Case Law & Court Rules

On August 11, 2016, a Pennsylvania District Court granted a motion to compel discovery since request was “proportional to the needs of the case” In this breach of agreement case, the parties disagreed about the scope of discovery. Plaintiff moved to compel Defendant to allow for a broad search of his electronic devices. Defendant objected […]

On August 1, 2016, a New York District Court issued an opinion stating that a party cannot be forced to use TAR (technology assisted review) when it prefers to use keyword searching. In this employment discrimination case, the parties faced a major discovery dispute over which search methodology was to be used: keywords or TAR. […]

On July 29, 2016, the Washington District Court found that the requesting party is responsible for the costs to retrieve archived emails discoverable under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). In this case Plaintiff did not meet his burden to show good cause, which would have overcome Defendant’s showing that producing the archived emails was costly and burdensome. […]

On June 14, 2016, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, held that personal email accounts may be searched with reference to a work-related dispute. In this civil rights case, Plaintiff motioned to compel Defendants to “search for and produce certain documents from their personal computers and email accounts.” Plaintiff pointed […]

On May 23, 2016, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York determined that “just as a plaintiff may not take discovery regarding unpled claims, so a defendant is precluded from seeking discovery concerning unpled defenses”. In this intellectual property dispute, Defendants moved – among other requests – for an order […]

On June 24, 2016, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, determined that “a party cannot simply claim ignorance in order to avoid producing documents that are relevant to an opposing party’s claim or defense”. Plaintiff FDIC is the receiver of AmTrust while Defendant Ark-La-Tex is engaged in the […]

On June 14, 2016, the Rhode Island District Court applied the newly amended FRCP to ensure proportional discovery and limit Parties’ discovery motions. In this intellectual property action, the Court had to determine when the fact discovery phase should end and what discovery had to be completed before it did. In particular, Defendant sought to […]

On July 21, 2016, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, determined that in a low-dollar-value civil rights suit, the public value of allowing the opportunity to access relevant information far outweighs the asserted cost to retrieve such data. In this employment discrimination case, the Parties disagreed over “whether […]

On July 12, 2016, the federal District Court in Delaware imposed $3,000,000 punitive sanction on Defendant due to its “high degree of fault, its bad-faith intent to deprive GN of responsive documents, and the prejudice it has caused to GN’s case — along with the difficulties it has created for GN in “getting to the […]

In this non-compete agreement case, plaintiffs moved for sanctions against a defendant that deleted emails supposedly containing “critical evidence.” The defendant argued that “he deleted emails on a regular basis unless there was a specific business reason to keep them”. He believed that all of the emails were backed up in a secure server. However, […]