Federal Court Decisions Involving Electronic Discovery, December 1 ...

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Federal E-Discovery Decisions, December 1, 2006 – July 31, 2009 Ameriwood Industries, Inc. v. Liberman, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93380 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 27, 2006). In an unfair competition and trade secret theft action, the court granted the plaintiff’s request that bitstream images of hard drives of the defendants' business and personal computers be made, after a nonparty produced an email document that the court believed the defendants should have produced in their document production. Ameriwood Industries v. Liberman, 2007 WL 496716 (E.D. Mo. Feb. 13, 2007). In an unfair competition and trade secret theft action, the court declined to find that good cause existed to order production of email and other files of plaintiff deemed “not reasonably accessible” under Rule 26(b)(2)(B) because of volume in the “hundreds of thousands.” Applying the seven factors listed in the Committee Note to Rule 26(b)(2), the court found that the requests were not narrowly tailored to seek information relevant to the defendant’s affirmative defense and that production would be unduly burdensome, even when restricted to 52,124 emails and 4,413 other electronic files associated with six key individuals. Amersham Biosciences Corp. v. PerkinElmer, Inc., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6841 (D.N.J. Jan. 31, 2007). In an earlier order in this patent infringement case, the Magistrate Judge determined that privilege claims involving 37 electronic documents recovered by the plaintiff’s electronic discovery vendor and produced to the defendant had been waived by inadvertent production, but that privilege claims involving 542 electronic documents, also produced to the defendant, had not been waived, as the privileged information was embedded in metadata and not apparent to the plaintiff. On review, the District Judge made different factual findings regarding the 542 electronic documents, determining that their privileged nature was apparent on their face. The District Judge remanded to the Magistrate Judge the question of whether the plaintiff’s precautions to protect its privilege claims were adequate. Regarding the 37 electronic documents, the District Judge found no error in the Magistrate Judge’s determination that the plaintiff had not taken reasonable precautions to protect its privilege claims. Anadarko Petroleum Corp. v. Davis, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93594 (S.D. Tex. Dec. 28, 2006). In an action for unfair competition and theft of trade secrets, the plaintiff issued a letter to the defendant requesting preservation and return of allegedly stolen electronic information. The defendant then systematically copied relevant files from his computers onto thumb drives, and then deleted the documents from the computers. He delivered the thumb drives to the plaintiff. However, the plaintiff then moved for sanctions for spoliation, claiming that the deletion of the files from the computers foreclosed its ability to verify the defendant’s actions. The court declined to sanction the defendant, as no showing had been made of bad faith on the part of the defendant or prejudice to the plaintiff. The court ordered a forensic audit of the computers, after which the plaintiff could supplement its motion for sanctions. Anthropologie, Inc. v. Forever 21, Inc., et al., 2009 WL 690239 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 13, 2009). In this copyright infringement case, the plaintiff requested production of several categories of documents pertaining to allegedly infringing products, which the defendants claimed no longer existed. The plaintiff also sought appointment of an expert to inspect Copyright © 2009, The Sedona Conference ® 6 www.thesedonaconference.org
Federal E-Discovery Decisions, December 1, 2006 – July 31, 2009 the defendants’ hard drives. The court concluded that the defendants must produce the requested data and documentation, noting that it was inconceivable that such data had not been retained. Because the defendants caused substantial delays and unnecessary expenses, the court required them to "provide any additional documents in their custody and control,” including “not only hard-copy documents, but any electronically stored data that comes even arguably within the scope of these four categories.” The court reserved decision on the production of the hard drives until after the electronically stored data was produced. In re Subpoena Duces Tecum to AOL, LLC, 2008 WL 1956266 (E.D. Va. April 18, 2008). In this qui tam action against State Farm Insurance for improperly shifting certain Hurricane Katrina damage costs to the federal government, State Farm issued a subpoena to AOL to obtain e-mail of key witnesses against State Farm. The District Judge, upholding the Magistrate Judge’s prior ruling, held that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act barred AOL from producing emails in response to this subpoena, and that the subpoena was overbroad and imposed an undue burden under Rule 45(c), since it requested all e-mails of the witnesses for a six week period, including private information unrelated to the litigation. APC Filtration, Inc. v. Becker, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76221 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 12, 2007). The plaintiff brought suit against a former employee for trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract. Several days after receiving the complaint, the defendant traveled 20 miles to a construction site dumpster to dispose of his personal computer, later claiming that the computer had crashed and that he had been told it was beyond repair. The plaintiff moved for default judgment, sanctions and attorney’s fees. Relying on its inherent power and Rule 37, the court declined to enter default judgment because the plaintiff was able to obtain copies of many of the documents that would have been found on the destroyed computer from third parties, but affirmed the plaintiff’s motion for sanctions, finding the defendant acted in bad faith. The court ordered the defendant to pay reasonable attorney’s fees and costs associated with the plaintiff’s motion, third party discovery, and retention of the computer expert. Apsley v. Boeing Co., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5144 (D. Kan. Jan. 17, 2007). In an age discrimination class action stemming from the sale and downsizing of manufacturing facilities, the plaintiffs requested extensive searches of the email accounts of up to 550 individuals for terms as broad as "benefit" or "old." The defendant objected on the basis of overbreadth and burden, citing factors including the undetermined number of email accounts involved, the geographic spread of the servers and storage devices involved, and the encryption of many messages. The court ordered a hearing to consider the estimated cost of the discovery, whether costs should be borne by plaintiffs, and whether there might be more efficient methods for discovery than key word searches. Apsley v. Boeing Co., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5274 (D. Kan. Jan. 22, 2008) (“Boeing II”). In an age discrimination case, the court denied the plaintiff’s request for an in camera review of documents that were withheld by the defendant on privilege grounds, Copyright © 2009, The Sedona Conference ® 7 www.thesedonaconference.org
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