Bow Tie Law

In the War of the Roses, It is Best to Change Your Email Password

Divorce is ugly.  It can be uglier when your estranged spouse has the password to your email account. In Gurevich v. Gurevich, 2009 NY Slip Op 29191 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2009), the estranged wife had her ex-husband’s email password since their separation in 2006.  The wife accessed the husband’s email[…]

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Proving Conspiracies with Electronically Stored Information

There is no shortage of people utilizing technology to facilitate illicit or questionable actions.  Below are two recent examples. Price Fixing Conspiracy In In re Static Random Access Memory Antitrust Litigation, the Plaintiffs alleged the Defendants engaged in a ten year conspiracy to fix and maintain artificially high prices for Static[…]

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Admissibility of Email Strings and Co-Conspirator Emails

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are frequent superstars spotlighting requests and production of electronically stored information in case law.  Whether or not such discovery is admissible is another story.  Park W. Radiology & Park W. Circle Realty v. Carecore Nat’l Llc, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110282 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 19, 2009) is[…]

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BlackBerry Boo-Boos: How to Get the Judge to Text You Adverse Inference Instructions

Southeastern Mechanical Services, Inc., v Brody, et al., is the story of how wiping the data off your BlackBerry can result with the Court having you drawn and quartered.  Not with horses, but with adverse inference instructions. In a trade secret case where Individual Defendants left the Plaintiff’s company and[…]

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Speedy Delivery: Compelling Imaging & Searching of Everything

In a contract dispute regarding a shipping vendor, the Plaintiff brought a motion to compel the collection and processing of the entire contents of Defendants’ hard drives, network drives, and user files.  Unishippers Global Logistics, LLC v. DHL Express (USA), Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94844 (D. Utah Oct. 12,[…]

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Proving Up Destroyed ESI is Favorable to Your Position is Hard to Do

In an ADA employment case, the Plaintiff sought spoliation sanctions and an adverse inference instruction for the destruction of electronically stored information (ESI). Scalera v. Electrograph Sys., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91572 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 29, 2009). The Plaintiff lost.             The Discovery Requests The Plaintiff sought the[…]

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A Three Page Order Hitting De-Duplication & Litigation Holds

From the plains of Kansas comes another short and powerful order by Magistrate Judge David Waxse.  On Constitution Day, Judge Waxse was very busy in White v. Graceland College Ctr. for Prof’l Dev. & Lifelong Learning, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85849 (D. Kan. Sept. 18, 2009).  For an earlier[…]

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Production Madness: The Covad Story Continues with New ESI Pitfalls

Understandably, taking an electronic document such as a spreadsheet, printing it, cutting it up, and telling one’s opponent to paste it back together again, when the electronic document can be produced with a keystroke is madness in the world in which we live. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola, Covad Communs.[…]

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Spoliation! A New Drama at the District Courthouse about a Litigation Hold and Missing Electronically Stored Information

The stage is set: There is a triggering event for a lawsuit, a litigation hold is enacted and evidence is preserved.  A drama played out not according to the above script with a law firm and client almost ending up on the hook for a botched litigation hold.  In Pinstripe, Inc. v. Manpower, Inc., the[…]

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