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Evidentiary & Admissibility Issues
State v. Rivas, 2007 Ohio App. LEXIS 3299 (Ohio Ct. App. Jul. 13, 2007).
The court overturned the trial court's conviction of Defendant due to the fact that an in camera review of the police department's computer was not performed, which would have verified that accuracy of the transcripts that were recorded from a chat room and subsequently used against Defendant.
Sklar v. Clough, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49248 (N.D. Ga. Jul. 6, 2007).
Plaintiff's attached exhibits to their summary judgment motion, including emails and PowerPoint presentations, however, although Defendant objected to these exhibits, Defendant was overruled, as the documents were authenticated.
Hutchens v. Hutchens-Collins, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87187 (D. Ore. Nov. 30, 2006).
Plaintiff's documents, which were identified by defendant to be residing on a publicly available website, were not subject to requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 34. These documents were sufficiently authenticated and were used in support of defendant's successful summary judgment motion.
Inventory Locator Service, LLC v. PartsBase, Inc., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39521 (W.D. Tenn. Jun. 14, 2006).
An expert supported allegations that one of the parties fabricated electronic evidence, therefore, a special master was appointed to identify whether server logs were altered.
United States v. Safavian, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32284 (D.D.C. May 23, 2006).
All but 13 of the 260 email documents defendant wanted excluded as evidence were properly authenticated by plaintiff and deemed admissible.
McCaninch v. Federal Express Corporation, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27390 (S.D. Iowa November 8, 2005).
Emails produced by plaintiff were properly authenticated and admissible.
Portis v. City of Chicago, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18241 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 24, 2005).
Specific ordinances within the city of Chicago provided only that violators be fined, however, violators were arrested and thus filed a civil rights class action. The city obtained via discovery a database that plaintiffs had compiled based on city records due to a court order that required that both parties pay a share of the cost of compiling the database (Portis II). In Portis III, the court held the decision previously made that permitted defendant to depose plaintiffs' computer expert and ask specific questions regarding the compensation paid to the consultant, as well as previous affidavits he had filed with regards to the database in question.
Allyson Henry v. IAC/Interactive Group and Expedia Inc., No. C05-1510RSM (W.D. Wash. Feb. 14, 2006).
Plaintiff was ordered to provide defendant, her former employer, with three computer systems owned by defendant, in addition to over 90,000 documents plaintiff gave to her counsel both before and after filing the suit.
McCaninch v. Federal Express Corporation, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27390 (S.D. Iowa November 8, 2005).
Email messages in question were properly authenticated and allowed in as admissible evidence.
Harbuck v. Teets, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 22202 (11th Cir. Oct. 12, 2005).
As a U.S. District Court was considered a neutral party, it was not an abuse of its discretion to allow the court's own technology staff to review electronic evidence to determine that it had been properly produced.
Portis v. City of Chicago, "Portis III", 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18241 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 24, 2005).
Specific ordinances within the city of Chicago provided only that violators be fined, however, violators were arrested and thus filed a civil rights class action. The city obtained via discovery a database that plaintiffs had compiled based on city records due to a court order that required that both parties pay a share of the cost of compiling the database (Portis II). In Portis III, the court held the decision previously made that permitted defendant to depose plaintiffs' computer expert and ask specific questions regarding the compensation paid to the consultant, as well as previous affidavits he had filed with regards to the database in question.
Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. v. Montana Board of Investments, 2005 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 6541 (N.Y. App. Div. June 14, 2005).
Instant messages sent between plaintiff and defendant were sufficient to subject defendant to jurisdiction in New York, where plaintiff filed a contract action against defendant.
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts B.V. v. Consorcio Barr, S.A., 267 F. Supp. 2d 1268 (S.D. Fla. 2003).
The court determined that a consortium that owned a hotel in a chain had violated its license agreement with the chain and had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, and the Lanham Act by accessing and downloading customer and other electronic information from computers systems belonging to the hotel chain. The court ordered that over $4 million in damages be awarded to the hotel chain.
Fenje v. Feld, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24387 (N.D. Ill., Dec. 8, 2003).
The authentication of email messages presented in support of a summary judgement motion was at the core of this wrongful termination case. The court found that email messages may be authenticated as being from the suspected author based on the following factors:
- The email address from which it was sent
- An affidavit of the recipient
- Comparison of the content of the email with other evidence
- Other communication from the suspected author acknowledging the email message in question
Taffe v. Ill. Dep't of Empl. Sec., 229 F. Supp. 2d 858, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20538 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 23, 2002).
In this case alleging retaliatory discharge, defendant stated that plaintiff had a history of misconduct and had been suspended from work for utilizing her work computer to play games. Defendant provided an affidavit containing an email message written by "Ken S", sent to plaintiff's boss, and then forwarded to the division manager that stated that computer games had been found on plaintiff's computer. The court found that the email message was inadmissible based on the hearsay rule.
Simon Prop. Group L.P. v. MySimon, Inc., 194 F.R.D. 639, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8950, 47 Fed. R. Serv. 3d (Callaghan) 247, 54 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. (CBC) 604 (S.D. Ind. June 7, 2000), Motion for New Trial Granted, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5438 (S.D. Ind. Mar. 26, 2003).
In this trademark case, plaintiff moved to recover deleted computer files from defendant's employees' work and home computer systems. The court granted this motion while also requiring that protective measures be taken. Plaintiff was compelled to appoint an expert to serve as an officer of the court who would turn over all recovered information to defendant's counsel to review before providing it to plaintiff.
Perfect 10, Inc. v. Cybernet Ventures, Inc., 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7333 (9th Cir. 2002).
Defendant objected to plaintiff's motion for temporary injunction based on attached exhibits consisting of pages printed from the Internet, claiming that they were inadmissible as the printouts were not sufficiently authenticated. The court found that the exhibits were properly authenticated based on the plaintiff's submission of a declaration by their CEO stating that the exhibits consisted of "true and correct copies of pages printed from the Internet", as per Fed. R. Evid. 901(a).
Kearley v. State, 843 So. 2d 66, 2002 Miss. App. LEXIS 560 (Miss. Ct. App. Oct. 22, 2002).
After being convicted of sexual battery, defendant appealed on issues regarding the proper authentication of email messages he had allegedly sent to victim. During the trial, the victim had testified that she had received and printed the email messages on her computer and the appellate court held that this testimony was sufficient authentication under the rules of evidence, upholding defendant's conviction.
New York v. Microsoft Corp., 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7683 (D.D.C. Apr. 12, 2002).
Plaintiff submitted numerous email messages as an appendix to the written testimony of one of its witnesses; however, defendant contested these email messages, stating that they were inadmissible hearsay. The court found that the same rules of admissibility apply to email and excluded many of the messages submitted by the plaintiff based on the following reasons:
- Based on Rule 803(6) they had not been shown to be business records
- They contained numerous levels of hearsay, for which no exception had been established
- They were offered for the truth of the matters they asserted
Demelash v. Ross Stores, Inc., 20 P.3d 447, 2001 Wash. App. LEXIS 474.
In an action for a false shoplifting arrest in which defendant's employees detained plaintiff for allegedly shoplifting, plaintiff sued the store for a variety of claims and lost, thus prompting an appeal. Based on the defendant's failure to produce requested documents regarding its handling of other shoplifting charges, although the trial court had allowed defendant to produce only a computerized summary of theses files, the appellate court found that defendant had actually produced a summary that was non-responsive and inadequate. The appellate court found that the trial court must compel defendant to produce the data requested by the plaintiff and to impose sanctions on the defendant for violating discovery rules
Vermont Elec. Power Co., Inc. v. Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Co., 72 F. Supp.2d 441 (D. Vt. 1999).
This breach of insurance contract case alleged that defendant had not reimbursed plaintiff for repair costs of three damaged transformers, however, the time frame of when the transformers were actually damaged was imperative, as defendant only insured plaintiff for three years. Based on plaintiff's intra-company email messages regarding when the damage occurred, although plaintiff claimed these emails were inadmissible hearsay, the court denied plaintiff's motion for summary judgment.
SKW Real Estate Ltd. Pshp. v. Gallicchio, 49 Conn. App. 563, 716 A.2d 903, 1998 Conn. App. LEXIS 324 (July 28, 1998).
Based on the business records exception of the hearsay rule, defendant disputed the admissibility of a computer-generated document showing his loan history that was created as part of the normal course of plaintiff's business. Defendant argued that the plaintiff's witness that testified regarding the document in question had not been the one to actually create the document or input the information into the computer and could therefore not testify as to its accuracy. The court found that, since the witness was familiar with the procedures followed to create such a document, he was able to accurately verify it and, in addition, the document had been properly admitted under the business records exception to the hearsay rule.
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