Learn how to avoid ediscovery sanctions from Cool Hand Luke

Keithley v. The Home Store.com, Inc., 2008 WL 3833384 (N.D.Cal., Aug.12, 2008)

What is the one line from the movie Cool Hand Luke that everyone remembers?

No, it’s not Carl the floor walker’s speech about spending “a night in the box” for various rule violations. And no, it’s not Dragline’s comments about Lucille as she washes a car in front of the chain gang while they are cutting down weeds on the side of a road. It’s the Captain’s infamous line after he knocks Luke to the ground with a billy club: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” And that is today’s tip for avoiding ediscovery sanctions.

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Reducing ediscovery costs, a modern day fairy tale or a road map for the future?

Mancia v. Mayflower Textile Servs. Co., 253 F.R.D. 354 (D.Md. 2008)

How does a case involving an otherwise pedestrian discovery dispute end up on every e-discovery consultant or blog’s list of top cases for the year?  Mancia is an opinion written by Judge Paul W. Grimm which among other things discusses the report issued by the American College of Trial Lawyers which concludes that our “civil justice system is in need of repair” as well as the Sedona Conference’s recent “Cooperation Proclamation,” that’s how.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with him, Judge Grimm is considered one of the “deep thinkers” when it comes to ediscovery.  He is the author of the Hopson and Victor Stanley decisions, and always seems to be on the leading edge of hot e-discovery issues.  So when he talks, the e-discovery community carefully listens.  That means so should you.

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Discovery of text messages under the Stored Communications Act

Illinois hasn’t cornered the market on politicians charged with wrongdoing, lately it only seems that way. Want to know your opponents can obtain the text messages that can get your clients into trouble? Here’s how:  Flagg v.City of Detroit, 252 F.R.D. 346 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 22, 2008).

Flagg has been listed by one e-discovery blog as one of the top 5 e-discovery decisions of 2008.  

No, this is not the decision involving the text messages between the former Mayor of Detroit and his female chief of staff that were purportedly more tawdry and explicit than an old Harlequin romance novel.  Flagg involved a wrongful death action and the text messages being sought related to a possible cover-up and interference of an investigation involving the murder of an exotic dancer who allegedly performed at a party at the Mayor’s official residence. 

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Want to know more about metadata than Tina Fey knows about Sarah Palin?

Aguilar v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division, 2008 WL 5062700 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 21, 2008)

If your answer to this post’s headline is yes, then here is the case you have been yearning for. In the holiday spirit of “one-stop shopping,” one district court recently attempted to explain everything you ever wanted to know about metadata but were afraid to ask.

The district court in Aguilar v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division explains not only what metadata is, but also talks about its various types – application metadata, system metadata and embedded metadata.

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Rhoads decision first to apply FRE 502

Federal Rule of Evidence 502 was recently enacted to address the inadvertent waiver of privilege. Rhoads v. Building Materials Corp. of America, 2008 WL 4916026 (E.D. Pa. Nov.14, 2008) is the first case to address Rule 502 and its application to inadvertently produced electronic data.

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