Our Insights on eDiscovery

If you keep track of Hollywood news, you probably already know this story. But, as David Horrigan discussed in an article last week, you may not know all the details or what it might mean for future cases.

In Cordova v. Walmart Puerto Rico, Inc. et al., Puerto Rico District Judge Aida M. Delgado-Colon granted in part and denied in part the defendant’s motion to dismiss for fraud on the Court, denying the defendant’s request for dismissal, but imposing a sanction of adverse inference regarding the content of the plaintiff’s Facebook page and her deletion of the related account. Judge Delgado-Colon also ordered the defendant to “submit a proposed adverse-inference jury instruction to that effect before trial.”

Shark Week on the Discovery Channel continues, which means Case Week on the eDiscovery Channel (a.k.a., eDiscovery Daily) continues as well. Despite a few technical difficulties early on, Tom O’Connor and I had another great webcast yesterday on Key eDiscovery Case Law Review for the First Half of 2019. During the webcast, one attendee asked about case law examples where parties have been ordered to produce (or provide access to) databases in response to discovery requests, so I’ve done some research and have the results here.

Shark Week on the Discovery Channel continues, which means Case Week on the eDiscovery Channel (a.k.a., eDiscovery Daily) continues as well. So far, 2019 has been another interesting year with notable and important case law decisions related to eDiscovery best practices. What do you need to know about the cases to avoid mistakes made by others and save time and money for your clients? In today’s webcast, you can catch up on twenty-two (!) cases from the first half of the year and find out what they mean to you!

In NuVasive, Inc. v. Kormanis, North Carolina Magistrate Judge L. Patrick Auld recommended that, “because the record supports but does not compel a ‘finding that [Defendant Kormanis] acted with the intent to deprive [Plaintiff] of the [lost text messages’] use in the litigation, the Court submit that issue to the ‘jury, [with] the [C]ourt’s instruction[s] mak[ing] clear that the jury may infer from the loss of the [text messages] that [they were] unfavorable to [Defendant Kormanis] only if the jury first finds that [he] acted with the intent to deprive [Plaintiff] of the[ir] use in the litigation’”.

In Washington v. GEO Group, Inc., Washington District Judge Robert J. Bryan denied the defendant’s Motion to Compel Production of Documents and Metadata, ruling that the defendant “fails to identify a specific response for production to which the State did not respond”, that the defendant “has not shown that the [metadata] is relevant and proportional to the needs of the case” and that the “the parties have not met and conferred as to this recent log as required under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(1).”

In Opternative, Inc. v. Jand, Inc., New York Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn granted in part and denied in part the defendant’s motion to compel the plaintiff to produce printouts of two files of source code, a printout of a log file, and a listing of directories and files. Judge Netburn ordered the plaintiff to produce the source code and log file printouts requested, but not the file directory listing, choosing to reserve judgment on that for the time being.