Amended Rules Five Months Later: Early Trends in Case Law and What It Means
A motion for an adverse inference was denied in Pratt v. Robbins, et al., 2024 WL 234730, Case No. 5:20-cv-170-GCM (W.D. N.C. Jan. 22, 2024) where Defendants failed to preserve or produce a video that might have contained...more
We all know that there are Federal and State rules that govern how eDiscovery is conducted, but legal professionals need examples to illustrate how the rules should be applied, and what NOT to do. This webinar will use actual...more
The recent decision In re Keurig Antitrust Litigation, 2022 WL 1082087 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 11, 2022), offers timely examples of how extensive, well-intentioned preservation efforts can go awry – leading to costly motion practice...more
A review of recent case law by EDRM Guardian Partner Exterro’s E-Discovery Case Law Project - Five or so years ago, legal professionals were hearing about “the end of sanctions.” Changes in the Federal Rules of Civil...more
Video surveillance is ubiquitous today and often sought in connection with injuries or litigation. As a result, courts are increasingly presented with disputes relating to the preservation and production of surveillance...more
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e)(2), imposition of the most severe sanctions for failure to preserve relevant electronically stored information — a presumption that the information lost was unfavorable, an...more
Is eDiscovery Existing in a Post-Sanctions World? The short (and obvious) answer is no. Rule 37(e) isn’t going anywhere. But recent case law indicates a trend where sanctions seem to be harder to come by, which may play...more
Parties “Do Not Get to Select What Evidence They Want to Produce, or From What Sources” Are you preserving all of the electronically stored information (ESI) that’s relevant to your litigation matters? What about...more
Two Recent Cases Highlight the Spoliation Thresholds in Rule 37(e) - With the 2015 FRCP amendments quickly nearing a half-decade in existence, case-law continues to define how these rules are upheld in court, especially...more
Whether we like it or not, a reality of today’s world is that often important business is conducted by text messages. And so, when it is time to issue a litigation hold notice, you must include an instruction to preserve text...more
Insight into where e-discovery, information governance cybersecurity, and digital transformation are heading – who is doing what now or in the future, what works and what doesn’t, and what people wish they could do but can’t...more
You may have read my colleague Starling Underwood’s post on two recent Second Circuit decisions discussing sanctions for spoliation. If you have not, I encourage you to read it here. The two cases Starling addressed, one...more
By Memorandum Opinion entered by the Honorable Maryellen Noreika in Cignex Datamatics, Inc. v. Lam Research Corp., Civil Action No. 17-320-MN (D.Del. March 11, 2019), the Court denied the motion of defendant Lam Research...more
...For those of us who practice regularly in the ediscovery realm, the December 1, 2015 amendment to Rule 37(e) was a much needed game-changer. In simple terms, amended Rule 37(e) eliminated the risk of the severest sanctions...more
The ninth edition of The E-Discovery Digest focuses on recent decisions addressing the scope and application of the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine, spoliation, and discovery responses....more
Within two years of its implementation, several cases show that amended Rule 37(e) is having its intended impact, as judges are carefully applying the criteria articulated in the Rule prior to ordering curative measures or...more
Electronic discovery cases that made headlines in 2017 featured well-known names such as Taylor Swift and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. As the year draws to a close, it’s a good time to...more
The eighth edition of The E-Discovery Digest focuses on recent decisions addressing the scope and application of the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine, spoliation, and discovery responses....more
Magistrate Judge Iain D. Johnston recently held that sanctions were not warranted under Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(e) against a defendant who admitted to erroneously destroying electronically stored information (ESI). While the court...more
The seventh edition of The E-Discovery Digest focuses on recent decisions addressing the scope and application of the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine, spoliation, and discovery responses....more
While it is possible that with four decades of music, Joni Mitchell’s lyrics have been referenced in a court opinion before, I’d venture a guess that Ms. Mitchell has never made an appearance in an ESI case. That is, until...more
Federal courts have broad authority to manage discovery, but when it comes to punishing litigants for discovery violations, their inherent authority is limited by rule and now Supreme Court precedent. Recently, the U.S....more
In Hsueh v. N.Y. State Dep’t of Fin. Servs., (No. 15 Civ. 3401 [PAC], 2017 WL 1194706 [S.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2017]) the Southern District imposed spoliation sanctions (specifically, an adverse inference) on the plaintiff in a...more
A recent case offers a cautionary tale of how courts may cite to the requirements of amended Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e), which governs imposing sanctions for failure to preserve electronically stored information...more
I was recently reminded that it has been over a year since my last ESI-related blog. My excuse is that I wanted to allow the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure addressing ESI to percolate before writing on the...more