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Sanctions Warranted After Defendant eDiscovery Spoliation Uncovered
One cannot help but wonder what, exactly, was the defendant’s strategy in the case Kirgan v. FCA LLC, Case No. 10-1392 (C.D.Ill. April 10, 2013). In this employment discrimination case, the plaintiff sought the defendant CEO and COO’s electronic calendars to evidence certain meetings on specific dates that supported his
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Electronic Discovery Issue: When Does Automatic Deletion of Data Become Spoliation?
Most businesses that have extensive electronic data and email communications have systems in place that automatically delete old data after set periods of time. However, when litigation is reasonably foreseeable, a duty to preserve evidence is imposed on all parties. When does automatic electronic data deletion cross the line into
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When Must Video Surveillance Be Preserved to Avoid eDiscovery Spoliation?
In an unpublished decision, the Eleventh Circuit decided an appeal by a plaintiff in McLeod v. Wal-Mart, No. 12-13919, slip op. (11th Cir. April 3, 2013). Plaintiff had been charged with theft, but the criminal case was dismissed and plaintiff sued Wal-Mart in a civil case. The court considered the
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$250 Million Spoliation Sanction Ordered Against Rambus to Conclude Patent Case
Over 7 years of litigation was recently concluded with a district court entering a $250 million sanction in SK Hynix v. Rambus, 2013 WL 1915865 (N.D. Cal. May 8, 2013). What is interesting in this case is that the sanction was entered against Rambus, the prevailing party, in the underlying
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Electronic Discovery Question: Does Predictive Coding Case Law Require Production of Seed Sets?
In an order dated May 21, 2013 in the case Hinterberger v. Catholic Health Systems, 08-CV-380S(F), the court heard arguments from the parties about whether predictive coding case law requires the early production of a “seed set” of documents. In this case, the parties started out sorting and culling electronic
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PA Court Pens Comprehensive Opinion Regarding eDiscovery and Facebook
A Pennsylvania state court judge recently wrote an extremely useful court opinion for anyone looking for case law regarding the production of Facebook accounts and social media. Although the state court opinion would only have mandatory authority under PA law, this case could be useful to anyone researching social media
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$4.5 Million Awarded to Plaintiff after Electronic Discovery Spoliation
After a “long, and oftentimes tortuous journey” by a plaintiff in the case E.I. DuPond De Nemours and Company v. Kolon Industries, Inc., Civil Action NO 3:09cv058 (E.D.Va 2013), the court awarded plaintiff a reasonable amount of attorney fees and costs that totaled $4,497,047.50. The court awarded the fees and
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Judge in TriMet Bus Accident Case: “Discovery is Basically eDiscovery”
It was recently reported that a defendant in a federal court case involving a bus accident in Portland refused to produce email threads in response to discovery requests. The argument? The Oregonian reported that at the April 9, 2013 hearing on plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel, the attorney for the defendant,
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Emails Produced Lead to Additional Defendant and Claim
Our ongoing analysis of electronic discovery in modern civil litigation has established a major truism: email threads in electronic data discovery are often the source of critical evidence and can sometimes uncover hidden truths. This was demonstrated in the recent opinion and order dated March 28, 2013 in Campbell v. Sedgwick, Civil
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Are Third-Parties Exempt from Standard Electronic Discovery Obligations?
In our last blog, we discussed the Order dated May 9, 2013 in Apple v. Samsung, Case No. 12-CV-0630-LHK(PSG)(N.D.Ca. 2013). Google was subpoenaed as a third-party in the action, and after responding to the subpoena, Google rejected Apple’s request to disclose the search terms used to produce the electronic data.