Electronic Discovery and Computer Forensics Case List - Kroll Ontrack

equally all costs associated with hiring a computer forensics expert to inspect the laptop.
Additionally, the defendant was required to buy a new laptop for the plaintiff.
� United States v. Triumph Capital Group, 211 F.R.D. 31 (D.Conn. 2002). In order to prevent
spoliation of evidence in a public corporation case, the government sought and obtained a search
warrant to search and seize a laptop computer at issue. The warrant did not limit the search to any
particular area of the hard drive. However, it did limit the government to search for and seize only
certain evidence relating specifically to the charges and to follow detailed protocols to avoid
revealing any privileged information. So that the data would not be altered, the government made
mirror images of the hard drive and then proceeded with the computer forensic investigation. The
defendants argued that this mirroring amounted to a search and seizure of the entire hard drive
and moved to suppress all evidence from the laptop. The court determined that although the
search warrant limited the scope of the information that investigators could search for, technical
realities required the government to make complete mirror images of the hard drive. Furthermore,
the court ruled that copying a file does not necessarily constitute seizure of that file and that
examining a file more than once does not constitute multiple searches under the Fourth
Amendment.
� Hayes v. Compass Group USA, Inc., 202 F.R.D. 363 (D. Conn 2001). The plaintiff in an age
discrimination action requested information on similar claims filed against the defendant. The
defendant advised the court of the burden and expense involved with such a request given that
some of the data was stored in a non-searchable computer format. The court ordered the
defendant to manually search the unsearchable computer data and to produce all information for
which it had computer search capabilities.
� SKW Real Estate Ltd. v. Gallicchio, 716 A.2d 903 (Conn. App. Ct. 1998). A computer-generated
document is admissible in a foreclosure action, pursuant to the business records exception to the
hearsay rule.
� Scovish v. Upjohn Co., 1995 WL 731755 (Conn. Super. Ct. Nov. 22, 1995). The court found that
database was within attorney work-product, but that the plaintiff had substantial need of the
information in the database and undue hardship would result if it was not produced. The court
ordered the defendant to produce the database after removing any portions that contain subjective
thoughts and opinions.
New York
� People v. Harris, 2011NY080152 (NY Crim. Ct. New York Co. June 30, 2012). In this criminal
matter arising out of the Occupy Wall Street protests, the court reviewed Twitter’s motion to quash
a subpoena, which ordered the production of tweets and pertinent metadata from a user’s account.
The threshold determination required an assessment of whether the criminal defendant or the third
party respondent (Twitter) had standing to quash the subpoena. In line with the court’s previous
ruling on this matter, the court pointed to Twitter’s terms and policy, holding that Twitter—not the
criminal defendant—had standing to challenge the subpoena. Addressing Twitter’s contention that
responding to numerous subpoenas would result in an undue burden (and thus barred by the
SCA), the court held that because all third party respondents bear this burden, the argument
“cannot be used to create standing for a defendant where none exists.” Further, the court noted
that “it does not take much to search and provide the data to the court.” The court found that
Twitter’s services fall within the statutory definition of both an Electronic Communication Service
(ECS) (generally, a communication service) and a Remote Communication Service (RCS)
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