March 14, 2009
Citation: Easton Sports, Inc. v. Warrior Lacrosse, Inc., 2006 WL 2811261 (E.D. Mich. 2006)
Employee/Employer Implicated: (Former) Director of Hockey Marketing for Easton Sports, Inc.
e-Lesson Learned: Don’t destroy evidence. If you destroy evidence when you knew or should have known that destroying it was wrong, the court will sanction you.
An employee plans on leaving his current employer for its competitor. Before he leaves, he decides to send some emails to himself and his soon-to-be employer that may have contained proprietary information and trade secrets. The former employer finds out, and sues for misappropriation of trade secrets. And what does the former employee do after finding out about the lawsuit? He destroys some of the evidence. Didn’t your mom teach you that you destroying things is bad? Guess not.
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Tagged as: Accessibility, Discoverability, Good Faith, Legal Hold/Preservation, Sanctions, Spoliation
View more articles implicating: Marketing & Sales Professionals
March 2, 2009
Citation: Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless v. Nextel Communications, Inc., 2004 WL 1542259 (S.D.N.Y. Jul. 9, 2004)
e-Lesson Learned: (a) Do not disclose to third parties the contents of any communications you have with your lawyer. Even if you have a business relationship with the third party, your disclosure likely waives any claim to attorney-client privilege, unless that third party can also demonstrate an attorney-client relationship with the lawyer.
(b) Even if you disclose information to a third party, the work-product doctrine may still protect the communication as long as your disclosure does not make it more likely that your adversary will obtain the information.
In the race to find that perfect ad slogan—one so catchy that consumers find it difficult to get out of their heads—Nextel found itself in the middle of a trademark dispute over the term “Push to Talk.” Nextel employed an advertising agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day (“TBWA”), and Nextel and TBWA employees communicated via email, a practice that has become commonplace in the business world.
Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless (“Verizon”), believing that information related to the trademark dispute was contained in email communications, issued a subpoena to TBWA seeking production of several emails. TBWA resisted, and Nextel asserted two claims: attorney-client privilege and attorney-work product.
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Tagged as: Discoverability, Privilege, Work-Product Doctrine
View more articles implicating: In-House Counsel, Marketing & Sales Professionals
