Amended Rules Five Months Later: Early Trends in Case Law and What It Means
The ninth edition of The E-Discovery Digest focuses on recent decisions addressing the scope and application of the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine, spoliation, and discovery responses....more
Within two years of its implementation, several cases show that amended Rule 37(e) is having its intended impact, as judges are carefully applying the criteria articulated in the Rule prior to ordering curative measures or...more
Electronic discovery cases that made headlines in 2017 featured well-known names such as Taylor Swift and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. As the year draws to a close, it’s a good time to...more
While it is possible that with four decades of music, Joni Mitchell’s lyrics have been referenced in a court opinion before, I’d venture a guess that Ms. Mitchell has never made an appearance in an ESI case. That is, until...more
The Sedona Conference’s recent updates to The Sedona Principles provide important guidance on how parties to litigation should handle e-discovery. In particular, the new edition of the Principles set forth best practices...more
A recent case offers a cautionary tale of how courts may cite to the requirements of amended Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e), which governs imposing sanctions for failure to preserve electronically stored information...more
In Arrowhead Capital Fin. Ltd. v. Seven Arts Entertainment, Inc. 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126545 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 16, 2016), District Judge Katherine Polk Failla imposed significant sanctions upon both the Chief Executive Officer...more
The principles provide a useful framework for the application of proportionality to preservation, as well as practical guidance for negotiating the scope of discovery. The Sedona Conference — a research and educational...more
John Mellencamp sang, “I fight authority, authority always wins,” but inherent authority may not carry the day anymore when it comes to e-discovery sanctions under the new rules. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 37(e) now...more
If you’re involved in a suit in federal court, then the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply to you. Rule 26(b) provides, among other things, that parties may obtain discovery regarding any non-privileged matter that is...more
The application of Rule 37(e) may limit spoliation litigation to issues relevant to underlying claims and defenses. A key component in plaintiffs’ playbook when facing a corporate defendant is to attempt to try cases...more
For years, companies have battled different sanction standards for the failure to preserve documents. This led to over-preservation, where, to avoid accusations of “negligent” failure, companies preserved every shred of...more
Amended Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e), which takes effect on December 1, 2015, authorizes courts to impose sanctions if electronically stored information (ESI) is lost because a party failed to take “reasonable steps...more