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Social Media Disclosure in Plaintiff ESI Production Requires Threshold Showing by Defendant
One new area of plaintiff electronic discovery that is often contentious is the request for access to personal social media accounts. Defendants are now commonly requesting total access to plaintiffs’ Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other accounts as part of eDiscovery. Many plaintiffs understandably object to this, typically alleging the requests
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Are Plaintiff Email Threads Protected by the Marital Communications Privilege?
While our blog typically focuses on plaintiff eDiscovery in class action lawsuits and MDL, in some instances, criminal courts also address electronic discovery issues that overlap into the civil realm. This is the case in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals case United States v. Hamilton, No, 11-4878 (Dec. 13,
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Counting Down the Top Plaintiff eDiscovery Cases of 2012
It has been an interesting year for plaintiff eDiscovery experts who monitor new developments in electronic discovery law throughout the country. While some of these cases are good for plaintiffs and others less so, in each situation, additional legal issues arise as modern eDiscovery jurisprudence continues to evolve. Top 2012
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Reviewing the Top 5 Plaintiff eDiscovery Cases of 2012
Our blog discusses the latest cases (good and bad) that affect plaintiff trial attorneys every week, and the following is our Top 5 Plaintiff eDiscovery cases of 2012: 5. Race Tires America, Inc. LLC v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp. (Race Tires II), No. 11-2316, 2012 WL 887593 (3d Cir. Mar.
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Sweeping Plaintiff eDiscovery Ordered for Social Media Accounts in Class Action Lawsuit
Courts have struggled to strike the proper balance between discoverable information and the invasions of privacy rights of plaintiffs with social media accounts. While the general rule of thumb is for defendants to make a threshold showing of relevancy before private information is ordered produced, a federal court in Colorado recently
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Social Media Requests Without “Reasonable Particularity” Struck
The case of Howell v. Buckeye Ranch, Inc., No. 2:11-cv-01014-GLF-MRA (S.D.Ohio Oct.1, 2012) involved an employment discrimination claim based on sexual harassment. As is the case in many sexual harassment cases of late, defendants sought expansive discovery including all of the plaintiff’s user names and passwords for each of her
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Court Takes Step Back from Overbroad Social Media eDiscovery Requests in Favor of Plaintiff
In Mailhoit v. Home Depot U.S.A., 2012 WL 3939063 (C.D. Cal.), plaintiff filed an employment discrimination against the home improvement store, alleging to have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and isolation due to the defendant’s wrongdoing. Defendant Home Depot argued that plaintiff’s postings on social networking sites (“SNS”) were likely
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The Scope of Social Media in Plaintiff ESI Production
Litigants and courts struggle to define the scope of electronic data discovery, as well as the logistics of how to physically produce the electronically stored information. The newest scope and logistical challenges for ESI now lies in social media content. In EEOC v. Simply Storage Management, LLC Case No. 1:09-cv-1223-WTL-DML
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Does the Future of Plaintiff ESI Production Include Facebook?
A Pennsylvania judge recently issued an expansive ruling about electronically stored information (ESI) and the growing trend for defendants to request plaintiffs’ Facebook passwords in the case of Trail v. Lesko, No. GD-10-017249 (C.P. Alleg. Co. July 3, 2012 Wettick, J). The court looked at numerous Pennsylvania cases with eDiscovery