Our Insights on eDiscovery

In Woodell v. Bernstein, et. al., the California Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court, which imposed terminating sanctions against the plaintiff for spoliation of evidence and dismissed his lawsuit with prejudice after the plaintiff had wiped his cell phone, which was key to the case.

In Matthew Enterprise, Inc. v. Chrysler Group, LLC, California Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal denied the defendant’s motion to compel production from personal email accounts of the plaintiff’s employees because the plaintiff did not have legal control of the emails. However, he granted the defendant’s motion to compel production from the plaintiff’s customer communications database operated by a third party vendor, noting that the plaintiff did have control of that data, having already produced data from this source.

In Colyer v. City of Chicago, Illinois District Judge Edmond E. Chang granted in part the plaintiff’s post trial motion, denying the plaintiffs’ request for a directed verdict, but granting their request for a new trial after it was discovered that the defendants’ attorney had “intentionally” withheld the recording of a police dispatcher’s description of a possible suspect that was key in determining whether Chicago police officers acted with excessive force in killing a suspect in a traffic stop. The plaintiffs also were awarded their attorneys’ fees and costs expended on preparing for the first trial, conducting the trial itself, and conducting the post-trial discovery and briefing.

In Hausman v. Holland America Line-U.S.A., et al., Washington District Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein vacated a $21.5 million verdict awarded to a man injured by a closing cruise-ship door in 2011 and ordered a new trial, after the plaintiff’s former assistant alleged that he deleted emails that could hurt his case.