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Court Compels Google to Disclose How it Created the Universe
This title is a paraphrase of the basic question at the heart of an Order dated May 9, 2013 in Apple v. Samsung, Case No. 12-CV-0630-LHK(PSG)(N.D.Ca. 2013), where Apple had a dispute with third-party Google. Apple subpoenaed Google to provide electronic discovery under Fed. R. Civ. P. 45. (Non-parties may
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Search Term Disputes: Valid Arguments or a Simple Lack of Cooperation?
Many times, search term disagreements can be resolved through cooperative efforts. Indeed, the “meet and confer” requirement of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure mandates parties to make a good faith effort to resolve such disputes without litigation. In the March 14, 2013 order in the case Robert Bosch LLC
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Open Season on Facebook for Plaintiff ESI Production? Not So Fast.
There is a new trend emerging in civil litigation relating to plaintiff ESI production requests: defendants are now regularly demanding access to social media accounts, particularly Facebook. While the case law continues to evolve, many courts hold that defendants must make a “threshold showing” that information gleaned from a plaintiff’s
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Mandatory v. Permissive Adverse Inference Instructions for eDiscovery Spoliation
Adverse inference instructions are a common tool available to the court as sanctions for electronic data spoliation. However, there are two main types of adverse inference instructions: mandatory and permissive. What is the difference, and how do courts decide which instruction is appropriate? In our last blog, we discussed the case
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Plaintiffs Take Note: Deletion of Facebook May Be eDiscovery Spoliation
Our last blog reviewed the facts and timeline in the ongoing New Jersey case and order from Gatto v. United Air Lines, Inc., Civil Action No.: 10-cv-1090-ES-SCM (N.D.N.J. March 25, 2013). The parties disagreed on whether a previous order requiring plaintiff to provide his Facebook account meant the defendant had
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Court Partially Quashes Third-Party Subpoena Served on Google Under the SCA
Our last blog discussed the facts of Optiver Australia v. Libra Trading, 2013 WL 256771 (N.D.Cal.). This case stems from a foreign proceeding, and its ruling therein on whether the plaintiff’s subpoena for certain email communications from a third-party, Google, violates the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”). Plaintiff alleged that defendant purposefully
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Ottawa Facing Class Action Lawsuit After Losing Electronic Files
The Ottawa government is facing a class action lawsuit after a portable hard drive containing electronic data regarding 500,000 student loan borrowers was lost. Contained in the hard drive is sensitive information about the borrowers who took out student loans from 2000-2006, including names, social insurance numbers, birthdates, loan information
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On Remand, Court Explaines Findings and Sanction in Rambus v. Micron
Our last blog reviewed the ongoing patent litigation case Micron v. Rambus, Civ. No. 00-792-SLR (D. Del.), where the findings of bad faith and prejudice, as well as the sanction, were vacated. On remand, what did the court decide? To find bad faith, the court must find the spoliating party
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Email Chains Burn BP in Massive Plaintiff Multidistrict Litigation
Oil giant BP is facing a massive MDL lawsuit in the Lone Star state. Plaintiffs are 47,830 sick residents, plant contractors and workers from the Texas City, Texas area. A fire at the town’s BP oil refinery caused the company to release over 513,795 pounds of toxic chemicals into the
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No Duty to Preserve Evidence in Illinois?
“The general rule in Illinois is that there is no duty to preserve evidence.”Terry Martin, et al., v Keeley & Sons, 2012 IL 113270. That is a direct quotation from a recent state spoliation case from the Illinois Supreme Court. In Keeley, construction workers had been injured when the beam