Electronic Discovery and Computer Forensics Case List - Kroll Ontrack

under Rule 803(6) of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The court found the documents to be
sufficiently trustworthy to be admitted under Rule 803(6).
Connecticut
� Tucker v. American Intern. Group, Inc., 2012 WL 902930 (D. Conn. Mar. 15, 2012). In this
unlawful discharge claim against a former employer’s insurer, the plaintiff sought to compel
inspection of allegedly relevant electronic records in the possession of her non-party former
employer. Noting that it had already turned over several hundred responsive documents, the
former employer argued that allowing the plaintiff further investigation for missing e-mails would be
unduly burdensome under 26(b)(2)(C). In order to show that additional discovery would be
unnecessarily duplicative, the former employer described that the plaintiff had already had some
prior success in discovering the sought-after e-mails through alternative methods of discovery and
that the plaintiff could only speculate that the employer actually possesses the information. Carving
out its undue burden argument, the former employer pointed to the affidavit of an IT director who
contended that the plaintiff’s computer had been repurposed pursuant to company policy since her
termination. While the plaintiff’s hard drive had been mirror-imaged, the image was
indistinguishable from the images of eighty-two other employers terminated at the time of a force
reduction. In order to allow for further investigation, “all eighty-three images would have to be
restored[,] analyzed” and hosted on a new server. Noting that courts should protect non-parties
from significant “expense and burden of compelled inspections,” the court agreed with the former
employer and cited Zubalake to stay the further investigation.
� Barrera v. Boughton, 2010 WL 3926070 (D. Conn. Sept. 20, 2010). In this racial profiling and
harassment litigation, the plaintiffs sought to compel production of electronically stored information
from 40 custodians with 80 keywords over a period of six years. Estimating the cost (absent
attorney document review) to be $60,000 and noting that they had already produced 948 e-mails,
none of which supported the plaintiffs’ claims, the defendants objected that the ESI was not
reasonably accessible and that such a request was unduly burdensome and overbroad. Agreeing
with the defendants’ accessibility argument, the court found the plaintiffs failed to show good cause
and ordered a phased approach to discovery. Using the plaintiffs’ search terms, the defendants
were ordered to conduct a search of three of the 40 originally requested custodians for a three-year
period. The court held that, as modified, the request did not constitute an undue burden or
expense, and it therefore rejected the defendants’ cost-shifting request.
� Trusz v. UBS Realty Investors LLC, 2010 WL 3583064 (D. Conn. Sept. 7, 2010). In this
employment litigation, both parties sought sanctions, and the plaintiff sought to compel production
of electronic documents arguing the defendants engaged in a “massive document dump” by
producing 1.8 million documents without reviewing for
relevancy (producing over 4 million documents in total). The defendants contended the production
was inevitably massive despite a diligent review because the plaintiff served 208 document
requests and would have been smaller if the plaintiff had identified a narrower set of search terms.
Citing the Sedona Conference’s Case for Cooperation, the court found that the issues could have
been eliminated or resolved if counsel had conferred about refining search terms and ordered the
parties to meet and confer or face the appointment and expense of a special master. The court
also denied both requests for sanctions noting several months still existed for the completion of fact
discovery in this litigation.
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