Electronic Discovery and Computer Forensics Case List - Kroll Ontrack

The court declined to issue sanctions for attorneys’ fees or reasonable expenses incurred by the
plaintiff in bringing these two motions, finding sanctions unwarranted.
� Thompson v. Assurant Employee Benefits, 2008 WL 373711 (D.Kan. Feb. 8, 2008). In this
case, the defendants failed to produce initial disclosures within the deadline established by the
scheduling order. The plaintiff followed up with a letter and a phone call and when both were
unanswered, he filed a motion to compel and a subsequent motion seeking reimbursement of fees
and expenses associated with the original motion to compel. The defendants claimed an “innocent,
internal miscommunication” between the partner and associate resulted in the missed production
deadline and argued against the imposition of sanctions. The court determined the plaintiff
expended unnecessary resources in the effort to secure production from the defendants and was
therefore entitled to reimbursement of fees and expenses in the amount of $580.
� Benton v. Dlorah, Inc., 2007 WL 3231431 (D.Kan. Oct. 30, 2007). In this employment
discrimination suit, the defendants moved to compel the plaintiff to produce documents responsive
to their requests for production and the hard drive of the plaintiff’s personal computer. The
defendants also sought sanctions for the plaintiff’s failure to provide complete responses and
alleged destruction of evidence. The defendants argued that the plaintiff admittedly deleted and
failed to produce relevant e-mail communications with her husband and students. Further, the
plaintiff used her personal computer to send and delete hundreds of responsive e-mails, therefore,
entitling the defendants to the plaintiff’s personal computer hard drive for retrieval of the deleted emails.
The plaintiff objected, claiming the hard drive contained personal, privileged information
beyond the scope of discovery. The court ordered the plaintiff to produce her personal computer for
inspection by a forensic specialist, limited in scope to topics responsive to the production requests,
and ordered the plaintiff to pay $1,000 in sanctions to reimburse the defendants for costs
associated with filing of this motion.
� MGPIngredients, Inc. v. Mars, Inc., 2007 WL 3010343 (D.Kan. Oct. 15, 2007). In this suit alleging
patent infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets inter alia, the plaintiff moved the court to
compel the defendant to identify particular documents responsive to each request for production,
rather than merely producing documents in the format in which they are kept in the usual course of
business. The court denied the motion, relying on Fed.R.Civ.P. 34(b) which requires a responsive
party to produce documents either in the manner in which they are kept in the usual course of
business or to organize and label the documents to correspond to each request. As the parties
failed to agree in advance to an alternative manner or production per Rule 34(b), the court refused
to order a different form of production.
� Benton v. Dlorah, Inc., 2007 WL 2225946 (D.Kan. August 1, 2007). In this case alleging
employment discrimination on the basis of gender, the defendants motioned the court to compel
the plaintiff to produce the hard drive of her personal home computer and further requested an
order prohibiting the plaintiff from destroying email and other relevant evidence. In support of these
requests, the defendants claim that the plaintiff had only produced a handful of email for a time
period spanning several months. The plaintiff argued that she already produced all relevant
materials and refused to produce the computer for investigation by a computer forensic expert. The
court denied the motion and declined to assume the plaintiff was lying or had been discredited in
her discovery responses.
� Oxford House, Inc. v. City of Topeka, 2007 WL 1246200 (D. Kan. Apr. 27, 2007). In this case,
the plaintiffs brought suit against the defendant for denying several conditional housing permits.
The plaintiffs brought a motion to compel the defendant to comply with several discovery requests
and produce all electronically stored information (ESI), including e-mail and instant messages,
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