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Court Refuses to Impose Sanctions Due to Lost Cell Phone
In Borrell v. Bloomsburg University, Civil Action No. 3:CV-12-2123 (M.D. Penn. June 8, 2015), in which a college student sued her former university for due process violations after the university expelled her for refusing to take a drug test, the Middle District of Pennsylvania considered whether to sanction Plaintiff after she lost her cell phone containing
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WA Appellate Court Affirms “Death Penalty” Sanctions For eDiscovery Violations
The Washington Court of Appeals considered whether a trial court violated Defendant’s due process rights when it entered a default judgment following Defendant’s willful and repeated violations of discovery orders in Crews v. Avco Corp., No. 707-56-6-1 (Wash. Ct. App. March 6, 2015). The underlying case arose from airplane crash. Plaintiff
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Court Holds FRCP Imposes No Duty to Meet and Confer Before Filing Motion for Discovery Sanctions
In True Health Chiropractic Inc. v. McKesson Corporation, et al., Case No. 13-cv-02219-HSG (DMR) (N.D. Cal. April 1, 2015), the Northern District of California court considered whether Plaintiffs needed to meet and confer with Defendants before filing a motion for sanctions regarding Defendants’ discovery failures. In this putative class action case, Plaintiffs alleged
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Attorney Personally Sanctioned After Claiming “There is No ESI”
In modern litigation, can a lawyer ever confidently state that “there is no ESI”? That contention, along with other gross discovery abuses and misrepresentations made to a federal district court, ultimately led the Northern District of Iowa in BFC Gas Company v. Gypsum Supply Co., No C-13-0081, N.D. Iowa (Jan. 5, 2015) to impose Rule 11 sanctions
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Court-ordered Disclosure of Metadata Uncovers Falsified Document
Metadata, a.k.a. the “data about data,” provides an extremely useful source of electronic discovery information, and new cases every day demonstrate that courts increasingly recognize its relevancy as evidence. In Tangible Value, LLC v. Town Sports International Holdings Inc., Civil Action No. 10-1453-MAS-TJB (D.N.J. November 19, 2014), the production of metadata irrevocably altered
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Defense Counsel Fined for Failing to Issue Timely Litigation Hold
Alter v. Rocky Point School Dist., No. 13-1100(JS)(AKT)(E.D.N.Y. Sept.30, 2014) is a workplace discrimination action. After discovery began, Plaintiff filed two motions to compel and a motion for sanctions against Defendants for failing to preserve electronic discovery and failing to issue a litigation hold of key players to the action.
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Are Emails Containing Search Term Keywords Automatically Discoverable?
Lewis v. Bay Industries, et al., Case No. 12-C-1204, (E.D.Wis. Sept. 30, 2014) is a case where the plaintiff alleged unlawful retaliation under state and federal law. Pending before the court is the employer’s (“Bay”) Motion for Summary Judgment and Lewis’ Motion for Sanctions under Rule 37. Lewis contended that
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Could Deleted Instant Messages (IMs) be a Basis for Spoliation?
Any form of electronic data that is relevant to a claim or defense is discoverable evidence; therefore, instant messages (also called IMs) can certainly be the basis of a spoliation allegation if they are deleted after a duty to preserve evidence is in place. Broadspring, Inc. v. Congoo, LLC, No.
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Does Failure to Issue a Litigation Hold Mean a Breach of the Duty to Not Suppress Evidence?
This week our blog has been reviewing the California Bar Association’s Formal Interim Opinion No. 11-0004. The last two posts reviewed the hypothetical scenario of an attorney who was not well-versed in ESI litigation and failed to consult with an electronic evidence expert. As a result, the attorney breached his
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Are Boilerplate Objections Sanctionable as Spoliation?
We recently posted a blog that asked the question: Do Modern Discovery Practices Border on Sanctionable Abuse? Moving from that question, we now look at the case of Fidelity National Title Insurance Company, et al., v. James C. Castle, et al., Case No. 11-CV-896 YGR (N.D. Cal. August 11, 2014),