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Court Rejects Trend Requiring Threshold Showing for Plaintiff Social Media Accounts
As almost everyone is on social media sites, a common issue most plaintiffs will face in civil litigation is requests for production of information and electronic data regarding these sites. Not surprisingly, data from Facebook accounts, both the public and private portion, are commonly requested by defendants as part of
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Qui Tam Plaintiff Awarded $445,505 for ESI Costs
A common topic of interest as plaintiff eDiscovery law develops is what ESI costs and expenses can be shifted to a losing party. In the case U.S. ex rel. Becker v. Tools & Metals, Inc., Civ. No. 3:05-CV-0627-L (N.D.Tex. 2013), a qui tam plaintiff was awarded costs and expenses against
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Defendant Fails to Meet its Burden for Spoliation Allegations Against Plaintiff
All this week, our blog has been discussing the consequences of defendant’s failure to preserve evidence after a duty to preserve electronic data has been imposed. However, it is not always the defendant accused of spoliation. In the case Research Foundation of State University of New York v. Nektar Therapeutics,
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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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$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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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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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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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.
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Court Compels Google to Disclose How it Created the Universe
This title is a paraphrase of the basic question at the heart of an Order dated May 9, 2013 in Apple v. Samsung, Case No. 12-CV-0630-LHK(PSG)(N.D.Ca. 2013), where Apple had a dispute with third-party Google. Apple subpoenaed Google to provide electronic discovery under Fed. R. Civ. P. 45. (Non-parties may