Close
Enter your
text here

Electronic Discovery

eDiscovery Trends: Florida Supreme Court Adopts New eDiscovery Rule Amendments

As we discussed last October, the state of Florida has been working to adopt new rules regarding handling of eDiscovery.  Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court of Florida approved eDiscovery rule amendments that were proposed by the Florida Bar’s Civil Procedure Rules Standing Committee. The amendments to address Electronically Stored Information (ESI) generally follow the 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, are entirely contained within existing Rules 1.200, 1.201, 1.280, 1.340, 1.350, 1.380 and 1.410 of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure and went into effect this past Saturday, September 1.

Here is a summary of the rules changes related to eDiscovery and handling of ESI:

  • Rule 1.200 (Pretrial Procedure): Amended to allow the trial court to consider various issues (such as the possibility of obtaining admissions of fact, the voluntary exchange of documents and ESI, and stipulations regarding the authenticity of documents and ESI) related to eDiscovery during a pretrial conference.
  • Rule 1.201 (Complex Litigation): Amended to require the parties in a complex civil case to explore the possibility of reaching an agreement regarding preservation and the form of production of ESI prior to the start of discovery.
  • Rule 1.280 (General Provisions Governing Discovery): Amended to now expressly allow for the discovery of ESI.  The amendments also add a new subsection (d) which limits eDiscovery for ESI that is not reasonably accessible or overly burdensome or expensive and allows for the court to order the requesting party to bear some or all of the expenses of complying with the discovery request.
  • Rule 1.340 (Interrogatories to Parties): Amended to expressly allow for the production of electronically stored information as both an answer to an Interrogatory or Response to a Request to Produce (in the form in which it is ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably usable form).
  • Rule 1.350 (Production of Documents and Things and Entry Upon Land for Inspection of Other Purposes): Like Rule 1.340, it has been amended to expressly allow for the production of electronically stored information as both an answer to an Interrogatory or Response to a Request to Produce (in the form in which it is ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably usable form).
  • Rule 1.380 (Failure to Make Discovery; Sanctions): Amended to require that, absent exceptional circumstances, the court is not permitted to impose sanctions on a party for failing to provide ESI if it was lost as a result of the routine good faith operation of the electronic information system.
  • Rule 1.410 (Subpoena): Amended to allow ESI to be requested via subpoena.  Like Rule 1.280, it limits eDiscovery for ESI that is not reasonably accessible or overly burdensome or expensive and allows for the court to order the requesting party to bear some or all of the expenses of complying with the discovery request.

So, what do you think?  Where does your state stand in adopting rules for handling eDiscovery?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Case Law: Citing Rule 26(g), Court Orders Plaintiff’s Counsel to Disclose Search Strategy
 

Our 501st post on the blog addresses S2 Automation LLC v. Micron Technology, No. CIV 11-0884 JB/WDS, 2012 U.S. Dist. (D. New Mexico, Aug 9, 2012), where New Mexico District Judge James Browning ordered the plaintiff’s attorneys to disclose the search strategy their client used to identify responsive documents, based on Federal Rule 26(g) that requires attorneys to sign discovery responses and certify that they are “complete and correct.”

Motion to Compel

Last October, S2 Automation filed a Complaint against Micron Technology for breach of contract, conversion, misrepresentation and unjust enrichment.  After various objections to Micron’s requests for production by S2, Micron filed a Motion to Compel, indicating that S2 Automation “has utterly failed to meet its obligation to meaningfully respond to discovery in this matter” and requested, among other things that the court order S2 Automation to identify the search strategy it used to provide responsive documents to its requests for production.

A sworn declaration from one of Micron’s attorneys indicated that, during a discovery conference, it became apparent that S2′s counsel may not have worked with their client sufficiently during the discovery process and, as a result, may have failed to provide a number of responsive documents:

“During that call, we discussed the April 25 deficiency letter and Micron’s request that S2 supplement its production. Counsel for S2 stated that he had not yet reviewed the letter in detail. We then discussed the format for production of S2′s documents. Counsel stated that he was not aware that S2 had separated attachments from e-mails, that he had delegated the process of gathering documents to S2, and that he was generally unaware of the manner in which S2 had provided the documents. Counsel also stated that he was unsure what protocol S2 followed to locate responsive documents.”

S2’s Obligations under Federal Rule 26(g)

Micron asserted in its motion to compel that S2′s counsel violated their obligations under Federal Rule 26(g), stating “it is not proper for counsel to sit back and allow the client to search for documents without active direction and participation by counsel; to the contrary, counsel must be actively involved in the search to ensure that all responsive documents have been located, preserved, and produced.”  In response, S2′s attorneys denied that they had failed to supervise the discovery process, indicating that they had “met with the client on multiple occasions during the discovery process in order to organize and respond to discovery.”

Judge Browning’s Ruling

Noting that Rule 26(g) imposes an obligation on the attorney who signs the discovery response to conduct “a reasonable inquiry into the facts and law supporting the pleading”, Judge Browning stated:

“Accordingly, it can become necessary to evaluate whether an attorney complied with his rule 26(g) obligations and to evaluate the strategy an attorney used to provide responsive discovery, with relevant circumstances including: (i) “[t]he number and complexity of the issues”; (ii) “[t]he location, nature, number and availability of potentially relevant witnesses or documents”; (iii) “[t]he extent of past working relationships between the attorney and the client, particularly in related or similar litigation”; and (iv) “[t]he time available to conduct an investigation.” 6 J. Moore, Moore’s Federal Practice, § 26.154[2][a], at 26-615 (3d ed. 2012). Consequently, the analysis in which courts must engage to evaluate whether a party’s discovery responses were adequate is often a fact-intensive inquiry that requires evaluation of the procedures the producing party adopted during discovery.”

As a result, Judge Browning ruled that S2 Automation would have to provide to Micron “its search strategy for identifying pertinent documents, including the procedures it used and how it interacted with its counsel to facilitate the production process.”

So, what do you think?  Was the ruling appropriate?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

eDiscovery Daily will return with a new post on Tuesday after the Labor Day holiday.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Milestones: Our 500th Post!

One thing about being a daily blog is that the posts accumulate more quickly.  As a result, I’m happy to announce that today is our 500th post on eDiscoveryDaily!  In less than two years of existence!

When we launched on September 20, 2010, our goal was to be a daily resource for eDiscovery news and analysis and we have done our best to deliver on that goal.  During that time, we have published 144 posts on eDiscovery Case Law and have identified numerous cases related to Spoliation Claims and Sanctions.   We’ve covered every phase of the EDRM life cycle, including:

We’ve discussed key industry trends in Social Media Technology and Cloud Computing.  We’ve published a number of posts on eDiscovery best practices on topics ranging from Project Management to coordinating eDiscovery within Law Firm Departments to Searching and Outsourcing.  And, a lot more.  Every post we have published is still available on the site for your reference.

Comparing our first three months of existence with our most recent three months, we have seen traffic on our site grow an amazing 442%!  Our subscriber base has nearly doubled in the last year alone!

And, we have you to thank for that!  Thanks for making the eDiscoveryDaily blog a regular resource for your eDiscovery news and analysis!  We really appreciate the support!

I also want to extend a special thanks to Jane Gennarelli, who has provided some wonderful best practice post series on a variety of topics, ranging from project management to coordinating review teams to learning how to be a true eDiscovery consultant instead of an order taker.  Her contributions are always well received and appreciated by the readers – and also especially by me, since I get a day off!

We always end each post with a request: “Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.”  And, we mean it.  We want to cover the topics you want to hear about, so please let us know.

Tomorrow, we’ll be back with a new, original post.  In the meantime, feel free to click on any of the links above and peruse some of our 499 previous posts.  Maybe you missed some?  😉

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Trends: Charges Against Suspect Dismissed Partially Over Storage of Two Terabytes
 

Law Technology News had an interesting article regarding a DEA criminal case written by Ryan J. Foley (Two Terabytes Too Much Evidence for DEA).  Here’s the scenario.

Fugitive Miami doctor Armando Angulo was indicted in 2007 in a multimillion dollar scheme that involved selling prescription drugs to patients who were never examined or even interviewed by a physician.  He fled to his native Panama in 2004 after the Drug Enforcement Administration began its investigation of him.  While the US does have an extradition treaty with Panama, Panamanian authorities say they do not extradite their own citizens.

The case led to conviction of 26 defendants (including 19 doctors) and recovery of $7 million, but Angulo remains at large.  Information related to the case took up two terabytes of hard drive space – 5 percent of the DEA's worldwide electronic storage (which would mean the DEA only has 40 total terabytes worldwide?).  Other case information also included “several hundred boxes of paper containing 440,000 documents, plus dozens of computers, servers, and other bulky items.”

As a result, noting that “[c]ontinued storage of these materials is difficult and expensive”, Stephanie Rose, the U.S. attorney for northern Iowa, dropped the charges, calling the task "an economic and practical hardship".  U.S. District Judge Linda Reade dismissed the case with prejudice; therefore, it cannot be refiled.  However, Angulo is still wanted for separate Medicaid fraud and narcotics charges in Florida, so he’s not completely “off the hook” with regard to criminal investigations.

Does it seem unbelievable that the DEA is walking away from a case for which storage to support it could be purchased from Best Buy for less than $100?  It’s probably safe to assume that the requirements for storage of criminal evidence must meet certain requirements for security and chain of custody that makes the cost for two terabytes in the DEA server environment considerably more expensive than that.  In the LTN article, University of Iowa computer scientist Douglas Jones notes that it’s possible that the DEA’s server is small and needs replacement, but that doing so while maintaining integrity of the data may be costly and risky.

I have not worked for a government agency supporting prosecution of criminal cases, but I would imagine that records management and preservation requirements are at a completely different level than those of many organizations managing data to support their civil litigation docket.  Criminal cases can go on for years or even decades through appeals, so I would think it’s a unique challenge for these agencies.  So, it surprises me that the DEA only has 40 terabytes of storage worldwide.

So, what do you think?  Do you work for a government agency prosecuting criminal cases?  How does your organization handle records management and preservation?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Case Law: Apple Wins 1.05 Billion Dollar Verdict Against Samsung
 

Yes, that’s billion, with a “b”.

A jury of nine on Friday found that Samsung infringed all but one of the seven patents at issue in a high-stakes court battle between Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. The patent that they determined hadn’t infringed was a patent covering the physical design of the iPad. The jurors found all seven of Apple's patents valid—despite Samsung's attempts to have them thrown out. They also determined that Apple didn't violate any of the five patents Samsung asserted in the case.

Apple had been requesting $2.5 billion in damages.  While the award was much less than that, it was still larger than Samsung’s estimates and is among the largest intellectual-property awards on record.  Trial Judge Lucy Koh could also triple the damage award because the jury determined Samsung had acted willfully.

Interviewed after the trial, some of the jurors cited video testimony from Samsung executives and internal emails as key to the verdict.  Jury foreman Velvin Hogan indicated that video testimony from Samsung executives made it "absolutely" clear the infringement was done on purpose.  Another juror, Manuel Ilagan, said , "The e-mails that went back and forth from Samsung execs about the Apple features that they should incorporate into their devices was pretty damning to me."

The verdict was returned Friday afternoon after 22 hours of deliberation, despite the fact that the verdict form contained as many as 700 points the jury (including charges brought against different subsidiaries of the two companies addressing multiple patents and numerous products).

Role of Adverse Inference Sanction

As noted on this blog just a few days ago, Samsung received an adverse inference instruction from California Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal just prior to the start of trial as failure to turn “off” the auto-delete function in Samsung’s proprietary “mySingle” email system resulted in spoliation of evidence as potentially responsive emails were deleted after the duty to preserve began.  As a result, Judge Grewal ordered instructions to the jury to indicate that Samsung had failed to preserve evidence and that evidence could be presumed relevant and favorable to Apple.

However, after Samsung accused Apple to have also destroyed and tampered with evidence that could have benefited Samsung in the trial, Judge Lucy Koh decided to modify the “adverse inference” verdict issued for the jury to include instructions that Apple had also failed to preserve evidence.  Therefore, it appears as though the adverse inference instruction was neutralized and did not have a significant impact in the verdict; evidently, enough damning evidence was discovered that doomed Samsung in this case.

Samsung, of course, is expected to appeal.

So, what do you think?  Will this verdict impact discovery in future intellectual property cases?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Case Law: No Kleen Sweep for Technology Assisted Review
 

For much of the year, proponents of predictive coding and other technology assisted review (TAR) concepts have been pointing to three significant cases where the technology based approaches have either been approved or are seriously being considered.  Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe and Global Aerospace v. Landow Aviation are two of the cases, the third one is Kleen Products v. Packaging Corp. of America.  However, in the Kleen case, the parties have now reached an agreement to drop the TAR-based approach, at least for the first request for production.

Background and Debate Regarding Search Approach

On February 21, the plaintiffs asked Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan to require the producing parties to employ a technology assisted review approach (referred to as "content-based advanced analytics," or CBAA) in their production of documents for discovery purposes.

In their filing, the plaintiffs claimed that “[t]he large disparity between the effectiveness of [the computer-assisted coding] methodology and Boolean keyword search methodology demonstrates that Defendants cannot establish that their proposed [keyword] search methodology is reasonable and adequate as they are required.”  Citing studies conducted between 1994 and 2011 claimed to demonstrate the superiority of computer-assisted review over keyword approaches, the plaintiffs claimed that computer-assisted coding retrieved for production “70 percent (worst case) of responsive documents rather than no more than 24 percent (best case) for Defendants’ Boolean, keyword search.”

In their response, the defendants contended that the plaintiffs "provided no legitimate reason that this Court should deviate here from reliable, recognized, and established discovery practices" in favor of their "unproven" CBAA methods. The defendants also emphasized that they have "tested, independently validated, and implemented a search term methodology that is wholly consistent with the case law around the nation and that more than satisfies the ESI production guidelines endorsed by the Seventh Circuit and the Sedona Conference." Having (according to their briefing) already produced more than one million pages of documents using their search methods, the defendants conveyed outrage that the plaintiffs would ask the court to "establish a new and radically different ESI standard for cases in this District."

Stipulation and Order

After “a substantial number of written submissions and oral presentations to the Court” regarding the search technology issue, “in order to narrow the issues, the parties have reached an agreement that will obviate the need for additional evidentiary hearings on the issue of the technology to be used to search for documents responsive to the First Requests.”  That agreement was memorialized this week in the Stipulation and Order Relating to ESI Search (link to stipulation courtesy of Law.com).  As part of that agreement, the plaintiffs have withdrawn their demand that the defendants apply CBAA to the first production request (referred to in the stipulation as the “First Request Corpus”). 

As for productions beyond the First Request Corpus, the plaintiffs also agreed not to “argue or contend” that the defendants should be required to CBAA or “predictive coding” with respect to any requests for production served on any defendant prior to October 1, 2013.  As for requests for production served after October 1, 2013, it was agreed that the parties would “meet and confer regarding the appropriate search methodology to be used for such newly collected documents”, with the ability for either party to file a motion if they can’t agree.  So, there will be no TAR-based approach in the Kleen case, at least until next October.

So, what do you think?  Does this signal a difficulty in obtaining approval for TAR-based approaches?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Case Law: Pension Committee Precedent Takes One on the Chin
 

In Chin v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, No. 10-1904-cv(L), 2012 U.S. App. (2d Cir. July 10, 2012), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it was within a district court’s discretion not to impose sanctions against a party for its failure to institute a litigation hold.

In its ruling, the appellate court rejected “the notion that a failure to institute a ‘litigation hold’ [at the onset of litigation] constitutes gross negligence per se” and therefore automatically subjects a violating party to sanctions.

The defendant destroyed files in this employment discrimination case relating to its promotion process after a duty to preserve them had attached, but the Second Circuit declined to follow a bright line rule set forth by U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York in Pension Committee of the University of Montreal Pension Plan v. Banc of America Securities, LLC, which considered it to be grossly negligent for a party not to institute a litigation hold at the onset of discovery. The appeals court stated, “Rather, we agree that ‘the better approach is to consider [the failure to adopt good preservation practices] as one factor’ in the determination of whether discovery sanctions should issue.”

With regard to the factors a party must establish for an adverse inference instruction, the court noted:

“[A] party seeking an adverse inference instruction based on the destruction of evidence must establish (1) that the party having control over the evidence had an obligation to preserve it at the time it was destroyed; (2) that the records were destroyed with a culpable state of mind; and (3) that the destroyed evidence was relevant to the party's claim or defense such that a reasonable trier of fact could find that it would support that claim or defense.”

Standing by its own precedent in Residential Funding Corp. v. DeGeorge Financial Corp., the court held that the district court had not abused its discretion:

“[A] finding of gross negligence merely permits, rather than requires, a district court to give an adverse inference instruction…Even if we assume arguendo both that the Port Authority was grossly negligent and that the documents here were ‘relevant,’ we have repeatedly held that a “case-by-case approach to the failure to produce relevant evidence,” at the discretion of the district court, is appropriate. In this case, the district court concluded that an adverse inference instruction was inappropriate in light of the limited role of the destroyed folders in the promotion process and the plaintiffs’ ample evidence regarding their relative qualifications when compared with the officers who were actually promoted.”

So, what do you think?  Should either court have followed the precedent of Pension Committee or was the decision appropriate?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Case Summary Source: Applied Discovery (free subscription required).  For eDiscovery news and best practices, check out the Applied Discovery Blog here.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Trends: Cloud Computing – A Lot of Benefit for the Cost
 

An interesting article in The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel provides some useful, well-described benefits of cloud computing for eDiscovery (Cloud Computing And E-Discovery: Maximum Gain, Minimum Cost, written by Miró Cassetta).  The author provides some good analogies to explain the different cloud service models, differences between private and public clouds and the benefits of using a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application.  Let’s take a look.

As the author notes, the cloud uses three service models:

  1. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Provides virtualized physical hardware (computers, processing, storage and servers) accessible through the web (e.g., Amazon Web Services providing access to different types of virtualized servers).
  2. Platform as a Service (PaaS): In addition to the infrastructure, it provides a virtual toolkit to allow developers to create software (e.g., Facebook, which enables developers to create apps specific to the its site).
  3. Software as a Service (SaaS): On demand access to a specific application within the infrastructure and platform (e.g., OnDemand®, which happens to be CloudNine Discovery’s linear review application).  The SaaS model is the most common for organizations managing eDiscovery related data in the cloud.

The author uses the “concept of tenancy” to differentiate private clouds (single-tenant, typically used for a company’s internal work) and public clouds (multiple tenants (or clients) sharing space, like an apartment building).  If you’re using an outside provider for cloud services that has other clients, you’re likely using a public cloud.  With regard to security, the author notes the importance of ensuring that your SaaS provider has certain security measures in place and provides a list of questions at the end to ask the provider to understand more.  One of the questions, “How much of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) spectrum does the system encompass?”, should bear further investigation as those who claim end-to-end eDiscovery solutions may not necessarily provide it seamlessly.  On the other hand, if you’re looking for specific EDRM coverage (e.g., a collection or review tool), coverage of those specific components may be all you need.

The author also lists several benefits of the SaaS model, including:

  • Access Anytime, Anywhere: One of the biggest benefits is the ability to access whenever and share with whomever you want.  This supports outside counsel teams in multiple locations, or even sharing with co-counsel firms or experts.
  • Efficient Resource Use: Pooling of resources (storage, memory and network) for multiple clients by the cloud provider yields economies of scale that makes it more affordable and more scalable for all.
  • Accommodation at a Moment’s Notice: SaaS providers are always supporting needs for clients to add data or users, so the process is (or at least should be) seamless.
  • Quick Start-Up: Imagine not having to purchase hardware or software or other infrastructure to get a software application up and running.  SaaS providers already have that in place, they just need to sign you up and get going.  Have you ever set up a Facebook account or used SalesForce.com?  It’s that easy.
  • Transparent Billing: Because SaaS services are billed monthly, the costs are more predictable than the costs associated with in-house solutions.  It’s also a true “pay as you go” model, which means you only pay for what you need, for as long as you need it.
  • Team of Experts: Expertise is expensive.  Just like hardware and software resources, expertise provided by the SaaS provider (necessary to provide great client service and support both day-to-day operations and periodic software and hardware updates) can be pooled among its clients, making it more economical for all.

A link to the article appears at the top of this post.

So, what do you think?  Do you use any SaaS solutions for eDiscovery?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Best Practices: For Successful Predictive Coding, Start Randomly
 

Predictive coding is the hot eDiscovery topic of 2012, with three significant cases (Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe, Global Aerospace v. Landow Aviation and Kleen Products v. Packaging Corp. of America) either approving or considering the use of predictive coding for eDiscovery.  So, how should your organization begin when preparing a collection for predictive coding discovery?  For best results, start randomly.

If that statement seems odd, let me explain. 

Predictive coding is the use of machine learning technologies to categorize an entire collection of documents as responsive or non-responsive, based on human review of only a subset of the document collection.  That subset of the collection is often referred to as the “seed” set of documents.  How the seed set of documents is derived is important to the success of the predictive coding effort.

Random Sampling, It’s Not Just for Searching

When we ran our series of posts (available here, here and here) that discussed the best practices for random sampling to test search results, it’s important to note that searching is not the only eDiscovery activity where sampling a set of documents is a good practice.  It’s also a vitally important step for deriving that seed set of documents upon which the predictive coding software learning decisions will be made.  As is the case with any random sampling methodology, you have to begin by determining the appropriate sample size to represent the collection, based on your desired confidence level and an acceptable margin of error (as noted here).  To ensure that the sample is a proper representative sample of the collection, you must ensure that the sample is performed from the entire collection to be predictively coded.

Given the debate in the above cases regarding the acceptability of the proposed predictive coding approaches (especially Da Silva Moore), it’s important to be prepared to defend your predictive coding approach and conducting a random sample to generate the seed documents is a key step to defensibility of that approach.

Then, once the sample is generated, the next key to success is the use of a subject matter expert (SME) to make responsiveness determinations.  And, it’s important to conduct a sample (there’s that word again!) of the result set after the predictive coding process to determine whether the process achieved a sufficient quality in automatically coding the remainder of the collection.

So, what do you think?  Do you start your predictive coding efforts “randomly”?  You should.  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

eDiscovery Case Law: More Sanctions for Fry’s Electronics
 

In E.E.O.C. v Fry’s Electronics, Inc., No. C10-1562RSL, 2012 U.S. Dist. (W.D. Wash. July 3, 2012), Washington District Judge Robert S. Lasnik ordered several sanctions against the defendant in this sexual harassment case (including ordering the defendant to pay $100,000 in monetary sanctions and ordering that certain evidence be considered presumptively admissible at trial), but stopped short of entering a default judgment against the defendant.  This ruling came after having previously ordered sanctions against the defendant less than two months earlier.

Prior Sanctions

On May 10, Judge Lasnik granted in part plaintiffs' motion for sanctions in this case, finding that the defendant had spoliated evidence, including data and computer hard drives. In that ruling, Judge Lasnik believed that the prejudicial effect of the spoliation could be counteracted by “(a) instructing the jury that one of the justifications for firing [one of the plaintiffs] was pretextual and (b) allowing plaintiff considerable leeway in arguing what information might have been gleaned from the computer hard drives had they not been destroyed by defendant”. At the time, Judge Lasnik also indicated “some concern regarding the efficacy and thoroughness of defendant's searches” which led to more information being discovered after he ordered a second search.

Additional Spoliation and Misconduct

During a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition held on May 30, the plaintiffs learned for the first time that the accused individual had previously been accused of sexual harassment in 2001 and that an investigation had been conducted. According to Judge Lasnik, the defendant “intentionally withheld this information and the related documents from discovery by raising unfounded objections and ‘negotiating’ a narrowing of the discovery requests” and found the defendant's conduct to be “unfair, unwarranted, unprincipled, and unacceptable”.

Misconduct by the defendants noted by Judge Lasnik also included the redaction of responsive information, “[e]ven after defendant's objections to certain discovery requests were overruled”, as well as production of hundreds of pages of information with the “fallacious argument” that they were relevant to the claims.

Consideration of Default Judgment Sanction

Judge Lasnik noted that it is “once again left to determine whether to strike defendant's answer and enter default judgment against it”, but noted that dismissal is a “harsh sanction” and the following factors must be considered when determining “whether a dispositive sanction is appropriate under either its inherent powers or Rule 37(b): (1) the public's interest in the expeditious resolution of litigation; (2) the Court's need to manage its docket efficiently and effectively; (3) the risk of prejudice to the party seeking sanctions; (4) the public policy in favor of considering cases on the merits; and (5) the availability of less drastic sanctions.”  While finding that the first three factors supported a dispositive sanction, Judge Lasnik ruled against a dispositive sanction in factor 4, indicating that “[t]he public has an interest in a determination of those issues based on the facts, rather than by judicial fiat”.

Lesser Sanctions Ordered

Instead, Judge Lasnik ordered lesser sanctions, indicating that “Defendant's affirmative defenses related to (i) its efforts to prevent and correct harassment in the workplace, (ii) plaintiffs' failure to utilize protective and corrective opportunities provided by defendant, (iii) its good faith and/or privilege to act as it did in this case are STRICKEN.” He also stated that certain documents and testimony related to “other complaints or reports of sexual harassment” at the company were “presumptively admissible at trial”. He also ordered sanctions of $100,000 “to offset the excess costs caused by defendant’s discovery violations, to punish unacceptable behavior, and as a deterrent to future bad conduct” to be split evenly between the two individual plaintiffs, the EEOC and the Court Clerk.

So, what do you think?  Are you surprised that the defendant didn’t receive a default judgment sanction?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine Discovery. eDiscoveryDaily is made available by CloudNine Discovery solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscoveryDaily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.