Key Insight: Default judgment entered against defendant and attorneys’ fees awarded to plaintiff, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 37, for defendant’s willful and intentional destruction of laptop presumably containing crucial evidence of defendant’s decoder key modification programs, sale records and customer lists
Nature of Case: Cable TV provider sued businessman for cable TV theft
Electronic Data Involved: Laptop
Key Insight: Failure to produce computer data and other discovery abuses warranted imposition of monetary sanctions against defendant ($105,000 paid to plaintiffs and $15,000 paid to clerk of court “for the unnecessary consumption of the court’s time and resources”) and appointment of special master at defendant’s expense for purpose of monitoring its compliance with all further discovery
Nature of Case: Class action brought by veterans for alleged exposure to radiation during service with armed forces
Electronic Data Involved: Two V.A. computer systems (databases)
Key Insight: Defendant’s discovery abuse and destruction of evidence warranted monetary sanctions and default judgment
Nature of Case: Antitrust
Electronic Data Involved: Sales and inventory data
Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion to dismiss IBM’s counterclaims as sanction for deletion of computer files, since erasure was done before suit was filed and did not amount to willful or bad faith disregard of discovery order or discovery request; court indicated that a jury instruction regarding destruction of documents may be an appropriate lesser sanction
Nature of Case: Breach of contract for development of software
Electronic Data Involved: Computer files containing both project-related documents and purely personal documents
Key Insight: Defendant’s duty to preserve source code arose no later than service of complaint, and its subsequent destruction of source code warranted default judgment on issue of liability; even assuming that maintenance of only a single, updated version of source code was, in other circumstances, a bona fide business practice, any destruction of versions of the code after service of complaint could not be excused as a bona fide business practice
Nature of Case: Copyright infringement, unfair competition, breach of computer software agreement
Electronic Data Involved: Source code
Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion in limine to preclude testimony, which was based on speculation that email had been destroyed, since defendants produced sworn testimony that all relevant emails were produced, and legitimate reason for erasing some emails “was simply a function of cleaning the junk mail and other clutter from the computer software and disk storage space”
Nature of Case: Breach of contract and tort claims
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Court rejected plaintiff’s request for direct access to Compaq’s hard drives, servers, and databases since plaintiff had failed to show widespread destruction or withholding of relevant information by Compaq; court further rejected plaintiff’s request for sanctions for failure to preserve certain evidence
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Hard drives, servers, databases, email and electronic data
Key Insight: Defendant’s discovery abuses and deletion of web site pages and other electronic information warranted entry of order enjoining spoliation and imposing monetary sanctions against defendant
Nature of Case: Breach of contract and related claims
Electronic Data Involved: Web site pages; log files and backup tapes of nonparty web hosting company
Key Insight: Court declined to impose terminating sanctions and instead ordered an adverse inference sanction against defendant for employee?s intentional spoliation of electronic evidence where the destruction was motivated by an intent to eliminate incriminating evidence but where the prejudice was minimal in light of plaintiff?s ability to obtain copies of the deleted evidence by other means
Nature of Case: Patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets
Electronic Data Involved: ESI, emails
Key Insight: Failure to preserve certain computer hard drives did not warrant sanctions where there was no reasonable possibility that the missing hard drives (which were obtained after protective order was issued) contained evidence of the theft of trade secret information
Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets and related torts
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drives
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