Key Insight: Failure to produce; Sanctions; Proportionality
Nature of Case: Trademark & Copyright infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Hard copy; correspondence; email
Keywords: “Functional employee”; Consultant; Third-party communications; Privilege; Spoliation; Unfair prejudice; Attorney’s fees and costs; Proportionality; Access/Resources;
Key Insight: whether the issue of spoliation could be brought before the jury to decide if evidence was withheld and if that was justified
Nature of Case: personal injury, motor vehicle
Electronic Data Involved: Log books of defendant
Keywords: spoliation, jury instruction, question of law/fact
Key Insight: discovery requests overbroad
Nature of Case: telephone consumer protection act
Electronic Data Involved: general discovery
Keywords: scope of relevant discovery, class action
Key Insight: Plaintiffs filed a Motion to Compel Production of Documents and Request for Sanctions. The documents sought were specific emails. Opposing the Motion, Defendant argued that it was untimely as it was submitted four months after the discovery deadline, and that the emails sought were not responsive to Plaintiff’s earlier document (discovery) request. The Court denied Plaintiffs’ Motion.
Nature of Case: Intellectual Property, Trade Secrets
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: discovery that is not authorized by law cannot be “untaken”. order that compels discovery beyond that allowed by law is abuse of discretion
Nature of Case: personal injury, property liability
Electronic Data Involved: WTG net worth documentation
Keywords: net worth discovery, abuse of discretion, motion to compel
Key Insight: This dispute was over which party was obligated to translate (or pay for the cost of translating) documents that were produced by Defendants (in response to document requests) into English. Plaintiffs filed a Motion to Compel Defendants to translate the documents and/or pay for the cost of translation, The Court denied it, finding that Defendants were neither obligated to translate the documents nor responsible for the cost(s) of translation. However, the court noted in a footnote that a party that produces documents in response to an interrogatory may be required to provide translations.
Nature of Case: Unfair Competition, Defamation
Electronic Data Involved: Documents
Key Insight: whether a request for a specific format is an undue burden
Nature of Case:
Electronic Data Involved: documents produced in TIFF format versus native format
Keywords: undue burden, TIFF, native, cybersecurity
Identified State Rule(s): 214(b)
Key Insight: who bears the burden of paying for translation of foreign language documents
Nature of Case: unfair competition, false advertising, defamation, false light, trade libel, and tortious interference
Electronic Data Involved: foreign language documents
Keywords: foreign language, translation, machine translation, burden to pay
Key Insight: withholding discovery on the basis that forensic imaging isn’t under the scope
Nature of Case: trade secrets, unfair trade practices, unfair competition
Electronic Data Involved: Defendant’s laptop and associated harddrives
Keywords: scrubbed metadata, forensic imaging, hard drives, scope of discovery, bad faith litigation
Key Insight: Privileged docs based on only state law must be produced in a case with both federal and state claims
Nature of Case: Medical malpractice
Electronic Data Involved: Responsive documents
Keywords: Privilege, state law
Identified State Rule(s): K.S.A. section 65-4925(a)
Identified Federal Rule(s): FRCP 26(b)
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