Bow Tie Law

Nothing Says “Bad Faith” Like Throwing a Laptop off a Building

Is entering a default judgment against a party for destroying a laptop excessive and unduly harsh?  Not in Utah.  Daynight, LLC v. Mobilight, Inc., 2011 UT App 28, P2 (Utah Ct. App. 2011). Daynight involved a destroyed laptop and what was the appropriate sanction for the destruction of evidence. Certainly[…]

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No Triggering Event, No Duty to Preserve

In an employment dispute, the Plaintiff claimed the Defendants had a duty to preserve electronically stored information at the beginning of an HR investigation after she sent a letter outlying concerns with her manager.  The Plaintiff was ultimately put on a performance review and terminated.  Viramontes v. United States Bancorp, 2011[…]

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A Search Term Turkey

In a Fair Labor Standards Case against Butterball, the Plaintiffs claimed the Defendants’ ESI production was incomplete.  The Defendants in turn claimed that the “burden” of producing the discovery was burdensome, justifying cost shifting.  Helmert, et al., v. Butterball, LLC, 2010 U.S. Dist. Lexis 60777 (May 27, 2010).  While that[…]

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Going Too Far with a Litigation Hold: Do Not Secretly Copy the Adverse Party’s Data

In a business divorce, the Plaintiffs received a litigation hold notice from the Defendants.  The Plaintiffs then secretly copied computer files from the Defendants’ data center in Oakland, California through their virtual private network (VPN) connection to the data center.  Joseph Oat Holdings, Inc. v. RCM Digesters, Inc., 665 F. Supp.[…]

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Bow Tie Law 1st Anniversary

December 30, 2009 marks the first anniversary of “Bow Tie Law.”  2009 was a watershed year of case law, with litigation hold opinions coming up weekly this summer; the mandatory exclusion of ESI for the failure to disclose or supplement discovery; and judges holding attorneys to a higher standard for electronically stored[…]

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