Motion to Compel – Page 44 – Electronic Discovery Law

Cason-Merenda v. VHS of Michigan, Inc., 118 F. Supp. 3d 965 (E.D. Mich. 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court declined to compel Plaintiffs? production of all discovery produced by any party in the case for Defendant?s use where Defendant failed without adequate explanation to maintain all such documents throughout the pendency of litigation due, perhaps, to changes in ownership and legal representation and where Plaintiffs? compilation of such information was work product, but ordered Plaintiff to produce from its database any specifically identified documents at Defendant?s cost

Electronic Data Involved: Contents of Plaintiffs’ discovery database (i.e., the collection of discovery produced by any party during the litigation)

Caputi v. Topper Realty Corp., No. 14-cv-2634(JFB)(SIL), 2015 WL 893663 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 25, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court granted in part defendants? motion to compel Plaintiff?s cell phone records for the purpose of determining her activities during work hours and ordered the production of a sampling of such records from a two year period with an invitation for defendants to renew their application if the sampling provided probative evidence; court denied defendants? motion to compel social media content for the purpose of proving that Plaintiff was engaged in non-work related activities while she claimed to be working where defendants offered little more than their hope that they would find something of relevance but ordered production of a sampling of content from Plaintiff?s Facebook account for the purpose of determining her emotional state, limited to the production of content referencing claimed emotional distress and any related treatment and any alternative sources for the alleged distress

Nature of Case: Employment litigation (FLSA, NYLL)

Electronic Data Involved: Cell phone records, Social media (Facebook)

Wilder v. Rockdale Cnty., No. 1:13?CV?2715?RWS, 2015 WL 1724596 (N.D. Ga. April 15, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where defendants downloaded some, but not all available video within three days of incident and video-recording system programmed by third-party vendor automatically overwrote old video after thirty days, court found that defendants did not destroy evidence in bad faith and plaintiff was not extremely prejudiced and, therefore, not entitled to spoliation sanctions. Court also reviewed the record related to missing documents and said that defendants had diligently searched for the documents and concluded, ?Apparently, Defendants do not have these documents, and there is no evidence of bad faith or spoliation of evidence. Because Defendants are only required to produce what they have, the Court cannot compel Defendants to produce these documents.?

Nature of Case: Wrongful Death

Electronic Data Involved: Surveillance Video; Documents

Banks v. St. Francis Health Ctr., Inc., No. 15-cv-2602-JAR-TJJ, 2015 WL 7451174 (D. Kan. Nov. 23, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Addressing Plaintiff?s Motion to Compel, court overruled Defendant?s objection to producing ESI in native format with metadata where Defendant failed to indicate in its objection the form of production it intended to use instead and did not support its objection by explaining why it could not or should not be required to produce as requested and, in fact, admitted that it had previously produced material in native format; court denied without prejudice Plaintiff?s motion to compel responses outlining Defendant?s search efforts (sometimes called “discovery on discovery”) where Plaintiff?s counsel failed to confer with Defense counsel prior to bringing the motion, as is required by the District of Kansas? ESI Guidelines

Nature of Case: Title VII: racial discrimination, retaliatory conduct

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Davenport v. Charter Comm?cns., LLC, No. 2015 WL 1286372 (E.D. Mo. Mar. 20, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court denied Plaintiffs? motion to compel re-production of time records in .xls format where Defendant first produced the records in a searchable PDF format, generally found by courts to be ?reasonably usable,? and where the parties? discovery plan contemplated the possible reproduction of certain information upon a showing of good cause in situations where the data or metadata was not adequately captured, but where the court found that Plaintiffs desire to manipulate the documents with greater ease did not constitute good cause; court stated: ?Such difficulties would have been a good reason for Plaintiffs to specify a particular format in their request for production, but are not sufficient ?good cause? to force Defendant to reformat and produce data which it has already provided.?

Nature of Case: FLSA Collective Action

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic Time Clock Records

Moore v. Wayne Smith Trucking, Inc., No. 14-1919, 2015 WL 6438913 (E.D. La. Oct. 21, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court concluded that Facebook materials are discoverable but would not require Defendant to produce his username and password and instead ordered Defendant to provide his attorney with postings from the relevant time period to be reviewed by the attorney?and not the defendant?to identify responsive information

Nature of Case: Personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: Social network contents (e.g., Facebook, MySpace)

Melissa ?G? v. N. Babylon Union Free School Dist., No. 36209/2006, 2015 WL 1727598 (N.Y. App. Div. Mar. 18, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where Defendants sought production of Plaintiff?s Facebook account (?all postings, status reports, e-mails, photographs and videos posted on her web page to date?) and supported their position with evidence taken from the public content of Plaintiff?s Facebook page, the court acknowledged defendants? obligation to ?establish a factual predicate for their request by identifying relevant information in plaintiff?s Facebook account? that is contradictory to Plaintiff?s alleged claims and that the obligation was met and, reasoning that ?[i]n discovery matters, counsel for the producing party is the judge of relevance in the first instance,? ordered Plaintiff to print and retain all of her Facebook account?s contents and ordered Plaintiff?s counsel to review Plaintiff?s Facebook postings and to produce all that was relevant; the court acknowledged the ?reasonable expectation of privacy attached? to one-on-one messaging and indicated that such messages need not be reviewed ?absent any evidence that such routine communications with family and friends contain information that is material and necessary to the defense.?

Nature of Case: Personal injury arising from sexual contact with a teacher

Electronic Data Involved: Facebook (Social Media)

Truesdell v. Thomas No. 5:13-cv-552-Oc-10PRL, 2015 WL 2022991 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 30, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court denied Motion to Compel Production of Electronically Stored Data where plaintiff said that 1500 printed pages of defendant?s database usage history were inadequate under FRCP 34(e)(ii) because they were not easily searchable. Plaintiff sought to compel production of the electronic version of the data to include metadata, but the court said that the printed information was not as cumbersome as the plaintiff suggested because only a limited time period contained within the pages was relevant; the data did not originate from the defendant, so the defendant did not have the ability to manipulate the data to provide it only for the limited time period; and the plaintiff was unable to identify any information contained in the electronic version of the data that was not also contained in the printed pages.

Nature of Case: Privacy Rights

Electronic Data Involved: Database

Adesanya v. Novartis Pharm. Corp., No. 2:13-CV-5564-SDW-SCM, 2015 WL 6122080 (D.N.J. Oct. 16, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court granted motion to compel production of computer used by Plaintiff for her work with Defendant?s competitor upon concluding that its likely contents would ?arguably be relevant to claims that Plaintiff unethically competed with her employer? among other things, and ordered Plaintiff to produce the computer as it had been stored in the ordinary course of business and that the computer be provided to a third-party vendor for imaging and then returned to Plaintiff

Nature of Case: Wrongful termination, “claims that Plaintiff unethically competed with her employer”

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Cuker Interactive, LLC, NOo. 5:14-CV-5262, 2015 WL 11120890 (W.D. Ark. April 9, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where parties agreed to produce in native format but Defendant then loaded its information into a hosted database and indicated that Plaintiff could view the docs, including some metadata, but could only receive production of specified documents in a static image format, at a cost for each such ?exportation,? and where Defendant argued such production complied with Rule 26(f) and that the data was in a reasonably usable form, the court held the parties to their agreement, reasoning that ?[s]imply put, native format means native format? and also rejected Defendant?s security concerns, agreeing with Plaintiff that production on an external hard drive was acceptable; court?s order stated that parties would ?produce discovery from electronic or computer-based media directly to each other in native format, on external hard drives whenever possible.?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Tag:Motion to Compel