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Scope of Discovery
United States v. Etkin, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12834 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 20, 2008).
Defendant sent an email to his wife using his employer's computer, on which a notice appeared every time Defendant logged in that stated that users had no expectation of privacy. Therefore, this email was not considered a privileged marital communication.
Flying J Inc. v. TA Operating Corp., "Flying J Inc. II", 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9662 (D. Utah Feb. 8, 2008).
The court denied a request for phased discovery, as a key email supporting denial of Defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings would not have been produced during the initial phase of discovery.
Atmel Corp. v. Authentec, Inc., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10850 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 31, 2008).
During a Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) deposition, deponent stated that he did not know whether or not Plaintiff's CEO's files had been searched in response to discovery requests. The CEO had been hired after the suit was filed, however, the court ordered that the CEO's emails and files be searched.
Hubbard v. Potter, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60 (D.D.C. Jan. 3, 2008).
Although some of Defendant's responding facilities produced a low number of electronic documents, this did not result in the assumption that they failed to produce response documents and did not result in an order for a supplemental document production.
Palgut v. City of Colorado Springs, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91719 (D. Colo. Dec. 3, 2007).
Based on the 2006 amendments to Fed. R. Civ. P. 34, the court found that Plaintiff was not entitled to access electronic information without a qualifying reason.
Best Buy Stores, L.P. v. Developers Diversified Realty Corp., "Best Buy II", 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88771 (D. Minn. Nov. 30, 2007).
Plaintiff had created a database in order to comply with discovery in another litigation, however, this did not require Plaintiff to restore this database so that it could be used by Defendant. The court found that, within the meaning of Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(B), the database was inaccessible as it would have needed to be re-compiled from backup tapes.
U & I Corp. v. Advanced Medical Design, Inc., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86530 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 26, 2007).
Plaintiff determined that a hard drive in their possession was "unloadable" and the court deferred Defendants motion to compel inspection of this hard drive, as it was believed that third parties would be able to produce copies of the email residing on this hard drive and pending Plaintiff's explanation of the activities they had undertaken to retrieve the unloadable files.
RLI Insurance Co. v. Indian River School District, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78419 (D. Del. Oct. 23, 2007).
The court denied Plaintiff's motion to compel production of electronic documents as this motion was filed after discovery had been closed and they had not discussed electronic discovery prior to the Rule 16 Conference.
Columbia Pictures, Inc. v. Bunnell,, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63620 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 24, 2007).
Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 34, temporarily stored data in a computer's RAM is discoverable.
Doe v. Morey Charter Schools, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59222 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 14, 2007).
Plaintiff moved to compel Defendant's to produce documents pertaining to this sexual abuse investigation, however, this was denied in part because both parties had mirror images of the hard drives seized by police and Plaintiff was permitted to make specific discovery requests of Defendants.
Emmerick v. S&K Famous Brands, Inc., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59147 (E.D. Tenn. Aug. 6, 2007).
The court denied pro se Plaintiff's request for Defendant to produce network backup tapes and other electronically stored information, as Plaintiff failed to provide a verbatim recitation of his request for document production.
Beinin v. Center for the Study of Popular Culture, "Beinin II", 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47546 (N.D. Cal. June 20, 2007).
The magistrate ordered that the identities of people who communicated with Plaintiff via email prior to Plaintiff filing his complaint were not to be disclosed, which the court upheld due to the First Amendment associational privilege.
Columbia Pictures Industries v. Bunnell, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46364 (C.D. Cal. June 19, 2007).
Based on the amended Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a), the court found that data that was stored on Defendant's website in its random access memory (RAM) was considered to be "electronically store information" and had to be produced in accordance with discovery requests. Defendant did not incur sanctions for not properly preserving the RAM, as there was no prior precedent set regarding the preservation of RAM.
Mugworld, Inc. v. G.G. Marck & Associates, Inc., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43543 (E.D. Tex. June 15, 2007).
The court found that an inadvertently produced email did not need to be returned to Defendant, as Defendant could not show that the email contained trade secret information, which they claimed, and Defendant also created a four-month delay in seeking the return of the email.
The court found that an inadvertently produced email did not need to be returned to Defendant, as Defendant could not show that the email contained trade secret information, which they claimed, and Defendant also created a four-month delay in seeking the return of the email.
Plaintiff's discovery requests were determined to be overbroad; thus, the court accepted Defendant's idea that they initially provide a random sampling of data.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Lockheed Martin, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37766 (D. Haw. May 22, 2007).
Plaintiff requested terminating sanctions based on Defendant's lack of production with regards to responsive documents, however, the court denied this request as it had not determined the scope of production at that time.
Meccatech, Inc. v. Kiser, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36107 (D. Neb. May 16, 2007).
Defendants, who were former employees of Plaintiff, were ordered to produce responsive email messages from their personal email accounts, as well as those emails that were written or reviewed on the computers they utilized.
Frees, Inc. v. McMillian, "Frees II", 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32736 (W.D. La. May 1, 2007).
The magistrate ordered that Plaintiff's former employee produce a laptop that a competitor had given to the employee two years after the employee ceased working there, which the court affirmed. The court determined that it was reasonable to identify whether the laptop contained proprietary data belonging to the former employer.
Wells v. Xpedx, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29610 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 23, 2007).
One of Defendant's IT employee was ordered to be deposed regarding Defendant's email deletion policies and procedures, as Defendant could not prove its assertion that all responsive email documents had been provided.
United States v. Vilar, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26993 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 5, 2007).
Defendant moved that specific evidence seized during a search that was a result of an overbroad warrant be suppressed and, as a result, the court partially granted this motion by outlining a resolution relating to the specific issues associated with computer searches.
Miller v. Holzmann, "Miller III", 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4399 (D.D.C. Jan. 23, 2007).
The court found that the government's subpoena for all documents possessed by Defendant's experts were overly burdensome and did not grant the motion.
Hedenburg v. Aramark American Food Services, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3443 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 17, 2007).
Defendant requested that a forensic duplication of Plaintiff's home computer be performed to ensure that Plaintiff had been honest when she stated that she had reviewed her files thoroughly, however, this request was denied.
United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 31850 (9th Cir. Dec. 27, 2006).
The government seized steroid testing records of major league baseball players, which resulted in search warrants being issued for 10 players.
Baker & Hostetler LLP v. United States Department of Commerce, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 31454 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 22, 2006).
The appellate court did not reverse the district court's assertion that Defendant had performed adequate attempts to recover deleted email and review its records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Thompson v. Jiffy Lube Int'l, Inc., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84961 (D. Kan. Nov. 21, 2006).
Plaintiff requested documents pertaining to emails associated with 450 employees of Defendant, at a cost of $600,000, however, the court found that this was unduly burdensome and inappropriate for this matter.
Johnson v. Kraft Foods North America, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82990 (D. Kan. Nov. 14, 2006).
The court overruled Defendant's objection that Plaintiff's discovery requests included terms that were vague or unambiguous (examples included "data dictionaries", "electronic database", and "coded fields"). The court determined that the Sedona Conference definitions of terms would be used to correct the issue.
In re Twenty-Fourth Statewide Investigating Grand Jury, 2006 Pa. LEXIS 1938 (Pa. Oct. 6, 2006).
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court vacated the orders made by the judge and grand jury that were responsible for enforcing subpoenas requiring a newspaper to turn over hard drives. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court determined that "any direct and compelled transfer to the executive branch of general-use media computer hardware should be pursuant to a due and proper warrant, issued upon probable cause."
Powers v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67706 (W.D. Mich. Sept. 21, 2006).
Plaintiff originally moved for additional discovery, in which their expert would search Defendant's computer system, which the court denied as it did not find just cause for causing this delay, expense, and intrusion for Defendant. The Plaintiff moved for reconsideration of denial of sanctions, which was denied.
Vermont v. Wesco, Inc., 2006 Vt. LEXIS 252 (Vt. Sept. 8, 2006).
The Vermont Supreme Court reversed the trial court's order for state computer system administrators to be deposed, as it found that the trial court had based its assertion that certain email documents that had existed but were not produced was based on speculation.
Hnot v. Willis Group Holdings, Ltd., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57612 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 17, 2006).
Based on the fact that non-expert discovery had been closed for two years, the court denied Plaintiff's request for additional discovery of a database.
Advante International Corp. v. Mintel Learning Technology, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45859 (N.D. Cal. Jun. 29, 2006).
The court denied the forensic examination of opposing parties' computer systems, as the requesting party could not provide evidence showcasing that the opposing party had hidden or destroyed evidence.
Thompson v. Jiffy Lube International, Inc., 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27837 (D. Kan. May 1, 2006).
The court found that a party's request for "any and all information related to email" was overly broad.
St. Joseph Medical Center, Inc. v. Cardiac Surgery Associates, P.A., 2006 Md. LEXIS 179 (Md. Ct. App. Apr. 12, 2006).
The court found that email and other electronic documents relating to the peer review process at the hospital were protected by a statutory medical review committee privilege.
In re BP Products, North America, Inc., 2006 Tex. App. LEXIS 1929 (Tex. Ct. App. Mar. 13, 2006).
The Texas court of appeals found that the lower court did not abuse its discretion by compelling production of all responsive electronic documents from backup tapes.
Bob Barker Co. v. Ferguson Safety Products, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14789 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 9, 2006).
The court found that the plaintiff did not show a reason for their expert to be granted access to the defendant's database to generate reports and that the plaintiff also did not describe how its expert would minimize business disruption to the defendant.
Harrison v. Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere & Denegre, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 5826 (5th Cir. Mar. 8, 2006).
Employees of the law firm participated in the execution of a discovery order in which plaintiff's home was entered by a deputy and a computer expert were not found to have conspired to violate plaintiff's civil rights and the law firm was entitled to summary judgment.
Rozell v. Ross-Holst, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2277 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 20, 2006).
Plaintiff claimed that defendant improperly accessed her email account, however, the court found that this act did not allow for every email sent to and from this account to be subjected to discovery.
 View Additional Case Summaries Regarding Scope of Discovery
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