Electronic Discovery and Computer Forensics Case List - Kroll Ontrack

ordering recovery and production of relevant documents from all of the existing backup tapes, the
Magistrate ordered the defendant to restore and produce responsive e-mails from one person’s
computer over a one year period. After this sample data was produced and accessed, the
Magistrate would then determine if a broader recovery and search was warranted given the burden
and expense.
� Alexander v. FBI, 186 F.R.D. 78 (D.D.C. 1998). The court concluded that it was appropriate to
order an examination of employee’s computer hard drive and server to determine whether
responsive documents that had not been already produced actually existed. See also Alexander v.
FBI, 188 F.R.D. 111 (D.C. Cir. 1998). The court refused to require the defendants to completely
restore all deleted files and e-mail where the plaintiff did not propose “targeted and appropriately
worded searched of backed-up and archived e-mail and deleted hard drives for a limited number of
individuals.”
� Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President, 1 F.3d 1274 (D.C. Cir. 1993), rev’d in part on
other grounds, 90 F.3d 553 (D.C. Cir. 1996). The district court held that government agencies who
merely instructed employees to print out a paper version of any electronic communication had not
reasonably discharged their preservation obligations under the Federal Records Act. The appellate
court affirmed stating, “[w]ithout the missing information, the paper print-outs--akin to traditional
memoranda with the "to" and "from" cut off and even the "received" stamp pruned away--are
dismembered documents indeed.”
� Armstrong v. Bush, 807 F. Supp. 816 (D.C. 1992). The plaintiffs filed a motion for a Temporary
Restraining Order (TRO) in order to prevent the destruction of presidential materials stored on an
electronic communication system, including any systems that were altered during the course of
litigation. The defendants objected, contending that discovery had been closed for over six months.
The court rejected the defendants’ argument and issued the TRO, stating that the preservation of
records on the tapes would not present an undue burden on the defendant.
� PHE, Inc. v. Department of Justice, 139 F.R.D. 249 (D.D.C. 1991). The court ordered the
plaintiffs to produce computerized tax records even though the plaintiffs possessed no computer
program to retrieve or display the records. “Although no program may presently exist to obtain the
information requested, the court is satisfied that with little effort the plaintiffs can retrieve the
necessary and appropriate information…It would not be unreasonable to require the plaintiffs to
incur modest additional expenditures so as to provide the defendants with the discovery necessary
to establish that they are not acting in bad faith and vindictively.”
� Indiana Coal Council v. Nat’l Trust for Historic Preservation, 118 F.R.D. 264 (D.D.C. 1988).
The court held that the work product doctrine prevented the plaintiff from gaining access to the
defendant’s legal research resources and findings conducted through a computer assisted legal
research system.
District of Puerto Rico
� Baez-Eliza v. Instituto Psicoterapeutico de Puerto Rico, 2011 WL 2413051 (D. Puerto Rico
June 16, 2011). In this suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the parties requested the
court determine if attorney-client privilege applied to ten e-mails sent between employees in the
defendant corporation. The court had previously sanctioned both parties $500 for extensive abuses
that turned the discovery process "into an all-out war," which included the filing of over 25 motions
and repeated orders by the court to cooperate. Despite the previous sanctions and court’s
insistence to resolve disputes amicably, the defendant continued to claim that all ten e-mails were
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