanctions

Nature of Case: Patent infringement and various violations of Illinois law

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Lewis v. Bay Inds., Inc., No. 12-C-1204, 2014 WL 4925483 (E.D. Wis. Sep. 30, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where defendant had taken “extraordinary step” of handing over to plaintiff’s computer expert a mirror image copy of the company’s email server so that expert could conduct his own search, and none of the mostly irrelevant emails retrieved by expert provided support for plaintiff?s claims, and plaintiff failed to offer convincing evidence that defendant violated an order of the court or intentionally destroyed or concealed relevant evidence, court rejected plaintiff?s motion for spoliation sanctions and ultimately granted summary judgment in favor of defendant, dismissing all of plaintiff?s claims

Nature of Case: Unlawful retaliation and wrongful discharge claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Lovett v. Cole, No. 1:11-cv-277, 2014 WL 5426168 (S.D. Ohio Oct. 22, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion for sanctions based on correctional facility?s failure to preserve video surveillance footage of ?out-of-place? incident that preceded use of force incident, or digital versions of photographs taken of plaintiff?s injuries and cell after use of force incident, finding that plaintiff failed to establish a duty to preserve digital versions of photographs where hard copy photographs were preserved in accordance with the facility?s policy and procedure, and there was no evidence that defendants knew about the ?out-of-place? incident or recognized it as relevant to the use of force incident (the video footage of which was preserved); court further found that plaintiff failed to show that defendants deliberately lost or destroyed the evidence with a culpable state of mind

Nature of Case: Inmate sued correctional officers for use of excessive force

Electronic Data Involved: Video footage and digital information regarding plaintiff’s injuries and cell

James v. Nat?l Fin. LLC, No. 8931-VCL, 2014 WL 6845560 (Del. Ch. Dec. 5, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where defendant failed to provide all the information required by the court’s first discovery order, then failed to comply with second discovery order that required production of an updated spreadsheet with an affidavit from defendant?s IT consultant explaining how the consultant extracted data from defendant’s systems and imported the data into the updated spreadsheet, and where defendant made numerous misrepresentations to plaintiff and to the court regarding the data and defendant?s efforts to comply with the orders, court declined to enter default judgment as a discovery sanction and instead ordered that certain facts adverse to defendant were to be deemed established; court further awarded plaintiff her expenses, including attorneys? fees, to be paid by both defendant and its counsel

Nature of Case: Putative class action alleging that defendant’s loan practices were unconscionable and its loan terms unenforceable

Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheet containing loan history information

Braun v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., No. B234212, 2013 WL 520030 (Cal. Ct. App. Feb. 13, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Where plaintiff failed to substantiate his privacy objections and provided the court with no information to weigh against defendant?s stated need for discovery, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by ordering the production of plaintiff?s home computer, which contained relevant photographic evidence; trial court did abuse its discretion when it ordered terminating sanctions for plaintiff?s intentional deletion of allegedly private information before producing his computer for inspection where Toyota offered only speculation as justification for such a serious sanction (e.g., ??we will never know? what was destroyed?) and where plaintiff did produce more than 13,000 photographs for inspection; case was remanded for consideration of serious sanctions short of terminating plaintiff?s case

Nature of Case: Sexual harassment, wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Selected contents of home computer, photographs

Kirgan v. FCA LLC, No. 10-1392, 2013 WL 1500708 (C.D. Ill. Apr. 10, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Where an employee of Defendant first denied he kept a calendar and then testified that he kept a daily electronic calendar but routinely deleted information after a day had passed and that he had continued such deletions even after being told that the entries were sought by the plaintiff in discovery, the court found that Defendant was culpable for the employee?s actions and for its own failure to notify its employees of the duty to preserve and imposed sanctions including an adverse inference, preclusion of the use of certain evidence, and monetary sanctions equal to double the amount incurred for preparation of the sanctions motion

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination

Electronic Data Involved: Calendar entries

Tag:Motion for Sanctions