Motion to Compel – Page 77 – Electronic Discovery Law

Revello v. Med-Data Infotech USA, Inc., 2010 WL 4967968 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. Dec. 8, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court quashed order directing production of defendant?s source code where, despite claiming misappropriation of its trade secret, plaintiff declined to produce its own source code and thus ?neither identified with reasonable particularity the nature of its claimed trade secret nor established that it exists? and was therefore not entitled to the source code it sought from the defendant

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secret

Electronic Data Involved: Source code

Rosenbaum v. Becker & Poliakoff, P.A., 708 F. Supp. 2d 1304 (S.D. Fla. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: In an order addressing several discovery disputes court ordered re-production of information downloaded from relevant Blackberry telephones where defendant produced the requested data in hard copy and where the information was not fully readable

Electronic Data Involved: ESI from Blackberry telephones

Gordanier v. Montezuma Water Co., 2010 WL 935665 (D. Colo. Mar. 11, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel production of ESI from the computer of plaintiff?s supervisor where plaintiff was aware of the existence of the computer and its email capabilities prior to filing suit but nonetheless agreed in the scheduling order that no electronic discovery would be required and thus could not show ?good cause? to amend the order

Nature of Case: Employment Discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI from hard drive of plaintiff’s supervisor

Ross v. Abercrombie & Fitch Co, 2010 WL 1957802 (S.D. Ohio May 14, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant resisted plaintiff?s motion to compel additional searching based upon having already conducted an initial, agreed-upon keyword search and upon unsubstantiated claims that additional searching would be unduly burdensome regardless of prior efforts, court rejected defendant?s arguments absent a sufficient showing of burden, granted plaintiff?s motion, and ordered the parties to meet and confer to reach agreement regarding the searches

Nature of Case: Securities class action

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Biax Corp. v. Nvidia Corp., 2010 WL 3777540 (D. Colo. Sept. 21, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: In an opinion addressing numerous discovery issues, the court granted in part plaintiff?s motion to compel and ordered the parties to submit a status report, preferably jointly, proposing a discreet number of proposed custodians and search terms, and to submit a joint-cost sharing agreement ?for the hefty cost of searching electronic files as represented by [defendant] with an accompanying affidavit in support of the anticipated costs?; court reasoned in footnote that ?justice require[ed]? cost sharing in light of the expense of searching electronic files and in light of the amount of documentation already produced by the defendant

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Lynch v. Int. Assoc. of Machinist & Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, 2010 WL 5299879 (E.D. Wis. Dec. 17, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant claimed it did not regularly maintain the information requested and that to search for such information manually in its database would result in substantial cost, the court found that plaintiff had not shown that the likely results of a search would produce admissible evidence or that such evidence could justify the expense to defendant and denied plaintiff?s motion to compel, including plaintiff?s request for the entire database to be produced; where plaintiff?s request ?showed a preference for maintaining functionality but did not specify a format for response? and where the request for Excel format was verbal and occurred after defendant had begun to generate its production in Word format, court found production in Word format was sufficient and that defendant did not convert the information to remove functionality in contravention of Rule 34

Nature of Case: Allegations arising from union’s failure to pursue plaintiff?s grievances following his retirement

Electronic Data Involved: Database

Hilton-Rorar v. State and Fed. Commc?ns, Inc., 2010 WL 1486916 (N.D. Ohio Apr. 13, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Addressing several questions regarding attorney-client privilege and work product, court stated that ?attachments or other email communications that are not otherwise independently privileged? but are contained within or attached to a privileged email were protected by the privilege where ?the disclosure of those emails would necessarily reveal the substance of a confidential client communication made seeking legal advice? and declined to compel their disclosure or the disclosure of the emails to which they were attached

Electronic Data Involved: Privileged emails

Covad Commc?n Co. v. Revonet, Inc., 267 F.R.D. 14(D.D.C. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court declined to compel production of non-email ESI in native format where defendant previously produced the information sought in hard copy, reasoning that native production is not required by the rules and that the documents, previously produced in hard copy, were in a sufficiently usable format absent a showing that the metadata would ?yield an answer that the hard copy will not?; court also recognized obligation to seek ?just, speedy, and inexpensive? adjudication and to limit burdensome discovery where defendant represented significant hardship to re-produce in native format

Nature of Case: Misappropriation and conversion of trade secret information

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 2010 WL 1135781 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 22, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Addressing several objections to the magistrate?s order compelling production of data from non-parties, court held that despite ?minimal? showing of relevance, magistrate did not err in ordering production of data where magistrate weighed the relevance of the data against the burden alleged and ordered appropriate steps to reduce the burden, including limiting the review of documents to those hit by a small set of search terms, waiving respondents? obligations to produce a privilege log, and allowing one respondent to search only its central server rather than 75 individual hard drives following that respondents? showing of undue burden; court rejected petitioner?s objections to the measures taken to reduce the non-parties? burdens

Nature of Case: Litigation surround California’s Proposition 8

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Trickey v. Kaman Indus. Technologies Corp., 2010 WL 3892228 (E.D. Mo. Sept. 29, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where plaintiff suspected defendants of withholding responsive emails and sought to compel defendants to explain their preservation and production efforts and to produce all responsive ESI, court found defendants? explanation of its discovery efforts insufficient to determine whether they had satisfied their obligations where defendants failed to answer questions such as what happens to emails that are ?manually persevered? by individual custodians, the method of preservation employed by defendants (e.g. retaining existing storage archives, creating a mirror image of computer systems), and the availability of backup copies of data from an allegedly stolen laptop, and ordered defendants to provide such information, among other things, and to provide a copy of the police report ?presumably? filed for the stolen laptop

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, ESI

Tag:Motion to Compel