Key Insight: Court upheld grant of adverse inference for intentional or grossly negligent destruction of a hard drive ordered to be produced for inspection and noted that because the destruction was intentional or grossly negligent, the court?s inference as to the erased emails? relevance was proper
Electronic Data Involved: Contents of hard drive
Key Insight: In class action for unpaid wages, court denied plaintiffs? motion for spoliation sanctions arising from defendants? admitted failure to preserve potentially relevant video surveillance tape where, because of the primary purpose of the surveillance cameras, i.e., deterring theft, the court could not conclude that defendants was obligated to immediately identify the footage as potentially relevant to plaintiffs? wage claims and preserve it and where, when plaintiffs? claims were filed, ?much of the footage? had already been destroyed pursuant to routine recycling of the surveillance tapes
Nature of Case: Action for unpaid wages
Electronic Data Involved: Video surveillance footage
Key Insight: Where defendants accused the government of spoliation of all disks (originals and copies) containing relevant data from a particular computer system and requested dismissal of the indictment against them as a result, court denied the motion for dismissal upon determining that defendants failed to establish the materiality of the data such that its destruction (intentional or otherwise) was a constitutional violation and where a complete copy of the data existed on a backup tape seized later in the investigation
Nature of Case: Criminal – Mail fraud
Electronic Data Involved: Data stored on JENKON system
Key Insight: For ?defendant?s recalcitrance in meeting its discovery obligations?, namely refusing to produce certain discovery on the basis of foreign secrecy laws (a justification previously rejected by the court), the court imposed severe sanctions, including adverse inference instructions and an order precluding the presentation of certain evidence
Nature of Case: Knowingly and purposefully aiding and abetting terrorists and terrorist organizations
Electronic Data Involved: Foreign banking information
Key Insight: Finding of contempt and order to pay plaintiffs? attorney?s fees and costs was no abuse of discretion where the court?s order to disclose financial assets was ?perfectly clear? and where there was ?clear and convincing? evidence of defendants? non-compliance and that defendants were not diligent in their attempts to comply; trial court did not abuse discretion in granting default judgment against all defendants in light of willful and bad faith discovery violations, including intentional deletion of ESI and lying about the existence and location of documents which ?formed a pattern of ?prolonged and vexatious obstruction?, and where lesser sanctions would be ineffective and defendants were aware of the consequences of non-compliance with their discovery obligations
Nature of Case: Claims arising from defendants’ failure to pay for special access servers ordered from plaintiff
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court did not abuse discretion when it denied petitioner?s motion for contempt for respondent?s violation of the court?s preservation order where petitioner failed to establish the prejudice resulting from the loss and failed to establish the violation was knowing and willful where respondent testified he initially preserved but then lost the relevant video tape when, as he ?surmised?, his spouse cleaned his office without his knowledge ?and placed the hard drive back into rotation with the others, thus taping over the pertinent portions?
Nature of Case: Plaintiff alleging assault commenced action seeking to preserve surveillance video
Electronic Data Involved: Surveillance video
Key Insight: District court did not abuse its discretion when it denied plaintiff?s motion for spoliation sanctions against remaining defendant where defendant was not responsible for the destruction of the relevant servers and the district court thus ?balanced the lack of any assertion of wrongdoing by [defendant] with the harm caused to [plaintiff?s] claims? and where Ohio law provided a remedy for a party injured by another party?s spoliation of evidence, namely a claim for the tort of spoliation (which plaintiff apparently asserted against the actual spoliating party)
Nature of Case: Copyright/trade secret infringement, intentional spoliation
Electronic Data Involved: Servers containing relevant ESI
Key Insight: Court declined to find spoliation had occurred as to specific emails believed by plaintiff to have been withheld or destroyed by defendant absent sufficient evidence but, relying on defendant?s claims of work-product immunity as to a document created in Feb. 2006, found that defendant anticipated litigation as of that time and imposed an adverse inference as to any documents systematically destroyed after that date pursuant to defendant?s policy of maintaining electronic documents for only one month
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Court declined to hold defendant in contempt for its unilateral redactions of alleged personal and confidential information but, upon evidence of over-redacting, ordered plaintiffs to identify approximately 3000 documents (a number provided by plaintiffs) to be sent to defendant for verification of proper redacting and for the parties to confer to fashion an appropriate protective with regard to the documents redacted and/or withheld on the ground proprietary or business confidentiality privilege
Nature of Case: Class action
Electronic Data Involved: ESI
Key Insight: Finding sufficient circumstantial evidence to support plaintiff?s claim of willful or intentional spoliation and sufficient direct evidence that defendants? handling of the relevant surveillance footage was ?at least negligent,? the court declined to order terminating sanctions where plaintiff was ?not at a complete loss? in light of alternative evidence to support his claims, but ordered an adverse inference, the language of which will be addressed at trial
Nature of Case: Violations of state constitutional rights and state tort claims arising from an altercation
Electronic Data Involved: Video surveillance footage
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