Motion to Compel – Page 96 – Electronic Discovery Law

In re Motor Fuel Temp. Sales Practices Litig., 2009 WL 959493 (D. Kan. Apr. 3, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court overruled defendants? objections that searching for pre-2001 paper documents would be overly burdensome and ordered production of boxes potentially containing relevant information, as maintained in the course of business, for inspection and identification of responsive materials to be copied, with no waiver of privilege as to documents determined to be privileged; acknowledging defendant?s burden in searching pre-2001 email where data was not easily accessible because of disparate email systems and back up procedures, court allowed plaintiffs, after reviewing hard copy, to specifically identify email or other ESI for production, if found, but did not order a search of all email; where Shell defendant proved undue burden in physically searching individual stations for responsive data, court limited search to ten locations but declined to find undue burden regarding the search of databases and ordered defendants to search the individual databases of 246 Shell stations for responsive information

Nature of Case: Claims arising from accusations that defendants sold fuel at a specified price without adjusting for temperature expansion

Electronic Data Involved: Hard copy, archived email, databases, ESI

In re Zurn Plex Plumbing Prods. Liab. Litig., 2009 WL 1606653 (D. Minn. June 5, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendants objected to plaintiffs’ motion to compel arguing the requested search of emails and various computer drives would be unduly burdensome, court dismissed attorney?s affidavit in support of such objections as ?not compelling evidence? where attorney was not ?an expert on document search and retrieval? but, ?in an effort to control costs,? limited defendants? search to particular locations and ordered the use of 14 terms as supplied by the court or agreed upon by the parties; court invited defendants to renew their objections if the search nonetheless proved overly burdensome by submitting evidence, including evidence from ?computer experts,? in support of those objections

Nature of Case: Claims that defendants’ choice of plumbing fittings caused damage to plaintiffs’ property

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Richmond v. Coastal Bend Coll. Dist., 2009 WL 1940034 (S.D. Tex. July 2, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court granted defendants? motion for protective order preventing the production of emails in sealed court file where plaintiffs failed to establish an exception to the Public Information Act requiring their disclosure, where plaintiffs failed to establish defendants? waiver of privilege, and where plaintiffs failed to establish the applicability of the crime fraud exception; court granted plaintiffs? motion to compel certain information, including personal emails, and ordered defendants to submit affidavits indicating their lack of personal accounts, if appropriate, and for defendants to produce emails ?of a personal nature to the court under seal? for a determination of relevance

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

El Badrawi v. Dep?t Homeland Sec., 258 F.R.D. 198 (D. Conn. 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Granting in part and denying in part defendant?s motion to compel production of printouts and electronic information pertaining to defendant from government?s National Crime Information Center Database, court ordered portions of the information likely to lead to weakening of government programs (and other alleged harms) and subject to the law enforcement privilege redacted but for the remaining information to be produced; redactions were dictated by the court upon en camera review

Nature of Case: Abuse of process claim arising from alleged improper detention

Electronic Data Involved: All documents related to plaintiff from the National Crime Information Center Database

Transcap Assoc., Inc. v. Euler Hermes Am. Credit Indemnity Co., 2009 WL 3260014 (N.D. Ill Oct. 9, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where defendant ?produced? archived marketing materials by directing plaintiff to website commonly known as the Way Back Machine (which itself warned of missing links and image in webpages) and did not establish or allege that it maintained material on the Way Back Machine in the ordinary course of business, and where the court determined defendant had not adequately investigated the existence of responsive documents in paper form, court granted motion to compel and ordered defendant to conduct ?a thorough search? for responsive documents and to produce them in paper or electronic format within 14 days; court ordered plaintiff to pay attorneys fees and costs and imposed monetary sanctions against plaintiff for the numerous discovery violations addressed in the opinion

Nature of Case: Insurance coverage action

Electronic Data Involved: Way Back Machine

In re McKesson Governmental Entities Average Wholesale Price Litig., 2009 WL 3706898 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 4, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where government agency objected to defendants? subpoena for the production of documents previously produced in a separate litigation on grounds of undue burden and cost based on the assertion that it needed to re-review all documents prior to production because some documents were subject to the deliberative process privilege and others were highly confidential, court held that the privilege had been waived by the agency?s failure to object in its initial response and by the production in separate litigation, ordered the documents produced under the POD ?Confidential, For Outside Attorney Eyes Only? and ordered defendants to bear the costs ?of copying and producing the documents in electronic form?

Nature of Case: Allegations that defendants artificially increased the published price of prescription drugs

Electronic Data Involved: ESI previously produced in separate litigation and maintained in database by third party

Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. LaSalle Bank Nat?l Ass?n, 2009 WL 2243854 (S.D. Ohio July 24, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Where plaintiff filed a motion to compel (or for sanctions) following its discovery that defendant failed to search a number of backup tapes and failed to maintain all tapes which may have contained responsive ESI, court denied the motion upon finding that burden of restoration of the tapes was ?disproportionate to the likely utility of doing so? and because LaSalle had a practice of printing and filing important emails; court also noted the parties? failure to adequately confer regarding the discovery of ESI

Electronic Data Involved: Backup tapes

Barton Group, Inc. v. NCR Corp., 2009 WL 6509348 (S.D.N.Y. July 22, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s request to compel defendant to categorize its production and identify which documents were responsive to which requests where plaintiff and defendant previously agreed that defendant would produce all documents from certain custodians without prior review and where plaintiff therefore could not simultaneously benefit from avoiding the risk that defendant would unilaterally filter out responsive documents while at the same time seeking to have defendant ?provide the kind of classification that plaintiff would have gotten had it made a different choice?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Henderson v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 2009 WL 1152019 (E.D. Wis. Apr. 29, 2009)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: Stating that Rule 34 does not give a party the right to conduct their own search of an opposing party?s electronic devices and holding that counterclaim plaintiff must request specific categories of information and allow counterclaim-defendants to conduct their own search for responsive data, court denied counterclaim-defendants? motion to compel production of all computers, hard drives, and other devices containing electronically stored information

Nature of Case: Enforceability of confdientiality and non-compete agreements, misappropriation of confidential inforamtion

Electronic Data Involved: Computers, hard drives, electronic storage devices

Kravetz v. Paul Rever Life Ins. Co., 2009 WL 1639736 (D. Ariz. June 11, 2009) (Not for Publication)

Dec 01 2009

Key Insight: For purposes of determining the number of hours worked by plaintiff following his injury, court granted motion to compel the production of several hard drives and storage devices used by plaintiff to conduct business but limited the inspection to relevant metadata and forbade inspection of the substance of any documents

Nature of Case: Disability claim

Electronic Data Involved: Metadata on hard drives

Tag:Motion to Compel