Tag:Spoliation

Key Insight: Finding ?there [was] no evidence that the electronic data was ever created, much less?discarded?, court denied plaintiff?s motion for spoliation sanctions where defendant presented evidence that the relevant GPS system had to be activated in order to record data and that the system was not activated on the date of the accident, and where no regulation or law required the GPS be activated or recording

Nature of Case: Personal Injury

Electronic Data Involved: GPS data

Key Insight: District court upheld denial of sanctions for defendants? failure to preserve emails and other ESI where plaintiffs failed to establish the prejudice resulting from the failure to preserve by presenting nothing more than speculation and by failing to pursue other possible sources of discovery (which the court characterized as ?incongruent with Plaintiff?s claim of prejudice?) and where plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that defendant intentionally destroyed or withheld evidence to suppress the truth

Nature of Case: Claims alleging disparate treatment and impact arising from City’s enforecement of housing codes

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, other ESI

Key Insight: Where the defendant was negligent in its failure to preserve potentially relevant emails and attachments by failing to timely issue a litigation hold and where those emails and attachments were lost as the result of an automatic deletion pursuant to defendant?s document retention policy, the court denied plaintiff?s motion for spoliation sanctions where the court determined the evidence was not ?crucial? to plaintiff?s case and where there was no direct or circumstantial evidence of bad faith; court noted that the ruling did not foreclose the possibility that plaintiff could introduce evidence of defendant?s failure to retain relevant documents at trial

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Emails and attachments

Key Insight: Where, despite a clear duty to preserve, defendant transferred relevant data to a new server and then erased and sold the old servers, and where, as a result, ?log files? were lost, the court found that the evidence ?falls short? of evidencing bad faith and declined to impose ?death penalty sanctions? but ordered that the admission of evidence of defendants? preservation efforts and evidence destruction was appropriate and ordered that evidence of the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the servers would be allowed at trial

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, etc.

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, “log files”

Key Insight: As sanction for plaintiff?s deliberate destruction of electronic documents in bad faith despite a duty to preserve triggered no later than his receipt of defendant?s affirmative defenses, court declined to order dismissal but ordered that plaintiff pay the attorneys fees and costs associated with defendant?s motion and the hiring of its forensics expert who established that spoliation had occurred; court denied motion to amend complaint to include cause of action for spoliation where ?such a claim is not cognizable under New York law?

Nature of Case: Disability discrimination, age discrimination, violations of FMLA

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, contents of computer

Key Insight: Where two years following the relevant altercation the taser used on plaintiff was sent to the manufacturer for repair, deemed irreparable, and was destroyed without preserving the data contained thereon, the court ruled the spoliation was negligent and declined to impose dispositive sanctions or evidence preclusion, but, noting it was ?troubled? by the data?s destruction, granted permission for plaintiff to file a motion in limine addressing the propriety of a rebuttable inference instruction regarding the spoliation

Nature of Case: Claims arising from detention and arrest of plaintiff which resulted in plaintiff being tasered and injured

Electronic Data Involved: Taser data

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiffs? motion for default judgment or an adverse inference where, despite finding that the alleged spoliator had intentionally deleted data in violation of his statutory duty to preserve, the court was presented with no evidence of bad faith in the data?s destruction and nothing more than speculation as to the data?s relevance

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: Employment records subject to retention by statute