Our Insights on eDiscovery

Spoliation of Data Can Get You Sent Up the River – eDiscovery Case Law

June 27, 2013

Sometimes, eDiscovery can literally be a fishing expedition. I got a kick out of Ralph Losey’s article on E-Discovery Law Today (Fishing Expedition Discovers Laptop Cast into Indian River) where the defendant employee in a RICO case in Simon Property Group, Inc. v. Lauria threw her laptop into a river. Needless to say, given the intentional spoliation of evidence, the court imposed struck all of the defenses raised by the defendant and scheduled the case for trial on the issue of damages.

Self-Collecting? Don’t Forget to Check for Image Only Files – eDiscovery Best Practices

June 25, 2013

Yesterday, we talked about the importance of tracking chain of custody order to be able to fight challenges of electronically stored information (ESI) by opposing parties. Today, let’s talk about a common mistake that organizations make when collecting their own files to turn over for discovery purposes.

Chain, Chain, Chain: Chain of Custody – eDiscovery Best Practices

June 24, 2013

If you’re a baseball fan you probably remember Ryan Braun and the reported failed test for performance enhancing drugs that he successfully challenged by challenging the chain of custody associated with his blood sample. When it comes to electronically stored information (ESI), ensuring proper chain of custody tracking is also an important part of handling that ESI through the eDiscovery process in order to be able to fight challenges of the ESI by opposing parties. An insufficient chain of custody is a chain, chain, chain of fools.

Another Case where Reimbursement of eDiscovery Costs are Denied – eDiscovery Case Law

June 21, 2013

In The Country Vintner of North Carolina, LLC v. E. & J. Gallo Winery, Inc., when deciding which costs are taxable, the Fourth Circuit chose to follow the Third Circuit’s reasoning in Race Tires America, Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., which read 28 U.S.C. § 1920(4) narrowly. Specifically, the court approved taxation of file conversion and transferring files onto CDs as “[f]ees for exemplification and the costs of making copies of any materials where the copies are necessarily obtained for use in the case” but no other tasks related to electronically stored information (ESI).

“Not Me”, The Fallibility of Human Review – eDiscovery Best Practices

June 20, 2013

When I talk with attorneys about using technology to assist with review (whether via techniques such as predictive coding or merely advanced searching and culling mechanisms), most of them still seem to question whether these techniques can measure up to good, old-fashioned human attorney review. Despite several studies that question the accuracy of human review, many attorneys still feel that their review capability is as good or better than technical approaches. Here is perhaps the best explanation yet why that may not be the case.

Adverse Inference Sanction for Defendant who Failed to Stop Automatic Deletion – eDiscovery Case Law

June 18, 2013

Remember the adverse inference instructions in the Zubulake v. UBS Warburg and Apple v. Samsung cases? This case has characteristics of both of those. In Pillay v. Millard Refrigerated Servs., Inc., Illinois District Judge Joan H. Lefkow granted the plaintiff’s motion for an adverse inference jury instruction due to the defendant’s failure to stop automatic deletion of employee productivity tracking data used as a reason for terminating a disabled employee.

Capturing Memory and Obtaining Protected Files with FTK Imager – eDiscovery Best Practices

June 17, 2013

Over the past few weeks, we have talked about the benefits and capabilities of Forensic Toolkit (FTK) Imager from AccessData (and obtaining your own free copy), how to create a disk image, how to add evidence items for the purpose of reviewing the contents of those evidence items (such as physical drives or images that you’ve created) and how to export files and create a custom content image of a targeted collection of files with FTK Imager. This week, let’s discuss how to Capture Memory and Obtain Protected Files to collect a user’s account information and possible passwords to other files.

Appellate Court Upholds District Court Discretion for Determining the Strength of Adverse Inference Sanction – eDiscovery Case Law

June 14, 2013

In Flagg v. City of Detroit, the Sixth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a permissive rather than mandatory adverse inference instruction for the defendant’s deletion of emails, noting that the district court has discretion in determining the strength of the inference to be applied.

eDiscovery Vendors Are Not Immune to eDiscovery Sanctions – eDiscovery Case Law

June 13, 2013

In Nuance Communications Inc. v. Abbyy Software House et al., California District Judge Jeffrey S. White refused Wednesday to dismiss Nuance Communications Inc.’s patent infringement suit against Lexmark International Inc. and Abbyy Software House, and awarded reimbursement of plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees and costs in excess of $130,000 as part of discovery abuse sanctions resulting from the late production of relevant documents from Abbyy.

Motion to Compel Dismissed after Defendant Agrees to Conditional Meet and Confer – eDiscovery Case Law

June 11, 2013

In Gordon v. Kaleida Health, New York Magistrate Judge Leslie G. Foschio dismissed (without prejudice) the plaintiffs’ motion to compel the defendant to meet and confer to establish an agreed protocol for implementing the use of predictive coding software after the defendants stated that they were prepared to meet and confer with the plaintiffs and their non-disqualified ESI consultants regarding the defendants’ predictive coding process.