Our Insights on eDiscovery

Read on to learn more about the latest trends and insights in the world of digital discovery.
Home Depot’s “Extremely Broad” Request for Social Media Posts Denied – eDiscovery Case Law
Home Depot’s “Extremely Broad” Request for Social Media Posts Denied – eDiscovery Case Law 150 150 CloudNine

In Mailhoit v. Home Depot, Magistrate Judge Suzanne Segal ruled that the three out of four of the defendant’s discovery requests failed Federal Rule 34(b)(1)(A)’s “reasonable particularity” requirement, were, therefore, not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence and were denied.

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Inadvertent Disclosure? Got Clawback? – eDiscovery Best Practices
Inadvertent Disclosure? Got Clawback? – eDiscovery Best Practices 150 150 CloudNine

As discovery becomes more complex and voluminous, it seems as though we’re seeing more and more cases where inadvertent disclosures of privileged documents are becoming more common. In just the past couple of months, we’ve discussed two cases on this blog, where the producing parties were forced to waive privilege of those documents when they failed the now popular five factor test to determine whether an inadvertent disclosure entitles the producing party to have the documents returned. Perhaps if they had a well-defined “clawback” agreement, the results would have been different?

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Plaintiffs Should Pay for Extensive Discovery Prior to Class Certification – eDiscovery Case Law
Plaintiffs Should Pay for Extensive Discovery Prior to Class Certification – eDiscovery Case Law 150 150 CloudNine

In Boeynaems v. LA Fitness International, LLC, Pennsylvania District Judge Michael Baylson held that “where (1) class certification is pending and (2) the plaintiffs have asked for very extensive discovery, compliance with which will be very extensive, that absent compelling equitable circumstances to the contrary, the plaintiffs should pay for the discovery they seek . . . . Where the burden of discovery expense is almost entirely on the defendant, principally because the plaintiffs seek class certification, then the plaintiffs should share the costs.”

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When is a Billion Dollars Not Enough? – eDiscovery Case Law
When is a Billion Dollars Not Enough? – eDiscovery Case Law 150 150 CloudNine

When it’s Apple v. Samsung, of course! According to the Huffington Post, Apple Inc. requested a court order for a permanent U.S. sales ban on Samsung Electronics products found to have violated its patents along with additional damages of $707 million on top of the $1.05 billion dollar verdict won by Apple last month, already one of the largest intellectual-property awards on record.

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Proper Wildcard Searching: Why You Should Give a Dam* – eDiscovery Best Practices
Proper Wildcard Searching: Why You Should Give a Dam* – eDiscovery Best Practices 150 150 CloudNine

When we launched eDiscoveryDaily over two years ago, I relayed a story where I provided search strategy assistance to a client that had already agreed upon several searches with opposing counsel. One search related to mining activities, so the attorney decided to use a wildcard of “min*” to retrieve variations like “mine”, “mines” and “mining”. That one search retrieved over 300,000 files with hits.

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Another Disclosure of Privileged Documents Fails the Five Factor Test – eDiscovery Case Law
Another Disclosure of Privileged Documents Fails the Five Factor Test – eDiscovery Case Law 150 150 CloudNine

In Inhalation Plastics, Inc. v. Medex Cardio-Pulmonary, Inc., Ohio Magistrate Judge Norah McCann King found that the defendant had waived the attorney-client privilege was waived for 347 emails inadvertently produced, because they failed all factors in the five factor test to determine whether the inadvertent disclosure entitles the producing party to the return of the documents in question.

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eDiscovery Acquisitions: Industry Consolidation Continues
eDiscovery Acquisitions: Industry Consolidation Continues 150 150 CloudNine

If you think there have been a lot of acquisitions in the eDiscovery industry, you’re right. Now, thanks to Rob Robinson and his Complex Discovery blog, you can get a sense of just how many acquisitions there have been. Rob has provided a post showing 10 Years of eDiscovery Mergers, Acquisitions and Investments.

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eDiscovery Daily is Two Years Old Today!
eDiscovery Daily is Two Years Old Today! 150 150 CloudNine

It’s hard to believe that it has been two years ago today since we launched the eDiscoveryDaily blog. Now that we’ve hit the “terrible twos”, is the blog going to start going off on rants about various eDiscovery topics, like Will McAvoy in The Newsroom? Maybe. Or maybe not. Wouldn’t that be fun! Here are some highlights from the past six months.

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eDiscovery Case Law: Twitter Loses Appeal in People v. Harris
eDiscovery Case Law: Twitter Loses Appeal in People v. Harris 150 150 CloudNine

As reported in the Gibbons E-Discovery Law Alert blog, Twitter filed an appeal of the trial court’s decision in People v. Harris with the Appellate Division, First Department in New York, arguing that Twitter users have the right to quash subpoenas pursuant to Twitter’s terms of service agreement as well as because defendants’ constitutional rights are implicated by a government-issued subpoena to a third party. Unfortunately for Twitter, it didn’t take long for the appellate court panel to rule, as they denied Twitter’s motion for a stay of enforcement of the Trial Court’s order to produce Malcolm Harris’s tweets last week.

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eDiscovery Best Practices: Quality Control, Making Sure the Numbers Add Up
eDiscovery Best Practices: Quality Control, Making Sure the Numbers Add Up 150 150 CloudNine

Yesterday, 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.

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