Tag:Motion for Sanctions

Key Insight: Where employee ?at the heart of Plaintiff?s claims of discrimination and harassment? ?misunderstood the requirements of the litigation hold? and continued his practice of deleting all emails every day but claimed that he never received or erased any emails related to plaintiff?s lawsuit and that all of his sent emails were preserved (as were the emails sent to him from his managers because of their compliance with the litigation hold), court found the deletions were negligent and ordered an instruction that the emails were destroyed and would have been favorable to plaintiff?s case

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Key Insight: Court granted motion for sanctions and ordered an adverse inference for trial where defendant was grossly negligent in its destruction of relevant emails (as proven by Plaintiff?s receipt of relevant emails from third parties that should have been in defendant?s possession, for example, and defendant?s failure to dispute the existence of certain emails which were relevant to plaintiff?s claims but which were not produced); court found defendant was ?at least negligent? in its failure to preserve (and later found that defendant was grossly negligent) where the city had no formal email retention policy and instead relied on its employees to determine what to save: ?Because the City has effectively conceded that it had a duty to preserve the e-mails in question, its failure to maintain a formal e-mail retention policy was at least negligent.?

Nature of Case: Violation of constitutionally protected property rights based on Stop Work Order

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Where Defendant threw laptop containing relevant evidence into the river following specific notice of her obligation to preserve and admitted her intent to destroy evidence, the court recommended entry of default judgment and that Defendant be required to pay Plaintiff?s reasonably attorneys? fees and costs incurred as a result of the spoliation

Nature of Case: Fraud

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop

Key Insight: Where defendant claimed infringement based on alleged testing of defendant?s devices but claimed that no testing documentation was created and where, upon a neutral third party?s examination of the relevant devices, it was revealed that two key logs were missing expected messages and reflected abnormal device behaviors that plaintiff was unable to explain, the court held that defendant was prejudiced by plaintiff?s failure to protect and preserve the logs and the resulting inability to verify purported testing and thus ordered that all evidence of plaintiff?s testing of the devices would be precluded from introduction to the record or other use and ordered plaintiff to pay defendant?s expenses associated with the sanctions motion

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Log messages, evidence of testing

Key Insight: Where relevant documents were discovered upon forensic examination of a relevant hard drive and evidence indicated they had been modified, but not what the modifications were, the court reasoned that the documents had not been destroyed (because they were discovered on the hard drive) and that Plaintiffs did not dispute Defendant?s argument that the modifications could have been the result of merely saving the documents?without making other alterations?and thus declined to grant plaintiffs’ motion for spoliation sanctions

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Considering Defendant?s argument for an adverse inference where his former employer failed to produce his former work laptop and files, the court noted that the ?undisputed evidence show[ed] that Colgate destroyed the data on the laptop shortly after Flower?s retirement,? and concluded that: ?When data is destroyed pursuant to normal recordkeeping practices (and in particular when it is destroyed in relation to a major event like an employee?s retirement), no adverse inference is warranted.?

Nature of Case: Breach of fiduciary duty

Electronic Data Involved: Laptop and its files