Our Insights on eDiscovery

In Procaps S.A. v. Patheon Inc., after the plaintiff designated 95% of its forensically-produced documents (141,525 of 148,636) as “highly confidential”, Florida District Judge Jonathan Goodman ordered the plaintiff to re-review and re-designate those documents within ten days, and also assessed a $25,000 fees award against the plaintiff’s outside counsel to compensate the defendant for its efforts in reviewing the documents.

In Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. v. Premium Beef Feeders, LLC, Kansas Magistrate Judge Teresa J. James granted the defendants’ motion to compel production of documents, overruling the plaintiffs’ objections to the discovery request in finding that “Plaintiff has not satisfied its burden to show that producing the requested documents would be unduly burdensome”.

In United States v. Louisiana, Louisiana Magistrate Judge Richard L. Bourgeois, Jr., after reviewing 40 documents provided by the defendant for in-camera review, granted the plaintiff’s Renewed Motion to Compel a Proper Privilege Log, after denying the original motion because the plaintiff only provided 13 examples of “insufficient descriptions” within the privilege log’s entries.

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.

In Charvat et. al. v. Valente et. al., 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.