Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s request for forensic search of former employer’s information systems where plaintiff offered no credible evidence that defendants were unwilling to produce computer-generated documents or that defendants had withheld relevant information
Nature of Case: Wrongful termination, race discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Plaintiff was not entitled to protective order delaying, until after key depositions were taken, production of tape recording of message left by defendant’s representative on plaintiff’s home answering machine, since tape constituted substantive evidence and was not mere impeachment evidence, and issues of fairness weighed in favor of production
Nature of Case: Debtor alleged violations of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
Electronic Data Involved: Tape recording of message left on answering machine
Key Insight: No abuse of discretion to deny mother’s request to conduct forensic examination of father’s computer; although mother alleged that computer contained pornography, there was no evidence the child had seen it and it would be impossible to definitively attribute the pornography to father, since other adults used the computer and certain components were salvaged from other computers
Nature of Case: Mother sought to require supervision of child’s visits with father
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive
Key Insight: When husband failed to produce, pursuant to subpoena, computer containing financial information at hearing, court allowed a computer technician to go to husband’s home to copy the hard drive, and suspended the hearing until a later date to allow review of the hard drive
Nature of Case: Divorce proceedings
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive
Key Insight: Where husband consented to discovery of financial matters but resisted plaintiff’s broad request for access to all documents on all computers, court set out detailed protocol for the copying and review of computer data with oversight by court-appointed referee
Nature of Case: Divorce proceeding
Electronic Data Involved: Data on hard drives
Key Insight: Rule 56(f) continuance not warranted where it was uncontested that defendant had produced all relevant electronic entries in its personnel database, and even if other emails existed in computer archives as alleged, plaintiff made no showing necessary to warrant their retrieval at this late date at defendant’s expense nor had plaintiff volunteered to foot the bill for doing so
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Email and electronic entries in personnel database
Key Insight: Ninth circuit granted writ of mandamus reversing district court’s order compelling plaintiffs to produce their answers to law firm’s internet questionnaire; although questionnaire disclaimed any formation of an attorney-client relationship, it did not disclaim confidentiality, and, under California law, prospective clients’ communications with a view to obtaining legal services were covered by the attorney-client privilege
Nature of Case: Users of antidepressant sued manufacturer of drug
Electronic Data Involved: Law firm’s questionnaires regarding drug which were completed and submitted to the law firm on the internet
Key Insight: Finding that individual had stated cognizable defamation claim against anonymous author of offending email, court denied email author?s application to vacate order requiring internet service provider to disclose email account information
Nature of Case: Defamation claim based on offending email message
Electronic Data Involved: Email author identity
Key Insight: Trial court properly ordered insurer to answer victim’s interrogatories despite claimed burden; court remarked: “[I]n the three years following the issuance of Boecher, Allstate still has not implemented a computer program or system for keeping track of the information. In fact, Allstate used two of the very same affidavits it used in Boecher to explain that its computer systems did not have the information requested readily accessible. In this day of the computer age, and in light of the Boecher court’s serious emphasis on the need for the very type of information requested, Allstate may want to reconsider adapting its computer system to provide easier access to the requested information.”
Nature of Case: Personal injury
Electronic Data Involved: Information regarding insurer’s relationship with and payments to medical groups where its experts worked as physicians
Key Insight: Zenith’s motion to compel granted, requiring production in usable form of SAS data sets, constituting final refined forms of data used to compute final results; court criticized government’s inordinately restrictive interpretation of its discovery obligations: “To say that the data sets into which the computer tapes were transferred are not governed by an order speaking of computer tapes is as if someone had said at the dawn of the era of typewriters that typed documents are not governed by a court order speaking of ‘writings.'”
Nature of Case: Proceeding to review Dept. of Commerce’s review of antidumping duty order regarding television sets
Electronic Data Involved: Data sets
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