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Preservation

Despite Failure to Implement a Litigation Hold, Defendant Escapes Sanctions: eDiscovery Case Law

Is this case is one example of Craig Ball’s contention that “you are more likely to be hit by lightning than to be sanctioned for non-preservation of ESI”?  You decide.

In Flanders v. Dzugan et. al., 12-1481 (W.D. Pa., August 24, 2015), despite the fact that the defendant failed to implement a litigation hold, Pennsylvania District Judge Nora Barry Fischer denied the plaintiff’s Motion for Sanctions alleging the defendants failed to preserve evidence relevant to the case, finding that the plaintiff “cannot show any evidence was actually lost or destroyed”, “cannot show that if evidence was lost or destroyed, it would have been beneficial to his case” and “[n]or can Plaintiff show bad faith”.

Case Background

In this case where the plaintiff sued the defendants for constitutional violations related to their building permit approval process, the parties filed a Joint ESI Protocol Status Report with the Court in October 2014, agreeing that they would “initially focus their search” on the email of four employees of the defendant.  From these four individuals, the defendants turned over a total of 33 emails relating to the plaintiff and the litigation.  In one of these emails between two of the individuals, Defendant Dzugan stated, referring to the plaintiff, that he is “[g]etting tired of him.”  The plaintiff asserted that there must have been other similar emails that were not produced.

The Court ordered the defendants to file evidence of any litigation hold they had put in place for this lawsuit, but the defendants never filed any such evidence, and as Judge Fischer noted “it appears to be undisputed that they never put a litigation hold in place.” In its Motion for Sanctions, the plaintiff provided two arguments for a charge of spoliation for lack of a litigation hold: 1) arguing that the emails recovered from the email accounts that were searched cannot possibly be all the emails relating to the plaintiff and 2) arguing that additional email accounts were never searched at all.

Judge’s Ruling

Judge Fischer stated that “Plaintiff is correct that Defendants should have put a litigation hold in place”, but determined that “other elements of a spoliation claim, however, are not satisfied here”.  Continuing, Judge Fischer stated:

“Here, the only thing Plaintiff can say with any specificity is that Defendants do not appear to have put a litigation hold in place. Plaintiff cannot show any evidence was actually lost or destroyed. Plaintiff also cannot show that if evidence was lost or destroyed, it would have been beneficial to his case. Instead, Plaintiff’s Brief relies on inferences that such evidence must have existed, and thus must have been lost as a result of Defendants’ failure to institute a litigation hold.”

Referencing Bull v. UPS, Judge Fischer also stated that “[w]ith respect to actual suppression of evidence, the Third Circuit has clarified that a court must determine that the relevant actor suppressed or withheld the evidence in bad faith…A finding of bad faith is therefore ‘pivotal’ to a spoliation determination.”  She found the defendant’s handling of discovery to be “sloppy”, but stated that “in the Court’s estimation, this does not rise to the level of bad faith, particularly given the size and resources of Ford City and the fact that Solicitor is a part-time position.”  As a result, Judge Fischer found the spoliation motion “lacking in specificity and a showing of bad faith” and denied the motion.

So, what do you think?  Should the defendant have been held more accountable for the lack of 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.

You’re More Likely to Be Hit by Lightning Than to Be Sanctioned for Non-Preservation of ESI: eDiscovery Best Practices

When it comes to eDiscovery topics, eDiscovery expert (and frequent thought leader interviewee on this blog) Craig Ball doesn’t hesitate to speak his mind and confront the (oftentimes) brutal truth.  In Craig’s latest post in his excellent Ball in Your Court blog, he does so in spades.

In Preservation and Proportionality, Craig sets the stage with a graphic showing a Lady Justice statue with a thumb holding down one end of the scales (I like it!).  He introduces the topic by stating:

“Litigants have been ignoring e-discovery obligations with impunity for so long they’ve come to think of it as an entitlement.  Protected from predators, few have evolved.  But now that opponents and courts are waking to this failure, those who’ve failed to adapt are feeling exposed. They don’t like it, and they want protection.  They call it ‘proportionality.’

Proportionality sounds wholesome and virtuous, like ‘patriotism’ or ‘faith;’ but like those wholesome virtues, it’s sometimes the refuge of scoundrels.”

But, without proportionality, how will organizations protect themselves against the “increased” threat of sanctions for spoliation?  Craig addresses that by debunking the myth:

“The much-ballyhooed ‘rise in sanctions’ is designed to mislead.   The solid metrics we have on spoliation sanctions prove that the risk of being sanctioned for negligent non-preservation remains miniscule (.00675% per a report from the Federal Judicial Center).  Put simply: In the United States, you are more likely to be hit by lightning than to be sanctioned for non-preservation of ESI.”

Noting that “the overwhelming majority of e-discovery sanctions decisions turn on venal acts like intentional destruction of evidence and contemptuous disregard of discovery obligations”, Craig decides to “tell it like it is: The claim that diligent, responsible litigants are being sanctioned for innocent e-discovery errors is hogwash.”

Craig then addresses how many organizations address their preservation obligations to avoid sanctions “by embracing monumental inefficiency in preservation instead of making sensible, defensible choices” and blaming the plaintiff for requesting the data (spoiler alert, it’s not the plaintiff’s fault).  “To the extent ‘proportionality’ is a byword for ‘let us err with impunity,’ it’s too soon in the evolution of e-discovery to be so resigned to incompetence.  If anything, we need more sanctions for incompetence, not more safe harbors”, Craig states.

Craig’s post continues to discuss the level of competence of lawyers preserving data, the efforts to use the proportionality argument and the court’s role in deciding (“proportionality shouldn’t be pressed into service as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for botched preservation; but, it can prove instructive to courts weighing sanctions for failure to preserve relevant evidence”, he states).  In the end, it’s up to courts to “insist parties know how to use the scale and don’t put their thumbs on the pan” (of the scales of justice, that is).

By the way, this isn’t a recent sentiment of Craig’s spawned by the impending Federal rules changes this December, he notes that he wrote this post four years ago, but never posted it.  Interesting.

A link to his post is here.

So, what do you think?  Do you think we need more sanctions for incompetence and not just for willful destruction of ESI?   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.

Court Denies Motion for Sanctions Against Veterinary Hospital for Spoliation of ESI: eDiscovery Case Law

In Grove City Veterinary Service, LLC et. al. v. Charter Practices International, LLC, 13-02276 (Aug. 18, 2015), Oregon Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta concluded that the plaintiffs had not met their burden of showing they are entitled to sanctions for spoliation of evidence by deleting one of the veterinarian’s archived work emails.

Case Background

In this breach of contract case between veterinarians and a veterinary hospital, during discovery for this case, one of the plaintiffs was required to search for and produce emails stored in his email archive responsive to the defendant’s requests for production.  In August 2014, the plaintiff attempted to access old emails stored in his email archive, but was unable to locate more than one-hundred folders of archived emails.  Later that month, the plaintiff contacted the defendant’s IT department for help finding the “missing” emails.  A member of the defendant’s IT department requested a time when he could come and assist the plaintiff. In the plaintiff’s response, he disclosed that he sought the emails “[r]egarding a legal matter”. Because the plaintiff’s request was in furtherance of a legal matter, the IT department referred the issue to the defendant’s legal department, which refused further assistance and advised the plaintiffs that the defendant was not responsible for locating documents responsive to its own discovery requests (eventually, however, the plaintiff noted that “some,” but not all, of the missing folders had repopulated to his archive inbox).

Based on the defendant’s refusal to perform the search, the plaintiffs moved for spoliation.  The defendant denied it was responsible for “missing” emails, and in their response, requested an award of attorney fees because of the plaintiffs’ “unjustified” motion for sanctions.

Judge’s Ruling

Noting that a defendant “may be subject to sanctions, particularly dispositive sanctions, only if it committed ‘willful’ spoliation of evidence”, Judge Acosta stated: “Here, Plaintiffs do not establish that the emails were willfully destroyed by CPI, or even that the emails were destroyed at all.”

The plaintiffs relied on a report by its computer forensic analyst to request sanctions for spoliation, but Judge Acosta disputed the reliability of his report, noting that he “produces no evidence which shows CPI’s IT department remotely accessed Baltzell’s computer without permission or tampered with Baltzell’s archived emails in any way”, that he “fails to disclose that, during his analysis of Baltzell’s computer, the computer was not logged into the CPI’s servers where the archived emails are stored” (which meant he wouldn’t have been able to access the files anyway) and that an “excerpt of the activity log showed that CPI IT last remotely accessed Baltzell’s computer on July 2, 2014, well before Baltzell had difficultly(sic) finding the emails in question.”  In addition, the defendant produced evidence that the missing emails were accessible in the plaintiff’s email archive, but that they had been “dragged and dropped” into a folder not typically associated with archived emails.  Judge Acosta concluded that the “absence of the activity log in the record is telling and suggests Jorgensen found no direct evidence of knowing wrongdoing by CPI.”

As a result, Judge Acosta denied the plaintiff’s request for sanctions.  He also denied the defendant’s attorney fees, because “the court cannot conclude Plaintiffs motion was ‘unjustified.’”

So, what do you think?  Was this an open and shut case?  Should the defendant have been awarded attorney fees?  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 Gets Summary Judgment, Not Dismissal, Due to Plaintiff’s Wiping of Hard Drive: eDiscovery Case Law

In Watkins v. Infosys, 14-0247 (W.D. Wa., July 23, 2015), Washington District Judge John C. Coughenour denied the defendant’s Motion for the Sanction of Dismissal but granted the defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment against the plaintiff for spoliation of data due to her use of “Disk Wiping” software to delete ESI.

Case Background

In this discrimination case, the defendant’s forensic expert determined that the plaintiff performed a Bing search for the term “disk wipe” and downloaded and installed file wiping software onto the hard drive of her work computer around October 20, 2013, and ran the program to wipe files.  In addition, eleven external media drives had been connected to the plaintiff’s laptop in the days prior to the disk wipe.  Furthermore, the plaintiff perjured herself when she stated that “she did not `remove’ things from Defendant’s premises,” and that she “followed procedures typical with such litigation . . . to avoid the alteration or deletion of documents, in addition to preserving data back-ups relating to her employment.”

The plaintiff ultimately admitted in her deposition that she wiped the files, claiming that she did so out of concern for information preservation and client confidentiality.  In a supplemented response filed on the last day of discovery, the plaintiff again refused to turn over the wiped contents of her work computer, claiming that all of the files passed through the defendant’s servers (so the defendant presumably had copies), that the unproduced files were “vast and irrelevant to the claims or controversies in this case” and that she was “in the process of replicating all documents that she retained and will provide the same to Defendant upon their soonest availability.”

Judge’s Ruling

Judge Coughenour stated that he found the plaintiff’s responses “both illogical and unbelievable”, noting that her “brief in response to Defendant’s motion for the sanction of dismissal only exacerbates the problem…There, Plaintiff regurgitates flimsy justifications for wiping her disk drive, doubles-down on her unsupported argument about the irrelevance of the wiped files, and asserts blankly that “there has been no actual suppression or withholding of evidence since the entire content of Plaintiff’s computer has been produced to Defendant.”

With the spoliation (and associated perjury) clear, Judge Coughenour then turned his attention to determining the appropriate sanctions.  To consider dismissal, he noted the requirement to weigh five factors: (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 the disposition of cases on their merits, and (5) the availability of less drastic sanctions.  Reviewing the five factors, Judge Coughenour found “that three weigh in favor of dismissal and two do not” and, while describing it as “an incredibly close call”, he stated that “the Court prefers to address this case, finally, on its merits.”  Therefore, he denied the defendant’s motion for dismissal, opting instead to grant a motion for summary judgment.  Judge Coughenour also ordered plaintiff’s counsel to show cause as to why sanctions should not be issued against them.

So, what do you think?  Should the court have granted the motion for dismissal?  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.

Court Rules that State Agency is Not Responsible for Emails Deleted via the Retention Policy of Another State Agency: eDiscovery Case Law

In Wandering Dago, Inc. v. N.Y. State Office of Gen. Servs., No. 1:13-CV-1053 (MAD/RFT), (N.D.N.Y. May 29, 2015), New York Magistrate Judge Randolph F. Treece denied the plaintiff’s request for sanctions, stating that “that neither the individual Defendants nor their Attorney had a duty to preserve” the emails of the Deputy Secretary of Gaming and Racing to the President of the New York Racing Authority (“NYRA”).

Case Background

In this First Amendment case where the plaintiff contended that a set of NYRA Defendants and another set of state actors violated the First (Free Speech Clause) and Fourteenth (Equal Protection Clause) Amendments of the United States Constitution for denying its food trucks to provide services at the Saratoga Race Course and an outdoor lunch program based on the plaintiff company’s name.  The plaintiff’s exclusion from the race track occurred after several complaints were received, including an email from the Deputy Secretary at the NYRA, concerned that “the fallout from authorizing this truck will inevitably land on NYRA”.

After the media reported that “an unidentified state official” complained, the Deputy Secretary emailed the Governor’s Executive Chamber identifying himself as that official and he was eventually identified in court as that “unidentified state official”. However, the NYRA eventually settled and the Deputy Secretary was never named as a defendant, leaving the employees of the Office of General Services (“OGS”), who had denied the plaintiff’s applications for the outdoor lunch program, as the remaining defendants.

During discovery, the plaintiff requested production of the non-party Deputy Secretary’s emails, but they had been automatically destroyed pursuant to New York State’s Email Retention Policy. As a result, the plaintiff thereafter sought an adverse inference (as well as further discovery, costs and attorneys’ fees) against the remaining OGS defendants and their litigation counsel – an Assistant Attorney General – for the deletion of the Deputy Secretary’s emails.  The defendants objected, citing that they had no control over the Deputy Secretary’s emails and litigation counsel did not represent the nonparty Deputy Secretary at the time of the automatic deletions and had no legal authority to direct a preservation hold.

Judge’s Ruling

Judge Treece, agreeing with the defendants, stated that “the individual Defendants correctly assert that they have no control over {the Deputy Secretary’s} emails, the Executive Chamber’s emails, or over other emails pertaining to NYRA. Instead, when litigation was commenced against them, they and their agency, OGS, met their obligation by preserving those documents that were within their control and possession, and ultimately disclosed 1000 pages of documents relevant to the Empire Plaza Summer Program, including emails.”

Continuing, Judge Treece stated that the “Plaintiff suffers under the erroneous notion that when a governmental agency and its officials are defendants in any litigation, they and their counsel are required to preserve and produce documents belonging to another governmental agency.”  He also stated that “[c]onsidering that hundreds of lawsuits are filed daily against New York State,” that “requiring each agency and thousands of officials to institute a litigation hold every time a party contemplates or even commences litigation against another agency would paralyze the State.”  Finding that the plaintiff had also failed to prove a culpable state of mind and also failed to prove that the missing evidence would have been favorable to it, Judge Treece found that the plaintiff had failed to meet its burden and denied its request for sanctions, as well as its request for additional discovery and costs and attorney fees.

So, what do you think?  Should each state agency have its own separate duty to preserve or should the entire state be responsible to preserve data?  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.

Court Denies Request for Sanctions for Routine Deletion of Files of Departed Employees: eDiscovery Case Law

In Charvat et. al. v. Valente et. al., 12-5746 (N.D. Ill. July 1, 2015), Illinois Magistrate Judge Mary M. Rowland denied the plaintiff’s request for spoliation sanctions for the defendant’s admitted destruction of computer files belonging to two departed employees, finding that the plaintiff did not provide any evidence that the defendant acted in bad faith.

Case Background

In this case about consumer complaints regarding alleged improper telemarketing activities by a company affiliated with Carnival Corporation, the defendant investigated the allegations and produced most of the documents relating to its investigation.  However, the defendant withheld 14 documents as privileged, because they “relate specifically to legal advice sought by Carnival from outside counsel”.  Judge Rowland conducted an in camera review of the documents described on the Privilege Log and ruled that the defendant must produce two of the documents, but determined that “[a]ll other documents on the Privilege Log are protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine.”

The plaintiff also requested spoliation sanctions or instructions given the defendant’s admitted destruction of computer files belonging to two departed employees.  The defendant acknowledged deleting the computer files belonging to the two departed employees consistent with its routine business practices of deleting files 30 days following termination of employment. The two employees left in September and October 2011 and the defendant’s investigation into the consumer complaints concluded in July 2011, so the defendant asserted that “at the time of their respective departures from the company, Carnival had completed its investigation of RMG and did not anticipate any imminent litigation against the travel agency.”  The plaintiff countered by arguing that the defendant could not contend that certain documents authored by the two departed employees were “work product” created in “anticipation of litigation” while also asserting that it routinely deleted their computer files because it did not “anticipate any imminent litigation.”

Judge’s Ruling

Noting that “work product is exempt from mandatory disclosure regardless of the status of the anticipated litigation” and “work-product protection continues even after the prospect of anticipated litigation disappears”, Judge Rowland stated that “although Carnival was free to delete Morales’s and Hernandez’s files in September and October 2011 because there was no reasonably foreseeable litigation at that time, their emails prepared as part of the RMG investigation remain privileged.”  She also then stated that “[i]n any event, Plaintiff has not provided any evidence that Carnival acted in bad faith”, determining that “[t]here is no evidence that Carnival’s routine deletion of former employees’ files in accordance with an established document retention policy was done for the purpose of hiding adverse information.”  As a result, the plaintiff’s request for sanctions was denied.

So, what do you think?  Should the defendant have been able to delete the files of the departed employees?  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.

Court Denies Plaintiff’s Request for Spoliation Sanctions, as Most Documents Destroyed Before Duty to Preserve: eDiscovery Case Law

In Giuliani v. Springfield Township, et al., Civil Action No. 10-7518 (E.D.Penn. June 9, 2015), Pennsylvania District Judge Thomas N. O’Neill, Jr. denied the plaintiffs’ motion for spoliation sanctions, finding that the duty to preserve began when the case was filed and finding that “plaintiffs have not shown that defendants had any ill motive or bad intent in failing to retain the documents which plaintiffs seek”.

Case Background

In this harassment and discrimination case, the plaintiff owned land within the defendant’s township and alleged that the defendant’s zoning decisions violated the plaintiff’s civil rights violations. In June 2009, the defendant withdrew its opposition to the plaintiffs’ application for use of the property and its Zoning Hearing Board granted the plaintiffs’ zoning appeal, ending the zoning dispute.   The plaintiff then filed this new complaint against the defendant in January 2011.

The plaintiffs contended that the defendants’ production had been deficient because defendants “provided a miniscule number [of emails] in response to Plaintiffs’ [discovery] request[s] – just 24 emails spanning a seventeen-year period of near-constant controversy.”  In response, the defendants noted that, during the time period relevant to this case, it did not generate large volumes of email and also cited it’s document retention policy, which stated that “e-mail messages and attachments that do not meet the definition of records and are not subject to litigation and other legal proceedings should be deleted immediately after they are read”.

The defendants also did not preserve data relating to the case until the case was filed in 2011, believing that all of the outstanding issues related to the plaintiffs’ land development applications had finally been resolved after the zoning dispute was resolved in 2009.  The plaintiffs disputed that interpretation of when the duty to preserve arose and also pointed out instances where the defendants failed to instruct key custodians to preserve data related to the case.

Judge’s Ruling

With regard to the beginning of the duty to preserve by the defendants, Judge O’Neill stated that “Plaintiffs’ arguments are not sufficient to meet their burden to show that defendants’ duty to preserve files related to other properties, emails or planning commission board minutes was triggered at any time prior to the commencement of this action. They have not set forth any reason why I should disbelieve ‘the Township’s assertion that it had absolutely no reason to anticipate litigation until it was served with the Complaint on January 7, 2011,’…and that in June 2009, ‘with the property being leased in its entirety to one tenant, the Township . . . believed that all disputes with the Giulianis had come to an end.’”

As for alleged preservation failures after the duty to preserve commenced, Judge O’Neill determined that “Plaintiffs have not met their burden to establish that defendants actually suppressed the evidence they seek. At most, defendants lost or deleted the evidence plaintiffs seek as the result of mere inadvertent negligence. Plaintiffs have not set forth any proof that defendants in fact failed to preserve emails, documents relating to other properties or Planning Commission Board Minutes at any time after January 7, 2011…Further plaintiffs have not shown that defendants had any ill motive or bad intent in failing to retain the documents which plaintiffs seek.”  As a result, Judge O’Neill denied the plaintiffs’ motion for spoliation sanctions.

So, what do you think?  Should the duty to preserve have been applied earlier?  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.

Quality Control, Making Sure the Numbers Add Up: eDiscovery Best Practices

Having touched on this topic a few years ago, a recent client experience spurred me to revisit it.

Friday, we wrote about tracking file counts from collection to production, the concept of expanded file counts, and the categorization of files during processing.  Today, let’s walk through a scenario to show how the files collected are accounted for during the discovery process.

Tracking the Counts after Processing

We discussed the typical categories of excluded files after processing – obviously, what’s not excluded is available for searching and review.  Even if your approach includes technology assisted review (TAR) as part of your methodology, it’s still likely that you will want to do some culling out of files that are clearly non-responsive.

Documents during review may be classified in a number of ways, but the most common ways to classify documents as to whether they are responsive, non-responsive, or privileged.  Privileged documents are also often classified as responsive or non-responsive, so that only the responsive documents that are privileged need be identified on a privilege log.  Responsive documents that are not privileged are then produced to opposing counsel.

Example of File Count Tracking

So, now that we’ve discussed the various categories for tracking files from collection to production, let’s walk through a fairly simple eMail based example.  We conduct a fairly targeted collection of a PST file from each of seven custodians in a given case.  The relevant time period for the case is January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2014.  Other than date range, we plan to do no other filtering of files during processing.  Identified duplicates will not be reviewed or produced.  We’re going to provide an exception log to opposing counsel for any file that cannot be processed and a privilege log for any responsive files that are privileged.  Here’s what this collection might look like:

  • Collected Files: After expansion and processing, 7 PST files expand to 101,852 eMails and attachments.
  • Filtered Files: Filtering eMails outside of the relevant date range eliminates 23,564
  • Remaining Files after Filtering: After filtering, there are 78,288 files to be processed.
  • NIST/System Files: eMail collections typically don’t have NIST or system files, so we’ll assume zero (0) files here. Collections with loose electronic documents from hard drives typically contain some NIST and system files.
  • Exception Files: Let’s assume that a little less than 1% of the collection (912) is exception files like password protected, corrupted or empty files.
  • Duplicate Files: It’s fairly common for approximately 30% or more of the collection to include duplicates, so we’ll assume 24,215 files here.
  • Remaining Files after Processing: We have 53,161 files left after subtracting NIST/System, Exception and Duplicate files from the total files after filtering.
  • Files Culled During Searching: If we assume that we are able to cull out 67% (approximately 2/3 of the collection) as clearly non-responsive, we are able to cull out 35,618.
  • Remaining Files for Review: After culling, we have 17,543 files that will actually require review (whether manual or via a TAR approach).
  • Files Tagged as Non-Responsive: If approximately 40% of the document collection is tagged as non-responsive, that would be 7,017 files tagged as such.
  • Remaining Files Tagged as Responsive: After QC to ensure that all documents are either tagged as responsive or non-responsive, this leaves 10,526 documents as responsive.
  • Responsive Files Tagged as Privileged: If roughly 8% of the responsive documents are determined to be privileged during review, that would be 842 privileged documents.
  • Produced Files: After subtracting the privileged files, we’re left with 9,684 responsive, non-privileged files to be produced to opposing counsel.

The percentages I used for estimating the counts at each stage are just examples, so don’t get too hung up on them.  The key is to note the numbers in red above.  Excluding the interim counts in black, the counts in red represent the different categories for the file collection – each file should wind up in one of these totals.  What happens if you add the counts in red together?  You should get 101,852 – the number of collected files after expanding the PST files.  As a result, every one of the collected files is accounted for and none “slips through the cracks” during discovery.  That’s the way it should be.  If not, investigation is required to determine where files were missed.

So, what do you think?  Do you have a plan for accounting for all collected files during discovery?  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.

Quality Control By The Numbers: eDiscovery Best Practices

Having touched on this topic a few years ago, a recent client experience spurred me to revisit it.

A while back, we wrote about Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) in the eDiscovery process.  Both are important in improving the quality of work product and making the eDiscovery process more defensible overall.  With regard to QC, an overall QC mechanism is tracking of document counts through the discovery process, especially from collection to production, to identify how every collected file was handled and why each non-produced document was not produced.

Expanded File Counts

Scanned counts of files collected are not the same as expanded file counts.  There are certain container file types, like Outlook PST files and ZIP archives that exist essentially to store a collection of other files.  So, the count that is important to track is the “expanded” file count after processing, which includes all of the files contained within the container files.  So, in a simple scenario where you collect Outlook PST files from seven custodians, the actual number of documents (emails and attachments) within those PST files could be in the tens of thousands.  That’s the starting count that matters if your goal is to account for every document or file in the discovery process.

Categorization of Files During Processing

Of course, not every document gets reviewed or even included in the search process.  During processing, files are usually categorized, with some categories of files usually being set aside and excluded from review.  Here are some typical categories of excluded files in most collections:

  • Filtered Files: Some files may be collected, and then filtered during processing. A common filter for the file collection is the relevant date range of the case.  If you’re collecting custodians’ source PST files, those may include messages outside the relevant date range; if so, those messages may need to be filtered out of the review set.  Files may also be filtered based on type of file or other reasons for exclusion.
  • NIST and System Files: Many file collections also contain system files, like executable files (EXEs) or Dynamic Link Library (DLLs) that are part of the software on a computer which do not contain client data, so those are typically excluded from the review set. NIST files are included on the National Institute of Standards and Technology list of files that are known to have no evidentiary value, so any files in the collection matching those on the list are “De-NISTed”.
  • Exception Files: These are files that cannot be processed or indexed, for whatever reason. For example, they may be password-protected or corrupted.  Just because these files cannot be processed doesn’t mean they can be ignored, depending on your agreement with opposing counsel, you may need to at least provide a list of them on an exception log to prove they were addressed, if not attempt to repair them or make them accessible (BTW, it’s good to establish that agreement for disposition of exception files up front).
  • Duplicate Files: During processing, files that are exact duplicates may be put aside to avoid redundant review (and potential inconsistencies). Some exact duplicates are typically identified based on the HASH value, which is a digital fingerprint generated based on the content and format of the file – if two files have the same HASH value, they have the same exact content and format.  Emails (and their attachments) may be identified as duplicates based on key metadata fields, so an attachment cannot be “de-duped” out of the collection by a standalone copy of the same file.

All of these categories of excluded files can reduce the set of files to actually be searched and reviewed.  On Monday, we’ll illustrate an example of a file set from collection to production to illustrate how each file is accounted for during the discovery process.

So, what do you think?  Do you have a plan for accounting for all collected files during discovery?  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.

Similar Spoliation Case, Somewhat Different Outcome: eDiscovery Case Law

Remember the Malibu Media, LLC v. Tashiro case that we covered a couple of weeks ago, which involved spoliation sanctions against a couple accused of downloading its copyrighted adult movies via a BitTorrent client?  Here’s a similar case with the same plaintiff and similar spoliation claims, but with a somewhat different outcome (at least for now).

In Malibu Media, LLC v. Michael Harrison, Case No. 12-cv-1117 (S.D. Ind. June 8, 2015), Indiana District Judge William T. Lawrence denied the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment, upholding the magistrate judge’s ruling which found an adverse inference instruction for destroying a hard drive with potentially responsive data on it to be not warranted, and ruled that “it will be for a jury to decide” if such a sanction is appropriate.

Case Background

The plaintiff alleged that the defendant installed a BitTorrent Client onto his computer and then went to a torrent site to upload and download its copyrighted Work, specifically, six adult films (or portions thereof).  As in the Tashiro case, the plaintiff used a German company to identify certain IP addresses that were being used to distribute the plaintiff’s copyrighted movies, and the defendant was eventually identified by Comcast as the subscriber assigned to this particular IP address.

After the lawsuit was filed, in January 2013, the defendant’s hard drive on his custom-built gaming computer crashed and he took it to an electronics recycling company, to have it “melted”. He then replaced the gaming computer’s hard drive. In addition to his gaming computer, the defendant also had another laptop. During discovery, that laptop and the new hard drive were examined by forensic experts; while the laptop revealed extensive BitTorrent use, it did not contain any of the plaintiff’s movies or files and the new hard drive did not reveal any evidence of BitTorrent use.  Nonetheless, because of the destroyed hard drive, the plaintiff filed a motion for sanctions for the Intentional Destruction of Material Evidence, as well as a motion for summary judgment.

In an evidentiary hearing in December 2014, the magistrate judge recommended that the motion for sanctions be denied, concluding that the defendant “did not destroy the hard drive in bad faith”, that “[h]ad [Harrison] truly wished to hid adverse information, the Court finds it unlikely that [Harrison] would have waited nearly five months to destroy such information” and noted that he found the defendant’s testimony to be credible.  The plaintiff filed an objection to that report and recommendation, arguing that “bad faith should be inferred from the undisputed evidence.”

Judge’s Ruling

Regarding both the summary judgment motion and the motion for sanctions, Judge Lawrence stated the following:

“The Court agrees with Magistrate Judge Dinsmore that default judgment was not warranted in this case. That said, Magistrate Judge Dinsmore found an adverse inference not to be warranted because he found Harrison’s testimony to be credible. While the Court does not necessarily disagree with Magistrate Judge Dinsmore—in that it is certainly possible a jury would find Harrison’s testimony to be credible—ultimately, the Court believes this is an issue best left for a jury to decide. Malibu Media has presented sufficient evidence to the contrary, and in light of the fact that Malibu Media’s motion for summary judgment was denied on the same grounds, the Court believes leaving the issue of spoliation to the jury to be the best approach. Accordingly, at trial the Court will instruct the jury that if it finds that Harrison destroyed the gaming computer’s hard drive in bad faith, it can assume that the evidence on the gaming computer’s hard drive would have been unfavorable to Harrison.”

So, what do you think?  Should this case have been handled the same way the Malibu Media, LLC v. Tashiro case was handled?  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.