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

Federal E-Discovery Decisions, December 1, 2006 – July 31, 2009
Yeisley v. PA State Police, 2008 WL 906465 (M.D. Pa. March 31, 2008). In this civil
rights litigation alleging malicious or retaliatory prosecution, the plaintiff moved for
sanctions against the defendant for failure to produce requested e-mail. The defendants
claimed that delays were attributable to a substitution of counsel and efforts to fully
comply with discovery requests. The court ordered supplemental depositions of select
witness at the defendant’s expense, and ordered the defendants to promptly search and
produce electronic records, including e-mail, or face further sanctions.
Young v. Pleasant Valley Sch. Dist., 2008 WL 2857912 (M.D. Pa. July 21, 2008). In a
civil rights action against a school district alleging improprieties involving a particular
teacher, the plaintiffs requested that the defendant school district be required to conduct a
search through deleted emails for previous complaints similar to the plaintiff’s about that
teacher. The court agreed that the request was within the scope of permissible discovery,
but concluded that it lacked sufficient information to determine whether the costs and
burdens associated with such a search outweighed the benefits. In a subsequent filing,
the defendant represented that the search would initially cost about $10,000, require the
search of “easily millions” of emails using key words and other filtering techniques, and
require the review of an undetermined number of potentially responsive files. The court
refused to permit the plaintiff’s expert to conduct the search as “contrary to the spirit of
the Federal Rules.” It applied the factors of Rule 26(b)(2) to find that the costs and
burdens of restoration and production outweighed the potential benefits, and
recommended that the parties pursue more cost-effective avenues of discovery.
Zungoli v. United Parcel Svc., Inc., 2009 WL 1085440 (D.N.J. Apr. 22, 2009). An
employee filed suit, claiming he was fired for objecting to his employer’s requirement
that he register on the company’s internal website. The district court found sufficient
evidence to support the employee’s whistleblower claim, holding he had a right to keep
his personal information confidential. Opposing the plaintiff’s claims for economic
damages, the employer claimed the employee intentionally destroyed evidence related to
his efforts to mitigate damages by seeking employment after he was fired. The court held
that “simply because the companies Plaintiff allegedly applied to have not produced
documentation to show that he applied for employment does not infer that he
intentionally suppressed or withheld evidence of the same.”
Zurich American Insurance Co. v. Ace American Reinsurance Co., 2006 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 92958 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2006). In a reinsurance action alleging bad faith failure
to pay claims, the plaintiff sought production of documents related to a particular
category of claim denials. The defendant objected, stating that it was unable to segregate
claim files by category of claim denial. The court expressed “little sympathy” for a
defendant with an "opaque data storage system" and ordered the parties to devise a
protocol for sampling the data.
In re Zurn Pex Plumbing Products Liability Litigation, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47636
(D. Minn. June 5, 2009). In this MDL proceeding arising out of the defendants’ design
and choice of brass plumbing fittings, the court had bifurcated discovery and directed the
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