Gibbons Law Alert

Gibbons Law Alert

Gibbons Law Alert

Author: Brielle A. Basso

The Destruction of a “Startling Amount of Discovery”: District Court Imposes Severe, Case-Ending Sanctions Pursuant to Rule 37(e)(2)

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Posted in General Litigation

On November 18, 2020

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington recently entered a default judgment order of terminating sanctions against defendants pursuant to Rule 37(e)(2), as a result of defendants’ wholesale destruction of a “startling amount of discovery” as part of defendants’ adoption of a document disposition program during the course of the litigation. The district court found that the defendants “purposefully destroyed” relevant electronically stored information (ESI) “to avoid their litigation obligations.” This decision highlights the importance of extreme caution in the adoption of a document disposition or information governance program, which necessarily eliminates typically large quantities of ESI, during the time period when the duty to preserve relevant ESI has been triggered. In Moreno v. Correctional Healthcare Companies, Inc., plaintiffs filed constitutional claims against defendants–providers of healthcare services to inmates–after plaintiffs’ eighteen-year-old son died while in defendants’ custody. In January 2018, prior to filing the lawsuit, plaintiffs sent a letter to defendants notifying defendants of their plan to file a lawsuit and advising defendants to “preserve all paper and electronic records that may be relevant to our clients’ claims” including “all e-mails and other electronic and paper records regardless of where they are maintained.” Plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in October 2018 and, in December 2018, served discovery requests on defendants, seeking certain categories...

Non-Consensual “Quick Peek” Revisited: FRE 502(d) Cannot Be Used to Compel Production of Potentially Privileged Information Without a Privilege Review

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Posted in E-Discovery: Legal Decisions and Court Rules

On October 1, 2020

The District Court for the District of Columbia recently confirmed that FRE 502(d) orders cannot be used to force a responding party to produce potentially privileged documents without the opportunity to first review them. In doing so, the court found that such an order would not only violate the producing parties’ right to determine in the first instance how it reviews and produces, but would potentially compel the production of privileged information and thus would constitute “an abuse of discretion.” In Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. George Washington University, the EEOC filed a discrimination action on behalf of a former executive assistant against defendant, George Washington University, alleging that defendant’s former athletic director treated the former executive assistant less favorably compared to her male co-worker, a former special assistant. The discovery dispute concerned four requests for production of documents served by plaintiff: three seeking thousands of emails from the work accounts of defendant’s former athletic director and his two assistants; and one seeking information related to workplace complaints against the former athletic director. Defendant argued that plaintiff’s requests were overbroad and unduly burdensome—that is, that compliance with the requests would impose costs that were “not proportional to the needs of the case,” under the proportionality dictates of FRCP 26. By its decision, the court resolved...

Second Circuit Holds Injunctive Class of Past Purchasers Not Certifiable Under Rule 23(b)(2)

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Posted in Class Action Defense

On September 18, 2020

The Second Circuit recently resolved a conflict among district courts, holding that past purchasers of a product are ineligible for class certification under Rule 23(b)(2) because not all class members would benefit from injunctive relief. Specifically, explained the Court, it is unlikely a purchaser will buy the allegedly deceptive product again, and if they do, they do so with the knowledge of the alleged deception. In Berni v. Barilla S.p.A., plaintiffs initiated a class action alleging that defendant intentionally sold its pasta in misleading boxes that concealed non-functional “slack-fill,” i.e., excessive empty space in the box. The parties reached a settlement, agreeing that defendant would include a minimum “fill-line” on its boxes, to indicate how much pasta was in the container, and a disclaimer that the pasta is sold by weight and not by volume. Neither party challenged the settlement; however, an absent class member objected, arguing that the group of past purchasers could not be certified under Rule 23(b)(2) because past purchasers were ineligible for injunctive relief. The district court disagreed and certified the injunctive class and approved the settlement. The objector appealed. The Circuit Court vacated the district court’s order granting approval of the settlement class, reasoning that injunctive relief was not proper for the group of past purchasers and, thus, the group...

Third Circuit Reverses Denial of Class Certification: Holds Ascertainability Satisfied Even with Gaps in Records

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Posted in Class Action Defense

On September 17, 2020

On September 9, 2020, a split panel of the Third Circuit issued a precedential opinion in Hargrove v. Sleepy’s LLC, reversing the denial of class certification because the district court “misapplied” the Circuit’s ascertainability case law and was “too exacting” when it “essentially demanded” that plaintiffs identify the class members at the certification stage. The circuit court also determined that the district court erroneously applied the motion-for-reconsideration standard to plaintiffs’ renewed motion for class certification, and held that courts should apply “the usual Rule 23 standard.” In Hargrove, the plaintiffs, delivery drivers, brought an employee misclassification suit alleging that defendant misclassified them as independent contractors, rather than employees, and thus violated several New Jersey labor laws. The district court denied class certification, twice, on the ground that the ascertainability requirement was not satisfied. In denying plaintiffs’ renewed motion for certification, the Court held that plaintiffs’ proposed class was “not ascertainable because the records kept by Sleepy’s regarding the identity of the drivers lacked critical information.” The plaintiffs sought leave to appeal pursuant to Rule 23(f), and the Third Circuit granted their request. First, the circuit court addressed the split among the district courts, both in and out of the Third Circuit, on the issue of the standard that applies to renewed motions for class certification....

Third Circuit Affirms Class Certification in In re Suboxone Antirust Litigation

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Posted in Class Action Defense

On August 10, 2020

On July 28, 2020, the Third Circuit in In re Suboxone (Buprenorphine Hydrochloride & Nalaxone) Antitrust Litigation, affirmed certification of a direct purchaser class, concluding that common evidence existed to prove the plaintiffs’ antitrust theory and resulting injury and that the proposed class representative, Burlington Drug Company, Inc., was an adequate class representative. The direct-purchaser plaintiffs alleged that the defendant drug manufacturer of the opioid-treatment drug, Suboxone, engaged in anticompetitive conduct that impeded the entry of generic versions of the drug into the market. Specifically, plaintiffs asserted that defendant “shifted the market” from Suboxone tablets to Suboxone film by the time generic tablets entered the market, thereby maintaining a monopoly and suppressing competition. According to plaintiffs, the defendant’s transition from tablets to film was coupled with six tactics to “eliminate demand for Suboxone tablets and to coerce prescribers to prefer film,” including making false statements about the safety of the tablets and withdrawing brand-name Suboxone tablets from the market. The plaintiffs argued that due to defendant’s anticompetitive conduct, they paid more for brand Suboxone products than they would have for generic tablets. The district court certified the class, and the Third Circuit granted the defendant’s petition for leave to appeal under Rule 23(f). First, the Third Circuit addressed defendant’s argument that plaintiffs did not provide...

New Jersey Supreme Court Holds That Individualized Proof of Damages Is Required Absent a Basis for Presumption of Class-Wide Damages Capable of Reliable Mathematical Calculation

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Posted in Class Action Defense

On July 2, 2020

In Little v. Kia Motors America, Inc., a litigation spanning nearly two decades, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that, although aggregate proof of damages can be appropriate in some settings, individualized proof of damages based on the actual costs incurred by the class members was required in the case before it. Class members had to show they incurred “actual costs” as a result of an alleged defect in order to recover damages. In 2001, plaintiff filed a putative class action asserting breach of warranty and other claims on her behalf and on behalf of other New Jersey owners and lessees of certain Kia models. Plaintiff alleged that the vehicles had a defective brake system which rendered the vehicles’ front brakes susceptible to premature wear. After a four-week trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff and the class on the class-wide warranty claim, awarding zero damages for alleged diminution-in-value but $750 per class member on the out-of-pocket loss theory, which had been premised on an expert’s estimate of the amount of money an average owner would pay for brake repairs over the vehicles’ lives as a result of the alleged defect. On defendant’s motion for a new trial and to decertify for purposes of repair damages, the trial court decertified the class...

In It for the Long Haul: The Duty to Preserve Social Media Accounts Is Not Terminated Upon an Initial Production

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Posted in E-Discovery: Legal Decisions and Court Rules

On June 30, 2020

In a recent decision by a federal district court in Ohio, the court admonished a plaintiff in a gender-based pay discrimination for deactivating her LinkedIn account during the pendency of the litigation after making an initial production. The court concluded that plaintiff had violated her duty to preserve pursuant to Rule 37(e), as the conduct resulted in the deletion of relevant and discoverable information that was the subject of a previous court order. The court declined to impose sanctions because plaintiff had in fact produced data from her LinkedIn account and because defendant could not demonstrate prejudice. However, the court did not let plaintiff’s offense go lightly; the court stated that plaintiff’s action was serious and inappropriate. In Faulkner v. Aero Fulfillment Services, plaintiffs alleged gender-based pay discrimination during their employment with defendant. Pursuant to a court order, plaintiffs had to produce, among other things, the “last three years of social media information.” Plaintiff Faulkner’s counsel followed the directions on the LinkedIn website to download a full data archive in Microsoft Excel format and produced the Excel file to defendant. Subsequently, defense counsel requested the social media information in a different format, a “screenshot” format. But plaintiff’s counsel was unable to produce Ms. Faulkner’s LinkedIn information in the “screenshot” format because the account had already...

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