Category: E-Discovery: Legal Decisions and Court Rules

Proportionality Carries the Day: Amended FRCP 26 Cited to Quash Overbroad Subpoenas

As practitioners are well aware, the recent amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure took effect on December 1, 2015. In one of the first applications of amended Rule 26(b)(1), Magistrate Judge James Cott in the Southern District of New York utilized it to quash several overbroad subpoenas. In Henry v. Morgan’s Hotel Group, Inc., plaintiff Phillip Henry, a gay black man, sued his former employer, defendant Morgan’s Hotel Group, for race and sexual orientation discrimination and retaliation. Henry alleged that his former supervisor routinely disparaged him with racial and homophobic remarks.

N.Y. Court Grants Spoliation Sanctions for Destruction of Documents Decades Ago

In Warren v. Amchem Products, Inc., Justice Peter Moulton sanctioned defendant J-M Manufacturing Company for destroying documents in 1990 and 1997 – 24 years and 17 years, respectively, before the Warren Estate filed suit against asbestos manufacturers in 2014. The Court granted plaintiff’s motion for spoliation sanctions and ordered that, should the case proceed to trial, the jury will be instructed that it may infer that the destroyed documents would have supported plaintiff’s claims and would not have supported J-M’s defenses.

New “Privacy Shield” Agreement Seeks to Resurrect a Safe Harbor for EU-U.S. Data Transfers – Can it Succeed?

On February 2, 2016, the EU Commission and U.S. Department of Justice announced the framework of a deal to allow transatlantic data transfers between the EU and U.S. without running afoul of Europe’s strict data protection directives. It was appropriate that the announcement came on Groundhog Day, because we have been here before.

Facebook Hacking Claims Dismissal Motion

Every now and then, a court issues a decision that is as interesting for its facts as it is for the import of its legal holding. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued such a decision involving application of the respective statutes of limitation for private claims made under the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”) and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”).

Rule Amendments Update: U.S. Supreme Court Adopts Proposed Amendments

On April 29, 2015, the United States Supreme Court adopted, without changes, the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. (For background information on the proposed amendments, see our previous blog posts from September 25, 2014, June 19, 2014, May 27, 2014, February 10, 2014, and May 6, 2013. Absent action by the United States Congress, the proposed amendments will take effect on December 1, 2015.

New Jersey Attorneys Must Face Ethics Charges for Facebook Friending

On February 3, 2015, the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court affirmed the dismissal of a complaint two attorneys filed against the Office of Attorney Ethics and its Director (collectively “OAE”) claiming OAE lacked authority to investigate and prosecute ethics grievances against them for “friending” a party to a litigation on Facebook. The Appellate Division’s decision is significant – it affirms OAE’s power to investigate and prosecute alleged ethical violations and demonstrates the potential consequences for attorneys’ improper use of social media in litigation.

SDNY Clarifies Standard for Allowable “Discovery on Discovery”

A requesting party seeking to compel discovery into the producing party’s document collection processes – sometimes called “discovery on discovery” – has always faced an uphill battle. Courts fear allowing discovery to continue indefinitely. Mere suspicion of deficient document production is insufficient; the requestor must proffer an “adequate factual basis” for its belief. Recently, the Southern District of New York found that such a showing is not made where the requestor produced only limited relevant unproduced emails and the requestor did not specify how its requested relief would remedy the alleged discovery defects.

Florida is the Latest State to Allow Attorneys to Advise Clients About the Removal of Social Media Posts and Pictures

On January 23, 2015, the Professional Ethics Committee of the Florida Bar issued an advisory opinion holding that before litigation commences, and absent any other preservation obligation, an attorney may advise a client to: (1) remove information from social media pages and (2) change privacy settings from public to private, as long as the client retains a record of any deleted information or data. In so holding, the Florida ethics committee joined panels from New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina that have issued similar guidance.

Two Failures to Preserve, Two Starkly Different Results in New York

Two recent spoliation decisions, both out of the same New York Court and issued within a week of each other, demonstrate the potential for starkly different sanctions results depending on the level of culpability of the spoliator. AJ Holdings Group, LLC, v. IP Holdings, LLC, Index No. 600530/2009 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. County, September 19, 2014) and L&L Painting Co., Inc. v. Odyssey Contracting Corp., 2014 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 4300 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. County, September 25, 2014) are both breach of contract actions in which plaintiffs were accused of spoliating evidence.