In PolyOne Corp. v. Lu et. al., Case No. 14-10369 (N.D. Ill., Dec. 30, 2015), Plaintiff sued Defendants for various business torts related to misappropriation. During discovery, Defendants filed a Motion to Compel answers to Interrogatories and production of certain communications, formulas, and documentation in support. Plaintiff also filed a Motion to Compel, requesting, among other things, production of computers and flash drives used by key individuals accused of stealing business information and passing it along to the Defendant companies.
The court granted each motion in part and denied each motion in part. The court granted Defendants’ motion to compel with regard to Plaintiffs’ physical and electronic files reflecting an employee’s access to Plaintiff’s files or formulas that Plaintiff claimed were stolen or misappropriated. The court denied the Motion with regard to the electronics, as it found insufficient information about the devices to determine if they should be produced. The court ordered the parties to meet and confer after production of certain documents and then renew the Motion to Compel if they could not agree.
Plaintiffs looking to compel production of computers, hard drives, flash drives and other electronic devices should build a foundation early on to establish the relevance of such items before seeking them in discovery.