Electronic Discovery and Computer Forensics Case List - Kroll Ontrack

were also overwritten per department policy. The plaintiff argued in favor of sanctions because the
defendant ignored its duty to preserve data when litigation was reasonably foreseeable. The
defendant argued that its duty to preserve e-mail or hard drive data did not occur until the
discovery requests were served and any prior destruction was done in accordance with good faith
procedures. The magistrate ruled that sanctions were not appropriate against the defendant. It held
that the duty to preserve the hard drives may have arisen when the complaint was served but
failure to follow the duty was immaterial since the missing documents were not crucial to the
plaintiff’s case. The documents were not crucial because other evidence existed which
demonstrated the same information as would have been found in the deleted e-mails. Furthermore,
the court determined that the destruction by the defendant was not performed in bad faith because
of the pre-existing procedures to overwrite data on its backup tapes and hard drives.
� In re Seroquel Prods. Liab. Litig., 2007 WL 219989 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 26, 2007). In a multi-district
litigation matter, the court issued a discovery order addressing several issues related to
electronically stored documents. First, the court set forth the party’s document collection and
production obligations and ordered that all documents be produced in a TIFF format and have
Bates numbering. Additionally, specific metadata fields for the documents were to be produced if
practicable to the parties. The court also addressed costs and held that each party shall bear its
own costs for the production of accessible data. Inaccessible data and data contained in databases
were only to be produced after consultation between the parties.
� Balfour Beatty Rail, Inc. v. Vaccarello, 2007 WL 169628 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 18, 2007). In a suit
alleging that the defendants conspired to compete and steal information from their former
employer, the plaintiff brought a motion requesting the defendants produce any hard drives used in
connection with their competing business. The defendants argued the request was overly broad
and that confidential information, not relevant to the lawsuit, would be disclosed to the plaintiff. The
plaintiff argued a confidentiality agreement would protect any potential confidential information from
being used and that the hard drives should be produced. The court denied the plaintiff’s motion
because there was no indication as to specific information the plaintiff sought to gain from the hard
drive data, only that the entire hard was requested. The court further stated the plaintiff did not
argue that the defendants failed to produce any information necessitating the production of the
hard drives. To allow the plaintiffs access to the defendant’s entire hard drive without limits as to
the information to be obtained would “permit Plaintiff to engage in a fishing expedition.”
� Optowave Co. v. Nikitin, 2006 WL 3231422 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 7, 2006). In a contract dispute, the
plaintiff alleges that the defendant deleted relevant e-mails with bad faith. The e-mails were saved
on the hard drives of several workplace computers and contained evidence relevant to the contract
dispute. After litigation started the defendant reformatted the company server using an outside
consultant who erased several relevant e-mails. Evidence also showed that several e-mails in a
key employees’ “sent box” were deleted. The court determined that the loss of evidence could have
only come about through the intentional acts of the defendant. The court ordered adverse jury
instructions at trial as a sanction for intentional spoliation of evidence.
� Omega Patents, LLC v. Fortin Auto Radio, Inc., 2006 WL 2038534 (M.D. Fla. July 19, 2006). In
this suit filed to enforce a patent infringement settlement agreement, the court granted the plaintiff’s
motion for Rule 37 sanctions against the defendant for failing to comply with the court’s order to
produce responsive documents. In seeking sanctions, the plaintiff argued the defendant’s
production efforts were “sparse at best,” having received only a limited number of financial
documents and no e-mail. While admitting to only producing five e-mails during the initial
disclosure, the defendant maintained it had since provided the plaintiff with 2,000 pages of
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