Motion to Compel – Page 6 – Electronic Discovery Law

Murray v. City of Warren (E.D. Mich. 2020)

Aug 17 2020

Key Insight: The court agreed that plaintiff’s request for “all emails” from three custodians was overly broad and narrowed it to relevant search terms relating to plaintiff’s allegations of harassment. The court also relied on its prior ruling, directing the parties to confer regarding the search terms and if the parties cannot agree on appropriately limited search terms, they will share the cost of retaining an expert to assist them. If they still cannot agree, plaintiff can renew his motion and provide the court with an expert report substantiating his position.

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Email, Personnel files

Case Summary

Oppenheimer v. Episcopal Communicators, Inc. (W.D. N.C. 2020)

Aug 14 2020

Key Insight: The litigation was over Defendant’s purported copyright infringement due to Defendant’s publishing of a copyrighted photograph on its website. Defendant served its first discovery requests on Plaintiff; Plaintiff provided an untimely response with a number of objections including attorney-client privilege (without a privilege log), and “boilerplate objections”. Defendant filed a Motion to Compel, which was granted. Plaintiff provided a supplemental response, however, Defendant filed an additional Motion to Compel, and also sought attorney’s fees for the Motion. Besides privilege, at issue was Plaintiff’s objection to the proportionality of Defendant’s discovery requests.

The Court did not find Plaintiff’s “boilerplate objections”, including proportionality, persuasive. And found that they lack specificity and/or merit. Plaintiff’s objection(s) of confidentiality on the grounds of settlement, proprietary business information was rejected. Similarly, the Court rejected the Plaintiff’s privilege objection(s) due to Plaintiff’s failure to provide a privilege log.

In summary, the Court found that Plaintiff’s assertion of boilerplate objections (and failure to provide a privilege log) consisted of grounds overruling all of his objections. The Court granted Defendant’s Motion to Compel, and similarly, ordered Defendant to provide it an estimate of the attorney’s fees spent on the Motion (for the purpose of awarding Defendant attorney’s fees).

Nature of Case: Intellectual Property, Copyright Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Digital Photograph

Case Summary

Oppenheimer v. Episcopal Communicators (Western District of North Carolina, 2020)

Aug 14 2020

Key Insight: A non-moving party’s objections to discovery need to be more than boilerplate and must be specific

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement (DMCA)

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic documents generally

Keywords: Copyright, DMCA, photographs, Oppenheimer,

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Maurice v. Allstate Insurance Co. (W.D. Wash. 2020)

Jul 28 2020

Key Insight: Defendant had a Motion to Compel Plaintiff to produce information and documents regarding physical and emotional injuries that she purportedly sustained during the accidents giving rise to litigation.

Among the information sought by Defendant were documents and information regarding the negative impact a motor vehicle accident on her social life, hobbies and activities. This included communications, emails, text messages, photographs, video and Facebook posts. Defendant’s Motion was granted, however, Defendant’s request for attorney’s fees and expenses was denied.

Nature of Case: Insurance Contract

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, Text Messages, Photographs, Video and Facebook Posts

Case Summary

Gross v. Chapman (N.D. Ill. July 28, 2020)

Jul 28 2020

Key Insight: Bride and groom called off their wedding after a dispute arose over whether it should be an “adults only” affair. The bride’s parents sued the groom’s parents claiming they were out over $100,000 in wedding costs. After defendants produced 5,000 text messages, the court declined to grant further discovery into the process surrounding how the text messages were collected. A large volume of ESI had already been produced at significant expense to defendants and plaintiff’s motion to compel was based on speculation— “discovery on discovery with no basis other than plaintiffs’ hopeful guess that there must be more texts” and was substantially out of proportion to the needs of the case.

Nature of Case: Invasion of Privacy

Electronic Data Involved: Text Messages

Case Summary

Jul 28 2020

Key Insight: Court rejected additional discovery based off proportionality and discovery already produced. There was no additional proof of unproduced, relevant texts.

Electronic Data Involved: Text Messages

Keywords: additional discovery, proportionality

McMaster v. Kohl’s Department Stores, Inc. (E.D. Mich. 2020)

Jul 24 2020

Key Insight: The litigation was over purported employment discrimination based on age and/or disability. Plaintiff’s Second Motion to Compel specifically sought emails from an employee of Defendant for the purpose of establishing a pattern of age and/or disability discrimination. The Court found that the emails were relevant to the litigation, and chose a date range other than that request by the parties.

The larger disagreement between the parties was over the search terms to be utilized for finding the emails. The Court ordered the parties, if they could not agree on terms, to retain an expert to assist them, and if they still could not agree, to return to Court with the opinion of the expert. Plaintiff’s Second Motion to Compel was partially granted and partially denied.

Nature of Case: Employment Discrimination, Disability Discrimination, Wrongful Termination, ADA

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Case Summary

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. M1 5100 Corporation (E.D. Fla. 2020)

Jul 02 2020

Key Insight: Counsel has a duty to oversee their clients’ collection of information and documents during the discovery process, especially when ESI is involved. Here, counsel failed to adequately supervise the ESI collection process. Counsel had no knowledge of the search efforts or process taken by Defendant is its discovery collection. Ultimately, the Defendant was given a final opportunity to produce responsive discovery. The parties were ordered to attempt to come to an agreement regarding and ESI protocol that included relevant data sources, custodians, and search terms.

Nature of Case: Employment Discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic Documents Generally

Case Summary

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. M1 5100 Corp., d/b/a Jumbo Supermarket, Inc. (S.D. Fl. , 2020)

Jul 02 2020

Key Insight: Defendant “self-collected” without involvement of counsel. Court gave defendant one last chance to produce as 5 months remained in discovery, with active involvement of counsel.

Nature of Case: Age discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Various ESI

Keywords: certification, party collection

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Tag:Motion to Compel