Category: Email

Court Refuses to “Do Defendant’s Work For It” in Email Metadata Dispute

In Marcantonio v. Comcast Cable Communications Management, LLC, Case No. 14-03313 (D. Colo., Aug. 25, 2015), Plaintiff sued Defendant, her former employer, over her termination. Defendant demanded production and inspection of metadata related to emails that Plaintiff had produced in hard copy, ostensibly from her personal computer. Plaintiff objected, stating that she did not have

Spoliation Sanctions Denied Under Third Circuit’s “Bad Faith” Standard

In Flanders v. Dzugan et. al., Case No. 12-1481 (W.D. Pa., August 24, 2015), the Western District of Pennsylvania considered whether to impose spoliation sanctions upon Defendants for their alleged failure to preserve certain ESI, including emails, and failure to properly institute a litigation hold. The parties had entered into an ESI protocol that limited Defendants’ email

Court Denies Plaintiff’s Spoliation Motion in Veterinarian Dispute

In Grove City Veterinary Service, LLC et. al. v. Charter Practices International, LLC, Case No. 13-02276 (Aug. 18, 2015), Plaintiff veterinarians filed a Motion for Sanctions against Defendant veterinary hospital owner, claiming that Defendant had spoliated ESI. Defendant had requested that one of the Plaintiff veterinarians produce his responsive emails. When Plaintiff searched for the emails on

Plaintiff May Explore Ford Motor Co.’s Search and Collection Methodology

In Burd v. Ford Motor Company, Case No. 13-20976 (S.D. W.Va., July 8, 2015), Plaintiffs allege they sustained injuries in Defendant Ford’s vehicles due to unintended acceleration accidents. At a discovery conference, Plaintiffs questioned whether Defendant had conducted reasonable collections and searches of ESI in response to Plaintiffs’ document requests. Defendant asserted

No Spoliation Where Party Made Efforts to Retrieve and Produce Deleted Emails

In Gladue v. Saint Francis Medical Center, Case No. 1:13-DV-186-CEJ (E.D. Miss. March 24, 2015), the Eastern District of Missouri considered whether Defendant had engaged in spoliation of email communications. Defendant terminated Plaintiff from her employment in December 2011. As part of Defendant’s routine audit procedure, Defendant deleted Plaintiff’s emails in March

Court Permits Plaintiff a 30(b)(6) Deposition to Address Missing Emails and Instant Messages

In Stage v. Restoration Hardware, Inc. et al., Case No. 2:14-cv-077 (S.D. Ohio, Feb. 12, 2015), a sex discrimination case brought against Restoration Hardware and one of its supervisors, the Southern District of Ohio considered Plaintiff’s motion to compel Restoration Hardware to produce further responses to Plaintiff’s document requests, as well Plaintiff’s motion

Government Asserts Privileged Email Threads in eDiscovery Dispute

Is attorney-client privilege for email communications the same for government entities as it is for private litigants? The court reviews this eDiscovery dispute in Burkhead & Scott, Inc. v. City of Hopkinsville Solid Waste Authority, Case No. 5:12-CV-198-GNS (W.D.Ken. Dec. 19, 2014). The first set of email under scrutiny concerned whether

Does the Federal Circuit Model ESI Order Have a Different Approach for Email?

The Federal Circuit has a Model E-Discovery Order for patent infringement cases, which provides for a two-tier approach to electronically stored information (ESI). The first stage is for production of responsive non-email ESI, and the second stage is for email. To streamline the email process, parties are to agree to

Agreement on Native Productions Notwithstanding Disputes Regarding Deduplication, Metadata and PDF Sub-Files

In Williams v. Convival Corp, et al., Case No. 2:13-cv-02019-APG-PAL (D.Nev. December 5, 2014), the parties disagreed on an appropriate ESI Protocol Order and sought the court’s guidance. Plaintiff wanted the protocol to begin with a guidelines section that i) encouraged reasonable eDiscovery with the goal of limiting cost, burden and time; ii) required

Plaintiff Not Obligated To Produce ESI Maintained By Plaintiff’s eDiscovery Vendor

In Ablan v. Bank of America, Case No. 11 C 4493 (N.D.Ill. Nov. 24, 2014), Defendant sought discovery from Plaintiff regarding documents and data that third-party Tax Strategies Group (TSG) had produced in a related settled state court litigation. Plaintiff stated that it had disposed of the discovery TSG produced in the state court action, and