Email – Page 6 – Bow Tie Law

Who Delivers a Litigation Hold Notice to the Post Office?

May 18, 2009 Josh Gilliland e-Discovery, Electronically Stored Information, Email, ESI, Litigation Hold, Spoliation

Procedural Overview A mail clerk sued the United States Post Office and settled her lawsuit 1999. The Plaintiff sued the Post Office again, claiming the Defendants engaged in a campaign of harassment. The Plaintiff brought a second lawsuit for violations of Title VII and breach of contract. Phillips v. Potter,[…]

Producing Social Networking Profiles: What Court has Jurisdiction?

May 12, 2009 Josh Gilliland Deposition, e-Discovery, Electronically Stored Information, Email, ESI, Facebook, Social Networking

A Facebook user in Massachusetts was facing criminal charges in Massachusetts for criminal harassment and threats to commit a crime from Facebook messages. Skerry, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38804, 1-2 (D. Cal. 2009). The Petitioner sought the emergency deposition of Facebook’s “recorder keeper” because of the concern Facebook periodically purged its information system. Skerry, 2-4.

Name that Form of Production: Converting ESI to TIFF without Metadata is Not a Reasonably Useable Form

May 7, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, Document Review, e-Discovery, Electronically Stored Information, Email, ESI, ethics, Form of Production, Metadata, Native File, TIFF

Bray & Gillespie Mgmt. LLC v. Lexington Ins. Co., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21250 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 4, 2009) is a lengthy opinion covering Rule 34 requests, form of production issues concerning metadata, reasonably useable form of production, ethical responsibilities for candor to the Court and Opposing Parties and sanctions. […]

Know Your Client’s ESI: You Really Don’t Want a Judge Saying, “This is Unacceptable”

May 1, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, Duty of Care, e-Discovery, Electronically Stored Information, Email, ESI, Litigation Hold, Request for Production

This may surprise a few people: There is another magistrate judge besides Judge Waxse writing ESI opinions in Kansas. Magistrate Judge Donald Bostwick issued an order granting in part and denying in part a motion to compel ESI in Patterson v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS[…]

Local Political Drama: Text Messages, Employee Hard Drives and Wrongful Termination

April 27, 2009 Josh Gilliland e-Discovery, Electronically Stored Information, Email, ESI, Text Messages

Williams v. City of Franklin, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33200 (M.D. Tenn. Apr. 16, 2009) is an ESI free for all. The case is a local political drama that sounds like a Hollywood production. There are threatening text messages from an alderman and then rummaging through an employee’s laptops for[…]

Prescription for Spoliation: A Short Legal Review

April 22, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, e-Discovery, Email, Spoliation

Two drug companies in litigation ended up in a legal brawl over spoliation of backup tapes. The Defendants claimed the Plaintiffs either intentionally or recklessly destroyed back up tapes with key email messages that tended to show the Plaintiffs’ drug “escitalopram” did not produce “unexpected results” and therefore was “obvious.”[…]

Magistrate Judge Peck’s Search Term Wake-Up Call

March 31, 2009 Josh Gilliland Discovery, e-Discovery, Email, Request for Production, Search Terms

This Opinion should serve as a wake-up call to the Bar in this District about the need for careful thought, quality control, testing, and cooperation with opposing counsel in designing search terms or “keywords” to be used to produce emails or other electronically stored information (“ESI”). Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck,[…]