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Defendants Claim of Lightning Strike and Power Surge Doesn’t Save Them from Sanctions: eDiscovery Case Law

In a recent post in Craig Ball’s excellent blog, Ball in your Court, Craig stated that “you are more likely to be hit by lightning than to be sanctioned for non-preservation of ESI”.  So, if you claim that your devices are hit by lightning, causing your relevant ESI to be lost, does that make it more or less likely that you will be sanctioned?  :o)

In InternMatch, Inc. v. Nxtbigthing, LLC, et. al., No. 14-05438 (N.D. Cali., Feb. 8, 2016), California District Judge Jon S. Tigar, finding that the defendants “consciously disregarded their obligations to preserve relevant evidence” when they discarded various electronic devices after experiencing an alleged power surge without checking to see if they could recover any files from them, granting an adverse inference instruction sanction and plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees.

Case Background

In this trademark infringement case, the plaintiff requested copies of any documents, including electronic documents, relating to the defendants’ defense that it had continually and extensively used the disputed trademark. The defendants responded (and the owner of the defendant company (Chad Batterman) stated in his deposition) that a lightning strike in 2011 and a power surge in April 2015 had destroyed responsive documents, including corporate records central to the parties’ dispute and marketing materials that allegedly established prior use of the trademark.

in November 2015, the plaintiff filed a motion for terminating sanctions, accusing Defendants of intentionally destroying the electronic versions of the documents.

Judge’s Ruling

Using the newly amended FRCP Rule 37(e) as a guideline, Judge Tigar also considered the five factors identified by the Ninth Circuit in determining whether the terminating sanction is justified:

(1) the public’s interest in expeditious resolution of litigation; (2) the court’s need to manage its dockets; (3) the risk of prejudice to the party seeking sanctions; (4) the public policy favoring disposition of cases on their merits; and (5) the availability of less drastic sanctions.

With regard to the defendant’s duty to preserve and whether that duty was upheld, Judge Tigar found “that at least by January 2015, Defendants knew about the present action and were under a duty to preserve relevant evidence.  The evidence shows that Defendants violated this duty…Prior to discarding the desktop, Batterman did not make any effort to determine whether the hard drive on the desktop was salvageable or any data could be recovered from it…As a result, the parties can only access the few existing paper copies of the relevant documents, rather than the electronic files, which would include valuable information such as the creation and modification history of the files.”

Continuing, Judge Tigar stated: “The Court finds that at the very least, Defendants consciously disregarded their obligations to preserve relevant evidence. There is no evidence that Defendants took any steps to preserve relevant information after the litigation began…After the alleged power surge, Defendants failed to identify whether data from the electronic devices might be recoverable, and instead simply discarded the devices.

The Court also finds Defendants’ evidence that the surge occurred in the first place to be unbelievable. Not only is the alleged chronology of events highly improbable, but Defendants’ story is filled with inconsistencies. The Court does not know what actually happened to the missing evidence, if it ever existed, but concludes that Defendants have failed to show that it was lost in a power surge.”

While finding that sanctions were warranted, Judge Tigar concluded “that sanctions short of entry of default are appropriate” and granted the plaintiff’s request for an adverse inference instruction sanction, as well as attorneys’ fees associated with bringing the Motion for Terminating Sanctions.

So, what do you think?  Should the termination sanction have been awarded?  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. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Ex-Employee Sues Volkswagen Claiming He Was Fired for Refusing to Spoliate Documents: eDiscovery Trends

The troubles for Volkswagen continue into the electronic discovery arena.  According to the Courthouse News Service, an ex-employee of the company has filed suit, claiming that he was fired for refusing to take part in an alleged three-day purge of documents related to the automaker’s emissions-cheating scandal known as “Dieselgate”.

According to the article, Daniel Donovan (who worked in the Volkswagen Group of America’s Office of General Counsel as its Electronic Discovery Manager) says he had seven years under his belt at VW in Sept. 18, 2015, when the Environmental Protection Agency forced a recall of cars it found had been outfitted with “defeat-device” software that had been hoodwinking emissions inspectors for years.

Though the EPA’s case necessitated a legal hold on Volkswagen’s data, Donovan claimed in his March 8 lawsuit that VW’s “information technology department did not stop all deletion jobs until Sept. 21” (which was three days after they should have stopped).  Donovan also alleged that the company’s IT department was adamant about limiting access to Volkswagen data for the accounting firm conducting the independent investigation and knew it was violating the Justice Department hold by not preserving back-up disks.

Worried about “significant legal sanctions” Volkswagen could see for evidence spoliation and obstruction of justice, Donovan refused to take part in such actions and reported his concerns to a supervisor, according to the complaint.  “Donovan also asserts that he was fired because VWGoA [short for Volkswagen Group of America] believed that Donovan was about to report the spoliation of evidence and obstruction of justice to the EPA and/or the United States Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or some other public body,” the complaint states.

Volkswagen told the Associated Press that Donovan’s claim of wrongful termination is without merit, claiming that his departure from the company was unrelated to the emissions scandal.

Facing penalties of up to $37,500 per day for Clean Air Act violations, Volkswagen is expected to face billions of dollars in fines.  The scandal, now widely known as “Dieselgate”, also led to the resignation of CEO Martin Winterkorn, hundreds of federal class actions consolidated in San Francisco, plus multiple investigations and congressional hearings.

So, what do you think?  Could Volkswagen have fired its Electronic Discovery Manager because he was “far from purgin”? (sorry, I couldn’t resist)  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. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Plaintiff’s Failure to Demonstrate Allegations Leads to Summary Judgment for Defendant: eDiscovery Case Law

In Malibu Media, LLC v. Doe, Case No. 13-6312 (N.D. Ill., Feb. 8, 2016), in a case of dueling summary judgment motions, Illinois Magistrate Judge Geraldine Soat Brown denied the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment, but granted the defendant’s summary motion in its entirety, concluding that the plaintiff had not presented sufficient evidence to prove its allegations of illegally downloading movies.

Case Background

The plaintiff alleged that the defendant, identified through his Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, downloaded its copyrighted work, specifically, twenty-four adult movies from the plaintiff’s site, using BitTorrent.  In this matter, the defendant was allowed to proceed anonymously as “John Doe.”  With regard to the identification of the defendant via the IP address, the defendant claimed that, during the time in question, he had many guests at his house, and any number of people could have downloaded from his IP.

In a forensic examination of the defendant’s hard drives from his computer, the plaintiff’s expert did not find any evidence that the plaintiff’s copyrighted works, or the BitTorrent software, had been on the defendant’s computer.  However, he did find evidence that one external storage device and one internal hard drive that were capable of storing files downloaded via BitTorrent had been connected to the defendant’s computer, but they had not been produced by the defendant.  He also found several virtual machines on one of the defendant’s hard drives, but not the program “VMWare” he believed was used to create them.

The defendant retained his own expert to conduct a forensic examination of his hard drive.  The defendant expert also concluded that there was no evidence that the plaintiff’s copyrighted works, or the BitTorrent software, had been on the defendant’s computer.  With regard to the two devices identified by the plaintiff’s expert, the defendant’s expert determined that they were last used in 2012 (which was before the infringement period and before the date the plaintiff says the works at issue were created) and the virtual machines were last used no more recently than September 2010, which was the expiration timeframe for the one-year student license for VMWare that the defendant would have received as a graduate student.  The defendant also moved to strike declarations from plaintiff’s experts regarding the forensic and IP evidence, as the plaintiff never served any Rule 26(a)(2) disclosure – in response, the plaintiff characterized them as “lay witnesses — not experts”.

The plaintiff and defendant filed cross-motions for summary judgment in the case.

Judge’s Ruling

Stating that “[u]nlike other cases, Malibu has no evidence that any of its works were ever on Doe’s computer or storage device”, Judge Brown denied the plaintiff’s summary judgment motion, as follows:

“Considering all of Malibu’s evidence, including the Fieser, Patzer, and Paige declarations Doe has moved to strike, in the light most favorable to Doe, Malibu’s summary judgment motion must be denied. Even if those contested declarations are considered, Malibu has not eliminated all material questions of fact about whether there was actionable infringement and, if so, whether Doe was the infringer.”

With regard to the defendant’s motion to strike declarations from plaintiff’s experts, Judge Brown granted the motion pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2) and 37(c)(1).  As a result, Judge Brown ruled “[w]ithout the evidence of Fieser’s and Patzer’s declarations, there is no evidence linking Doe or even his IP address to Malibu’s works. Paige’s evidence, which depends entirely on the finding of IPP using Excipio’s system, does not contain any evidence based on his personal knowledge that Doe copied or distributed any of Malibu’s works. Doe’s motion for summary judgment is, accordingly, granted.”

So, what do you think?  Should the defendant’s summary judgment motion have been granted?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Here are links to two previous cases we have covered regarding this plaintiff.

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

Craig Ball of Craig D. Ball, P.C.: eDiscovery Trends

This is the fifth of the 2016 LegalTech New York (LTNY) Thought Leader Interview series.  eDiscovery Daily interviewed several thought leaders at LTNY this year to get their observations regarding trends at the show and generally within the eDiscovery industry.  Unlike previous years, some of the questions posed to each thought leader were tailored to their position in the industry, so we have dispensed with the standard questions we normally ask all thought leaders.

Today’s thought leader is Craig Ball.  A frequent court appointed special master in electronic evidence, Craig is a prolific contributor to continuing legal and professional education programs in the United States and abroad, having delivered over 1,700 presentations and papers.  Craig’s articles on forensic technology and electronic discovery frequently appear in the national media and he teaches E-Discovery and Digital Evidence at the University of Texas School of Law.  He currently blogs on eDiscovery topics at ballinyourcourt.com.

What are your general observations emerging eDiscovery trends for 2016?

{Interviewed Craig after LTNY, as he did not make it to the show this year}

I skipped LegalTech this year – first time in twenty years – because Mardi Gras was early this year, I chose the circus on the Mississippi over the one on the Hudson.  Still, I got lots of feedback from those who attended LTNY while I was catching beads at 29 parades.  I wanted to see if I’d missed anything of note.  The only trend that emerged was lack of change in the focus of the show.  LTNY is still dominated by electronic discovery as it has been for almost a decade; but, there are continued signs of consolidation within the industry as organizations fold into one another.

Not surprisingly, we don’t see outright failure in this space.  Companies don’t disappear, but instead reach a point where whatever is left is absorbed by a national brand for its equipment or core technology.  So, we’ve seen steady consolidation within the industry, and that trend continues.  As the broader economy goes, so goes litigation and discovery.

Another trend that I’ve observed is an increased focus on eDiscovery automation and considerable growth of, and investment in, eDiscovery automation providers.  What are your thoughts about that trend?

The term “automation” has gotten some play lately.  I’m trying to figure out what each usage means because it’s still in the buzzword phase as marketers deploy the term in the never-ending struggle to differentiate their products. Automated workflows are key to Cloud SaaS offerings.  Hosted systems must be capable of programmatic routines to ingest and process data, effecting ready hand-off of data across processing and review.    An automated SaaS offering should be sufficiently autonomous to facilitate workflow across multiple stages of the EDRM with little manual intervention.

Assuming “automation” means  we can put something into the hopper and it will emerge ready for review or production in forms we were expecting, then automation is a necessary precursor to growth and cost effectiveness in hosted products.  That’s positive for consumers if it means price reductions and commoditization of features of electronic discovery.  It may not be so great for the vendor community unless they can scale up the volume.

In the case Nuvasive v. Madsen Medical, the Court recently vacated an adverse inference instruction sanction previously applied against the plaintiff because of the amendment to Rule 37(e).  Do you see that as a trend for other cases and do you expect that other parties that have been sanctioned will file motions to have their sanctions re-considered?

I don’t think it signals a trend. There are relatively few cases that fall into the transition point.  I don’t expect to see a rash of sanctions being reconsidered by virtue of the latest amendments.

Nuvasive is interesting because it goes to the issue of whether it’s fundamentally fair to impose the new Rules retroactively.  The Rules speak to that issue and make it clear that they can be applied retroactively as long as they operate fairly.  The amendments to the Rules make clear that serious sanctions (such as adverse inference instructions) require proof of an intent to deprive a discovering party of the particular information.  Nuvasive involved serious sanctions, so I can see why the Court might want to weigh amended Rule 37(e).  Still, I’m not sure why the parties and the Court failed to anticipate the Rule changes, as the amendment process was pretty far along in July 2015, when sanctions were imposed.  The tenor of the Court’s opinion in reversing himself was that it was just ‘bad luck’ that the amended rules kicked in when they did.

I think that we will see judicial action once termed “sanctions” couched in less-loaded terms.  After Rule 37(e), Courts will distinguish punitive responses from remedial actions designed to rectify unwarranted failure to preserve relevant information. New Rule 37(e) won’t tie the hands of jurists determined to rectify discovery abuse.  We’re already seeing push back from jurists unwilling to surrender discretionary authority when the facts demand fairness.   As well, we’ve seen at least one case where the Court reversed himself, citing 37(e) as the basis for reconsideration.  As is apparent in Nuvasive and in Judge Francis’ recent order in Cat 3, the Rules are tools, and they can be turned this way and that in determined hands.

Sanctions aren’t going away, and that’s a good thing.  We are mired in the last century when it comes to discovery.  Lawyers need direction, and sanctions opinions supply guidance.  There is little in the way of a “carrot” for eDiscovery – all we have is the “stick.”  If courts fail to sanction incompetence and abuse, then lawyers won’t pursue competence, and parties will continue to “twiddle their thumbs” until evidence disappears.  Few lawyers maliciously hide damaging evidence; but, they’re expert at rationalizing it away or, in the case of e-discovery, content to let their ignorance serve as their armor.  “What you don’t know, can’t hurt me,” is their credo.

What are you working on that you’d like our readers to know about?

I’m going back to basics.  Last year was about trying to develop a core curriculum and re-engineer my teaching to make it an engaging foundation in information technology for lawyers.  I hope 2016 will bring an increased ability to push out more information and reach more people.  I’m doing a project for the DC Bar where I will be providing evening CLE programs by live semi-weekly webcasts.  Small groups of motivated people are my sweet spot.  As always, I’m looking forward to this year’s Georgetown University Law School eDiscovery Training Academy, during the first full week in June.  Both the faculty and the students are delightful.  I’ve come to recognize that anyone willing to work at it can learn the technology they need to be formidable in e-discovery in just three solid days.  That’s less time than most of us spend at Starbucks each year.

I’m using the California ethics decision (which we covered here when it was still a Proposed Opinion) as a jumping off point for the concept of core competencies for lawyers.  As you know, the State Bar of California issued an advisory opinion last year identifying nine areas in which lawyers must either be competent in order to accept a case involving eDiscovery or must associate competent counsel or decline representation. That courageous opinion serves as an effective touchstone for talking to lawyers– not just in California, but all over– about the skills they must embrace to be competent to accept a case involving eDiscovery.

There are virtually no cases without electronic evidence, only cases where the lawyers choose to ignore it.  And there is so much more coming!  Never in history have advocates had so much powerful evidence at their disposal, and never have they been so content to look away.  Three days per advocate could change all that—a long weekend.  But, finding the time is only half the battle.  The other half is finding the course that doesn’t give short shrift to the “e” in e-discovery.

Candidly, 2016 is also about taking some time for me.  I’ve been doing 50 to 70 presentations a year for twenty years.  I average about four flights a week; so, I’m hoping to cut all that down by half.  I’m saying “no” more and stopping to smell the roses.  That’s why I’ve gotten a second home in New Orleans, and will spend more time reading, thinking and working on fewer projects with greater focus.  Every teacher needs a sabbatical, right?

Thanks, Craig, for participating in the interview!

And to the readers, as always, 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. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine 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.

Our Nation’s Largest City is Not Immune to eDiscovery Sanctions: eDiscovery Case Law

In Stinson v. City of New York, 10 Civ. 4228 (RWS) (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 2, 2016), New York District Judge Robert W. Sweet granted in part and denied in part the plaintiffs’ motion seeking sanctions for spoliation of evidence against the defendants for failure to issue a litigation hold, opting for a permissive inference rather than a mandatory adverse inference sanction against the defendants.

Case Background

In this civil rights class action against the City of New York, it was determined that the City did not issue any litigation hold until August 8, 2013, more than three years after the filing of the Complaint in this case and the litigation hold was not effectively communicated, and none of the officers who were named in the City’s initial disclosures acknowledged receiving it.

At the time of the litigation hold, the document destruction processes at the NYPD were governed by Operations Order 44, which specified the length of time the Department would be required to retain various categories of documents.  Order 44 authorized the destruction of most bureau chief memos after three years, police officers’ monthly performance reports after four years, and criminal court summonses after four years.  With regard to emails, the City’s 30(b)(6) witness stated that “although the NYPD did not have a specific policy with regards to the destruction of email communications, it did impose a hard size limit on officers’ inboxes, and that when officers hit that limit, ‘they delete.’”  The City also did not dispute that it had not made any effort to preserve or produce text messages between NYPD officers.

With regard to the defendants’ production, the Court noted that they produced fewer than 25 emails from key players, with no emails produced from the former Commissioner, the former Chief of the department, and three other key custodians. The defendants explained the lack of email production by contending that the “Police Department on the whole did not operate via email”, but that contention was countered by email communications with the city that the plaintiffs acquired from third parties.

Judge’s Ruling

Citing Chin v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Judge Sweet stated that:

“In order to merit an adverse inference, the party seeking sanctions 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.”

  • With regard to the defendants’ obligation, Judge Sweet rejected the defendants’ argument that the plaintiffs’ preservation requests were overbroad, stating “Plaintiffs’ putative overbroad demands do not excuse the City’s failure to issue a litigation hold, to properly supervise its implementation, or to suspend document retention policies that would foreseeably lead to the spoliation of evidence.”
  • With regard to the defendants’ culpable state of mind, Judge Sweet stated that “the City’s conduct shows a broad failure to take its preservation obligations seriously rather than any deliberate attempt to lie or mislead”, but noted that the “City’s conduct does, however, support a finding of gross negligence”.
  • With regard to the relevance of the destroyed documents, Judge Sweet determined that the “evidence adduced thus far indicates that at least some of the destroyed documents will be relevant to the Plaintiffs’ claims”, though he did note that the showing of relevance by the plaintiffs was “relatively limited”.

As sanctions for the defendants’ spoliation, the plaintiffs requested a set of sixteen adverse inferences touching on almost every aspect of their case, but Judge Sweet opted for a lesser level of sanctions, stating:

“Given the City’s lack of bad faith in its spoliation of evidence and the relatively limited showing of relevance made by the Plaintiffs, a permissive, rather than a mandatory adverse inference is warranted…A permissive inference will ensure that the City faces consequences for its failure to take its preservation obligations seriously, but will not result in an unwarranted windfall for the Plaintiffs. The jury will be instructed that the absence of documentary evidence does not in this case establish the absence of a summons quota policy.”

So, what do you think?  Was that a sufficient sanction for the defendants’ “gross negligence” in failing to issue a litigation hold?  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. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Alteration of Domain in Produced Emails Leads to Sanctions for Plaintiffs: eDiscovery Case Law

In CAT3, LLC v. Black Lineage, Inc., No. 14 Civ. 5511 (AT) (JCF) (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 12, 2016), New York Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV, ruling that emails produced by the plaintiffs were “intentionally altered”, ordered that the plaintiffs would be precluded from relying on their version of those emails to demonstrate their case and that the plaintiffs would bear the “costs, including reasonable attorney’s fees, incurred by the defendants in establishing the plaintiffs’ misconduct and in securing relief.”

Case Background

One of the key issues in this case regarding trademark infringement regarded similarity between the plaintiffs’ and defendants’ trademarks and whether the defendants developed their trademark (FLASHXHYPE) mark independently or after learning of the plaintiffs’ development of their trademark (SLAMXHYPE).  In a deposition of the defendant company’s president, communication between the defendant and plaintiff companies was provided (which had been produced as PDF images) that showed the plaintiffs’ employee’s address as having the email domain “@slamxhype.com.”  However, on cross examination, the deponent testified that the email he received was identical, except that it showed the plaintiffs’ employee’s address with the email domain “@ecko.com.”

The defendants’ counsel then sought to explore the discrepancy, and in May 2015, they demanded production of the plaintiffs’ emails in native form.  The plaintiffs did not initially respond and, ultimately, their attorneys withdrew and were replaced by new counsel.  In July 2015, the Court ordered the plaintiffs to comply with the defendants’ request and the plaintiffs produced a USB drive containing a PST file, a zip file, and several separate PDFs of relevant emails.

The defendants subjected that production to a forensic analysis which determined that there were two versions of each email message: a “top” level version and, behind each email message, a “near-duplicate copy of the message containing the identical message,” but with different email domains appearing for a number of the senders and recipients.  The underlying near-duplicate versions were the original emails, which had been deleted, albeit not without leaving a digital imprint.

Relying largely on the forensic analysis, the defendants then moved for sanctions consisting of some combination of dismissal of the complaint, imposition of an adverse inference, an order of preclusion, and assessment of attorneys’ fees and costs.

Judge’s Ruling

In considering the application of the amended Rule 37(e) to the situation, Judge Francis determined that “because the amendment is in some respects more lenient as to the sanctions that can be imposed for violation of the preservation obligation, there is no inequity in applying it.”

With regard to the plaintiffs’ claim that “there has been no destruction or loss of any evidence, and there certainly has not been both (i) loss of evidence AND (ii) “such evidence cannot be restored or replaced” as required by Rule 37, Judge Francis, citing Victor Stanley (the first case ever covered by this blog), stated “the plaintiffs argue that even if they are the ‘gang that couldn’t spoliate straight,’ they cannot be sanctioned because their misdeeds were discovered and the information recovered. They are incorrect.”  Elaborating, Judge Francis said that “it cannot be said that the information lost has been ‘restored or replaced’”, noting that “as the plaintiffs themselves suggest, the fact that there are near-duplicate emails showing different addresses casts doubt on the authenticity of both”.

Regarding the plaintiffs’ contention that the manipulation of the emails was unintentional and possibly due to the migration of the plaintiffs’ emails from one system to another, Judge Francis refuted that notion, stating that the “evidence supports the defendants’ allegation that the plaintiffs intentionally altered the emails at issue”.

With regard to relief, Judge Francis, while considering dismissal of the action or imposition of an adverse inference as possible sanctions, stated “such drastic sanctions are not mandatory”.  Therefore, he ordered a “two-fold remedy”, ordering that the plaintiffs would be “precluded from relying upon their version of the emails at issue to demonstrate notice to the defendants of use of the SLAMXHYPE mark” and that the plaintiffs would bear the “costs, including reasonable attorney’s fees, incurred by the defendants in establishing the plaintiffs’ misconduct and in securing relief.”

So, what do you think?  Were those sanctions warranted?  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. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Would eDiscovery Have Identified the Correct Murderer in “Making a Murderer”?: eDiscovery Best Practices

The recently released Netflix documentary Making a Murderer has made a huge splash with hundreds of thousands of viewers (including me) having watched the 10 part documentary that was released last month. Debate has raged over whether Steven Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, were wrongly convicted of murdering photographer Teresa Halbach.  Interestingly enough, some possibly deleted electronic evidence might have helped answer that question.

In an article on ACEDS (Making a Murderer: The Missing Computer Forensics Evidence), the author (Jason Krause) discusses the fact that there voicemail messages on Halbach’s phone that allegedly disappeared.  Krause discusses the information presented in the documentary regarding the voicemail messages, as follows:

“Halbach’s family reported her missing in early November 2005 after finding that they called her cellphone and received a recorded message saying the voicemail box was full. According to her family, it was not like Halbach to not check her messages and decided to alert the police that she may be missing.

However, Teresa’s ex-boyfriend Ryan Hillegas testified that he listened to her voicemails after breaking into her inbox in an attempt to learn more about where she had last been. “I had a feeling that I might know her voicemail password,” he said in the episode, in order to explain how he retrieved the voice mails. However, he claimed that he did not delete any messages.  [It was actually her brother, Mike Halbach, who stated that he had listened to her messages, though Hillegas indicated that he had accessed her phone records after also guessing Teresa’s password.]

However, the only expert called to testify in this matter was Tony Zimmerman, a network engineer with Cingular Wireless, Halbach’s phone provider. He testified that calls and messages that the phone had received, should not have filled up the full capacity of the mailbox. Avery’s lawyers speculated that someone had erased potentially incriminating messages before Halbach was reported missing.

Unfortunately, Zimmerman was not a trained computer forensic examiner and his testimony did not reflect that any investigation more rigorous than looking at Halbach’s call log.”

Krause’s article quotes David Greetham, Vice President of eDiscovery Operations with Ricoh Americas Corporation, who recalled that “as long ago as 2001 we were recovering deleted text messages from a defendant accused of drug dealing”, but also noted that “law enforcement often has budget restrictions on training and resources”, which could limit the ability to investigate such leads (back in 2005 especially).  Of course, if you’re like many viewers who believe that the Manitowoc sheriff’s department had a vested interest in seeing Avery arrested for the crime (particularly since he had filed a $36 million lawsuit against the department for his wrongful conviction in a 1985 rape case), you may think that they were less than highly motivated to pursue this lead.

Regardless of whether or not you believe that Avery and Dassey were wrongfully convicted (and, apparently, several instances of incriminating evidence regarding their potential involvement were not covered in the documentary), the question remains: Were there voicemail messages that were deleted and could they have affected the outcome of the case?  If there had been a trained computer forensic examiner on the case back then, perhaps there would have been some additional information uncovered that either pointed to a different suspect or added to the evidence that implicated Avery.  Over ten years have passed since the murder took place, so we will probably never know.

So, what do you think?  Do you find the lack of investigation of the voice mail messages disconcerting?  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. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Defendant’s Wife Ordered to Turn Over iPhone for Examination: eDiscovery Case Law

In Brown Jordan International, Inc. et. al. v. Carmicle et. al., Consolidated Case No. 15-00037 (W.D.K.Y. Oct. 19, 2015), Kentucky District Judge Greg N. Stivers granted the plaintiffs’ expedited motion to compel the defendant’s wife to produce her iPhone for a forensic examination for information related to the case.

Case Background

In this employment dispute that spawned a counter-suit which was eventually combined into a single consolidated case, the defendant produced his electronic devices and electronic storage for forensic examination. Based upon the review of those devices and sites, the plaintiffs came to believe that the iPhone of the wife of the defendant may contain information relating to the claims in the action. As a result, the plaintiffs issued a subpoena to the the wife of the defendant, requesting her iPhone for a forensic exam.  She objected to the production of her iPhone and refused to produce it.  So, after the parties were unable to come to an agreement regarding the forensic review of her iPhone, the plaintiffs filed an Expedited Motion to Compel.

Judge’s Ruling

With regard to the relevancy of her iPhone, Judge Stivers, noting that the forensic examination report of the defendant’s laptop found “an Apple iTunes backup file of Rashna’s iPhone, which contains some of the original Brown Jordan International screenshots”, stated “[i]n this case, the information sought from Rashna’s iPhone appears to be relevant to the claims asserted in the action and good cause exists.”

Judge Stivers then stated that “[t]he burden then shifts to Rashna ‘to establish that the material either does not come within the scope of relevance or is of such marginal relevance that the potential harm resulting from production outweighs the presumption in favor of broad disclosure’”, noting that it was a heavy burden.  The defendant’s wife made the following arguments, each of which was addressed by Judge Stivers:

  • The information does not exist on her iPhone: Judge Stivers rejected that argument, indicating that “it is impossible for the Brown Jordan Parties to refute it without a forensic examination of her iPhone, and issues of spoliation of evidence have been raised in this matter”;
  • The plaintiffs already have that information: Judge Stivers indicated that he was “unpersuaded by this argument”, “in light of the potential spoliation issues and the forensic report”;
  • Producing the iPhone would be inconvenient: Judge Stivers noted that the plaintiffs indicated that “the forensic examination can occur in as little as four hours and can be completed overnight”;
  • She won’t have sufficient to review the results to assert any applicable privileges: Judge Stivers agreed to “modify the review period” to give her more time.

With her objections addressed, Judge Stivers ordered the wife of the defendant to produce her iPhone to be forensically examined and gave her nine days to complete the review of the documents collected from her iPhone.

So, what do you think?  Should she have been compelled to produce the iPhone?  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. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

When a Text File Doesn’t Match the Image or Native Excel File, What Do You Do?: eDiscovery Best Practices

Even when you’ve been in the business for 25+ years, you sometimes encounter situations you can’t explain (at least initially).  Here is a story about a document that I encountered yesterday that initially didn’t make sense to me.  Thankfully, I’m extremely curious and ultimately figured it out (with some help).  See if it will be obvious to you.

The Issue

In a document collection produced by the opposing party to our client (where we received agreed upon images, text files, native files and metadata), I was performing searches in our CloudNine review platform looking for documents related to a key investment account disputed between the two parties.  On one of the documents, I found a hit in the searchable text referencing key information related to the account that was noted by an accountant that we had not yet previously encountered.  This appeared to be an important document.

To get a better look at the document, I decided to look at the image that was provided.  That text entry was not there.

Since we had the produced Excel file, I downloaded a copy of it (from CloudNine) to take a look at it and the text did not appear to be present in the original native Excel file either.  When I performed a search for the accountant’s last name in the entire workbook, Excel retrieved no hits.

What?  How can that be?

Figuring It Out

My first thought was that there were hidden columns, rows or worksheets within the Excel file that were not being searched.  As it turned out, there was one hidden sheet (which I unhid), but repeating my search for the accountant’s last name in the entire workbook still retrieved no hits.

At this point, I’m wondering if the opposing party may have doctored the image and the Excel file, but forgot to doctor the produced extracted text?  You hate to believe the worst of people, but it happens.

Out of ideas, I took the issue to CloudNine’s production manager, Jesus Arellano.  After he looked at the Excel file and performed the same search (finding nothing, which made me feel better), he then decided to perform a text extract of the Excel file using LAW PreDiscovery® (which was later reproduced with our own CloudNine Discovery Client processing software).  We looked at the results in the text and, behold, there was the note from the accountant!

What the hell is going on out here?

Finally, The Answer

Taking another look at the Excel file, we finally noticed that little red triangle in the corner of some of the cells.  Excel comments.  Of course.

When I put the cursor over the cell, the comment popped up, revealing the note (that should have been a clue) from the accountant.  Excel comments aren’t normally displayed unless you put the cursor on the cell where the comment is contained (you can show all comments under the review tab, but hardly anybody ever does).  When the Excel is “printed” to an image file, only the main portion of the workbook is “printed”, not the hidden comments.  The same is true for other Microsoft Office applications, as well.  So, don’t expect to typically see the hidden comments in an image of an Excel workbook, Word document or other Office file.

As for searching the hidden comments in Excel, you can do so using Ctrl+F, you just have to make sure you change the “Look in” field to Comments to search those specifically (see the example below using my last name of Austin):

 

Perhaps, if it hadn’t been at the end of a long day, I would have caught it more quickly (that’s my excuse, anyway).  Nonetheless, it serves as an excellent example of how hidden metadata can contain important information.  Due to this find, resulting from the original text search I did, we identified an individual for our client to depose!

So, what do you think?  Have you ever encountered data important to a case in the hidden metadata of a file?   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. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Apparently, in Discovery, Delta is Not Ready When You Are and It Has Cost Them Millions: eDiscovery Case Law

A few years ago, we covered a case law decision in the Delta/Air Tran Baggage Fee Antitrust Litigation, where Delta was ordered to pay plaintiff attorney’s fees and costs for eDiscovery issues in that litigation.  Apparently, Delta’s difficulties in this case have continued, as they have been ordered this week to pay over $2.7 million in sanctions for failing to turn over ESI, to go along with more than $4.7 million in sanctions for earlier discovery violations.

According to the Consumerist (Delta Hit With Another $2.7M In Sanctions In Years-Old Baggage-Fee Collusion Case, by Chris Morran), U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten imposed the sanction of $2,718,795.05 against Delta, which was higher than the $1.86 million sanction amount recommended by the Special Master in the case.

In his ruling, Judge Batten stated that: “Since discovery commenced in February 2010, this case has been plagued by a veritable deluge of discovery disputes and a corresponding succession of motions for discovery sanctions against Delta. It is not hyperbolic to say that this lawsuit has turned into litigation about litigation: the time, energy, and resources spent on discovery abuses equals or exceeds those that have been dedicated to litigating the merits of the case. Plaintiffs filed four sanctions motions in as many years, with each motion building on its predecessors.”  Judge Batten also noted that “Delta’s discovery practices have time and time again been shown to be ineffective, inefficient, and inept. Throughout this litigation, Delta’s left hand has not known what its right hand was doing, and ‘it often times appears that this litigation was conducted in an Inspector Clouseau-like fashion.’”

Delta had already been sanctioned $1.3 million for failing to turn over 60,000 pages of documents to the plaintiffs that were found in a box of previously undiscovered backup tapes and another $3.49 million, mostly to cover the cost of hiring an independent researcher to scan through and restore another batch of 29 backup tapes that was eventually discovered.

Summing up the lengthy and difficult discovery period to date, Judge Batten stated: “Without question, it is Delta’s ineptitude and missteps that have caused the vast majority of the excessive time, expenses, and energy that the parties have expended in discovery for the last five years…Delta’s discovery misconduct has rendered the Court’s attempts to manage this litigation and move it toward a resolution on the merits as futile and maddening as Sisyphus’s efforts to roll his boulder to the top of the hill.”

To make matters worse for Delta, Judge Batten also granted class-action status to the case this week.  Of course, as the article notes, Delta made more than $860 million off baggage fees in 2014 alone, so they can afford to fight.

So, what do you think?  Should Delta have received such severe sanctions?  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. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.