In Wandering Dago Inc. v. New York State Office of General Services, Judge Randolph F. Treece, writing for the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, held that officials in one state government agency cannot be sanctioned for the destruction of emails belonging to another government agency. The facts in Wandering Dago are relatively lengthy: in July 2013, the Plaintiff, the owner of a food truck, applied to be a food vendor at a race course owned by the New York Racing Association (“NYRA”). The Plaintiff’s application received several complaints, including an email that Bennett Leibman, the New York Deputy Secretary of Gaming and Racing, sent to the President of the NYRA. In his email, Mr. Leibman indicated that the name of Plaintiff’s truck, “Wandering Dago,” was likely to offend members of the public. Earlier in the year, the Plaintiff was denied an application to be a vendor for the New York Office of Governmental Services’ (“OGS”) Empire State Plaza Lunch Program for similar reasons. On July 22, 2013, news stories emerged, stating that an “unidentified state official” had complained to the NYRA. On the same day, Mr. Leibman sent an email to several members of the Governor’s Executive Chamber to alert them of the reports. Ultimately, the OGS rejected the Plaintiff’s application and the Plaintiff sued the NYRA and OGS for violation of his First Amendment right to free speech and Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection. The Plaintiff, however, did not initially name Mr. Leibman, the New York State Gaming Commission, or any members of the Governor’s Executive Council, as Defendants. Mr. Leibman subsequently sent an email to the Governor’s Executive Chamber stating that he “may be a witness to the suit.” In October 2013, Mr. Leibman’s emails were deleted in accordance with a New York State email retention policy which automatically deleted emails older than 90 days. Several months later, in May 2014, the Plaintiff added Mr. Leibman as a Defendant. Mr. Leibman requested to be represented by the New York Attorney General (“NYAG”) and a litigation hold was instituted within the Governor’s Executive Chamber. Unfortunately for the Plaintiff, however, by then, Mr. Leibman’s emails had been long gone. The Plaintiff sought sanctions against OGS arguing that the NYAG, which represented OGS, had a duty to preserve Mr. Liebman’s emails, as well as emails that emerged from the Governor’s Executive Chamber. To support his argument, the Plaintiff pointed to the July 22, 2013 email from Mr. Leibman to the Governor’s Executive Chamber, and contended that the email demonstrated a “coordination effort” between the various state officials in the “multiple arms of State government.” Despite the Plaintiff’s argument, Judge Treece remained unpersuaded. Judge Treece began his analysis by stating that a party seeking an adverse inference instruction must establish: (1) that the other party had control over the evidence and had an obligation to preserve it at the time it was destroyed; (2) that the records were destroyed with a culpable state of mind; and (3) that the destroyed evidence was relevant to the party’s claim or defense such that a reasonable trier of fact could find that it would support that claim or defense. Judge Treece held that the Plaintiff met none of these requirements. First, Judge Treece held that the Defendants at the time litigation was instituted (OGS and NYRA) had no control over Mr. Leibman’s emails nor the emails of the Governor’s Executive Chambers and, therefore, had no duty to preserve them. The Court rejected the Plaintiff’s “multiple arms” contention, noting that if the Court held that there was a duty, it would basically create a state-wide duty for every New York agency to preserve its documents whenever another New York agency is sued. Judge Treece went on to state that Mr. Leibaman only had a duty to preserve once he was added as a Defendant and, although he knew he was likely to be called in as a witness, this was insufficient to establish a duty for him to preserve before he was added. Furthermore, although the NYAG represented both Mr. Leibman and the original Defendants, the Court stated that the NYAG did not have a duty to preserve Mr. Leibman’s emails until it was notified that an action has been filed against him. Next, Judge Treece examined the culpability requirement. Judge Treece stated that this factor is satisfied when there is a showing that the evidence was destroyed “knowingly, even without intent to breach a duty to preserve [the evidence], or negligently.” However, the Court held that there was no such evidence in this case and, therefore, the culpability requirement was not met. Furthermore, the Court noted that even if the Plaintiff could show culpability, he nevertheless failed to show a duty to preserve and, therefore, there was no breach of the duty to preserve. Finally, Judge Treece addressed the relevance factor. To show relevance, the Plaintiff must show sufficient evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could infer that the destroyed evidence would have been favorable to the party seeking the adverse inference. The Court held that the Plaintiff failed to establish that the evidence would have been favorable to him. Wandering Dago is significant due to its holding that one government agency cannot be sanctioned for the destruction of emails belonging to another. In light of the holding in Wandering Dago, plaintiffs suing state agencies should be particularly mindful of which agency they are suing and do a detailed inquiry to determine which other agencies may be involved and which may have needed e-documents. If they add a government agency as a defendant after litigation has commenced, it may be too late to save crucial evidence from deletion and the plaintiff may not be able to obtain sanctions for that deletion. Peter received his B.A. in Criminal Justice, cum laude, from Rutgers University in 2010 and will receive his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2016. Peter is the Senior Notes Editor of the Seton Hall Legislative Journal and will be clerking for the Honorable Sallyanne Floria, Assignment Judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Essex Vicinage, upon graduation.

United States Magistrate Judge Kathleen Tomlinson of the Eastern District of New York recently denied a defendant law firm’s motion to impose sanctions and an adverse inference against its former client. At the evidentiary hearing, the court heard testimony from two of the plaintiff’s employees, who recounted a series of unfortunate events and office Google-ing that lead to the destruction of all documents regarding the plaintiff’s financial condition in 2009. The present issue arises from a terminated construction contract nearing its 20th anniversary. In May of 1996, Abcon Associates, Inc. was retained by the USPS for a construction project in Queens, New York. Within the year, USPS terminated its contract and eventually Abcon and its president, Michael Zenobia, Jr. and his wife were ordered to pay a $2 million judgment to the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company (USF&G). To pay this, Abcon and the Zenobias borrowed $2 million from New York Community Bancorp, Inc. (NYCB). In April of 1998, Abcon retained Haas & Najarian LLP (H&N) to sue USPS. Abcon and H&N entered into a legal services agreement agreeing that would retain a lien in any amounts recovered from USPS, subordinate to any funds owed to NYCB. After protracted litigation (10 years!) Abcon received a $2.4 million judgment, and then effectively lost it due to various judgments and claims against it. In 2008, a court order directed distribution of money to H&N (resulting in a final payment of $463,000 for its legal fees). Another creditor appealed that order, and Abcon argued that H&N should return the money paid to it. H&N, apparently seeing the writing on the wall that it was now or never to get paid, refused to return the payment. On June 30, 2009, Abcon’s creditors settled among each other. Abcon objected to the distribution of money, claiming again that H&N should not have been paid before NYCB. Abcon filed a complaint against H&N on February 27, 2012, alleging breach of contract of the parties’ legal services agreement. During discovery, H&N requested: “All documents concerning Abcon's outstanding liabilities as of June 30, 2009 in excess of the sum of $5,000 owed to Persons other than [the previous litigation’s creditors]” and “Documents concerning Abcon's financial condition of June 30, 2009, including by way of specification but not limitation, a balance sheet and an accounts payable ledger.” Essentially, H&N wanted to be able to show that even if they were wrongfully paid in 2009, returning the money would benefit Abcon’s creditors, not Abcon. Abcon contended that they had absolutely no documents that were responsive to those two requests, due to an office move resulting in extreme downsizing of files and power outages that totally corrupted any possibly responsive electronically stored data. They were responsible prior to when Abcon “became inactive” and moved offices to a smaller location in September 2009, Patricia Van Dusen’s, a long-term Abcon employee and “Director of Information Services,” job was to sort the files and keep items that needed to be saved, and destroy the rest. In order to determine what needed to be saved, Van Dusen conducted internet research on what should be kept, maintained, etc. and threw out those documents before June 30, 2009. Next, Abcon’s Director of Marketing and Sales (and apparently also its “de facto IT person”) Eros Adragna, did not protect the company’s electronic data during the office move. As one might expect, this ended poorly: multiple power outages occurred at the new location and, big surprise, Abcon’s server was outdated and vulnerable to viruses. Adragna tried to back up the data but it was too late: nothing that he saved was responsive to H&N’s discovery request. Both Van Dusen and Adragna testified before the magistrate that they did not think or know there was a “litigation hold” on Abcon’s financial records, even though Abcon was the party who eventually filed suit. In the end, Abcon lucked out. While the court found that Abcon had a duty to preserve potential evidence, the scope of that duty did not necessarily extend to the 2009 financial documents because H&N’s legal argument that it didn’t breach the contract was so unexpected that Abcon could not have reasonably anticipated that the documents would have been relevant to its breach of contract case. Abcon’s employees breached their duty to preserve documents, but as the court says, “at most” acted negligently as to documents that were not clearly relevant to H&N’s defense. Therefore, the court declined to issue sanctions and an adverse inference against Abcon. Business owners, especially small business owners should learn from Abcon—don’t trust the determination of destruction of files to a couple of internet searches run by a non-attorney, and don’t entrust the preservation of data to someone also in charge of running the company’s marketing and sales. Van Dusen should have consulted with an attorney, and Abcon or Adragna should have contacted an IT specialist to preserve the data as soon as they realized there were problems with the server. When preserving data is a side-hobby, possibly important documents that you have a duty to preserve will inevitably fall through the cracks. Angela Raleigh is a third year law student at Seton Hall University School of Law. She attended Montclair State University, graduating summa cum laude, and owes her interest in law to her late great-uncle, Michael Mastrangelo, who let her “work” in his law firm at age four.

We often hear about the use of forensic evidence in murder mysteries pertaining to DNA testing or finding fingerprints at the murder scene. As technology continues to advance, however, forensic evidence has made its way into civil cases. In the technological world, even if you delete an email or a text message, the information can easily be restored. Furthermore, evidence that you blatantly tried to delete a particular document or text can be used to draw a negative inference regarding your culpability. Before considering “hiding” or “deleting” information on a computer or smartphone device, always remember that forensic evidence will come back and bite you. In a May 2015 case, HMS Holdings Corp. v. Arendt, two former HMS employees learned the hard way that human beings cannot outsmart technology. To assist their new employer, Public Consulting Group, Inc. (PCG), compete against their former employer, Health Management Systems (HMS), defendants Sean Curtin and Danielle Lange violated their post-employment covenants and used confidential HMS documents to the benefit of PCG. In response to the litigation, PCG circulated a Litigation Hold Notice to particular employees, including Curtin and Lange, which advised the employees of their obligation to preserve all electronically stored information (ESI) “on computers, removable or portable storage media, office computers, cellphones and personal computers.” About a month later, the parties to this case entered into a Stipulation Regarding Expedited Discovery. Under the Stipulation, the defendants needed to forensically image their personal computers, phones, zip drives, and other electronic devices to be searched. Although defendants handed over certain devices, not all devices were handed over and in some cases the defendants were not honest about what information these devices really contained or, more accurately, what they no longer contained. This case mentions four devices in particular: (1) Curtin’s Macbook Pro; (2) Curtin’s external Toshiba hard drive; (3) Lange’s PCG laptop; and (4) Lange’s iPhone. Ultimately, the court found spoliation of evidence on all four devices and sanctioned the defendants accordingly. In order to prove spoliation of evidence, the party seeking sanctions, here HMS, must show that: (1) the party with control over the evidence was under an obligation to preserve it at the time of alleged destruction, which begins when a party reasonably anticipates litigation; (2) the party destroyed the records with a culpable state of mind; and (3) the destroyed evidence was relevant to the party’s claim or defense. Relevancy of the third element is presumed upon intentional, willful or grossly negligent destruction of evidence. First the court analyzes Curtin’s Macbook Pro, which forensic evidence revealed had run a “Secure Erase Free Space” function six times after the Litigation Hold Notice. Forensic evidence also showed that Curtin did not use this function prior to these six times. Curtin alleged that he ran this program to help increase his laptop’s operating speed. Despite his explanation, Curtin failed to provide evidence as to why he failed to use a different version of the software that would increase operating speed without permanently deleting files. With a showing of willful destruction, a presumption of relevance attaches. Unlike his Macbook, Curtin was unable to provide any forensic imaging of his Toshiba external hard drive, despite the fact that considerable evidence showed that had copied volumes of confidential HMS materials to it the day before he left. Upon review, the court finds that Curtin intentionally and willfully failed to produce the hard drive despite his legal obligation to do so. Again, a presumption of relevance attaches to the hard drive ESI. Lange has the same fate as Curtin before the court. Shadow Copies, partial snapshots in time of a computer’s content made by the Microsoft Windows system, revealed that her PCG laptop contained HMS files before the pending litigation that no longer existed after the filing of the suit. Evidence shows that not a couple, but rather 5,300 files, were deleted from her laptop during a month-long period of time. Lange, also an attorney, claimed that these were pertinent files but were deleted to protect client confidences. Despite her explanation, the court found spoliation and a presumption of relevance attached. Finally, Lange’s text messages caused her some problems as well. Lange claimed to have replaced her iPhone 4 for a new iPhone 5, something many could relate to in 2014 when the new and improved Apple device hit the market. However, unlike many other customers, Lange’s old iPhone 4 had important text messages pertaining to the case and was replaced after the issuance of a Litigation Hold Notice. Lange claims that she had dropped her iPhone 4 so badly that even those at the AT&T store could not restore her messages. Despite this explanation, forensic evidence revealed that messages were actually uploaded to her laptop computer one week after her upgrade. In light of this evidence, the court again found spoliation of evidence and a negative presumption of relevance. With all four electronic devices being used to destroy evidence, the court now is tasked with determining the proper sanctions. The court has wide discretion in determining appropriate sanctions. Due to the egregious misconduct of both Curtin and Lange, the court allows the jury to draw a mandatory adverse inference regarding the destroyed evidence. Since there is no way to determine the contents of the evidence destroyed, the court finds this to be the most fair to HMS. In addition to the mandatory inference, the court also requires defendants to pay HMS’s reasonable attorney’s fees, costs, and expenses incurred as a result of their misconduct, with no reimbursement or indemnification from PCG. Also, since Lange is an attorney, the court will forward this information to the appropriate ethics board regarding her fitness to practice law. Hopefully the defendants in this case learned that forensic evidence does not lie and as technology increases, it is increasingly more difficult for us to cover our own tracks by simply clicking a “Delete” button. Laura Cicirelli, a Seton Hall University School of Law student (Class of 2016), has served as an Associate Editor and is currently serving as the Editor-in-Chief of the Seton Hall Law Review. Following graduation, Laura will be joining the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton as a corporate associate in its New York City office. Prior to law school, Laura attended the University of Scranton (Class of 2013) where she majored in marketing and double minored in operation and information management and philosophy.

This case arose against the backdrop of a criminal trial involving a rabbi who was convicted of multiple counts of sexually related crimes against a girl beginning when she was twelve years old. During the rabbi’s trial, the presiding judge made several announcements notifying the audience that photography was stringently forbidden. This prohibition was also displayed on numerous signs in the courthouse and courtroom. Even though these notices were on display, numerous audience members took photographs of the juvenile victim during her testimony. Company Lemon Juice, the plaintiff, and two others, Joseph Fried and Yona Weissman, were arrested for violating the judge’s prohibition on photography. However, Lemon Juice was not sitting with Fried and Weissman in the courtroom, where an officer of the court discovered Fried and Weissman took pictures of the juvenile on their cellular phone. The court officer later discovered a photograph on Twitter of the juvenile victim. The image on Twitter resembled the image he viewed on the cellular phone of Fried and Weissman earlier that day. The Twitter account used to upload the photograph to the internet was in the name of Lemon Juice. The Twitter account also showed a picture of Lemon Juice. Subsequently, Lemon Juice was arrested and charged with second-degree criminal contempt for acting in concert with Fried and Weissman. After fourteen court appearances to defend himself, the charges against Lemon Juice were dismissed after a prosecutorial investigation found that Lemon Juice had no connection to the Twitter account that was the subject of the charges. The background leads to the case that is the subject of this article. After the charges against Lemon Juice were dropped, he sought a court order to compel Twitter “to disclose basic subscriber information, records, internet protocol addresses or similar information sufficient to identify the individual or individuals who owned or operated the subject account and logged into or tweeted on the subject account.” Lemon Juice also sought a court order compelling Twitter to preserve documents containing information relevant to the upload of the picture of the juvenile victim. Lemon Juice is seeking this information in order to secure the identity of the person who uploaded the image so he can name that person in a tort action. An order for a pre-action disclosure to be ordered by a court, the requested information must be sought solely for the purpose of determining who should be named as the defendant. It is not allowable as a fishing expedition to gauge whether a cause of action truly exists. Despite this prohibition on fishing expeditions, a plaintiff need only provide a factual basis to show that a prima facie cause of action exists. These facts will be construed in a light most favorable to plaintiff as well. In this case, Lemon Juice provided a sufficient factual basis to prove a prima facie action for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Additionally, the court addressed a possible argument from the creator of the Twitter account. The argument would be that freedom of speech protects his or her behavior because anonymous speech via the internet is afforded First Amendment protection. In this case however, because Lemon Juice suffered tortious damage, the First Amendment does not protect the unnamed defendant’s speech. The court ordered Twitter to disclose the user information sought for the account pertinent to this motion. As to the preservation of evidence, the court ruled that Twitter must preserve the documents requested by Lemon Juice. The court stated, “prior to the commencement of an action [in New York state court], disclosure to preserve information may be obtained by court order pursuant to CPLR 3102(c). When a potential plaintiff invokes CPLR 3102(c) for the purpose of preserving information, the existence of a claim need not be demonstrated with certainty.” In this case, Lemon Juice greatly exceeded this threshold to compel preservation because he demonstrated a prima facie cause of action. There are two lessons to be gleaned from this case. The first is that anonymous on internet posting will not necessarily preserve your anonymity. If you post something that potentially constitutes a tort on another individual, the First Amendment will not save you. The more relevant lesson is that the duty to preserve may be triggered even if a plaintiff cannot demonstrate the existence of a claim with certainty. Companies with possible pending litigation can be required to preserve documents and evidence even if a lawsuit has not yet been commenced. Daniel received a B.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from The University of Maryland. He will receive his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2015. Presently Daniel is serving as a legal intern in Seton Hall’s Juvenile Justice Clinic. After graduation Daniel will clerk for a trial judge in the Superior Court of New Jersey. Want to read more articles like this? Sign up for our post notification newsletter, here

The most important sentence of the court’s opinion in Armstrong Pump, Inc. v. Hartman, contained one word: “Enough.” After more than four years since the lawsuit was filed, discovery is far from complete, the case is far from ready for trial and the Court made a point to note “its frustration with the continual and growing animosity between the parties” which has “slowed the progress of the case” and “required repeated judicial intervention.” In February 2005, the parties’ relationship began when defendant Hartman/Optimum entered into a License Agreement with plaintiff Armstrong concerning three patents that defendant owned. The License Agreement contained several restrictions, including that Armstrong had no rights to “field implementation” of the patented product. At its essence, the dispute arose when Armstrong allegedly breached the License Agreement by utilizing the “field implementation” when the Agreement explicitly prohibited such use. Defendant accused Armstrong of exceeding the limited scope of its license rights and therefore breached or threatened to breach the License Agreement. What began as a somewhat typical breach of contract case quickly devolved into a flurry of document production disputes. Optimum initially served Armstrong with two sets of discovery requests seeking for “all documents” pertaining to the License Agreement, communications between Hartman and Armstrong and the alleged “field implementations.” Over Armstrong’s protest, Optimum filed a motion to compel, which the court granted. The court, however, cautioned Armstrong “not to engage in piecemeal production of materials it has located” that are, in fact, responsive. Because Armstrong never filed a motion for a protective order, Optimum served a second set of discovery requests pertaining to marketing efforts and customers that might provide relevant information regarding the use of “field implementation” technologies. Again Armstrong protested and again, the court granted a motion to compel. The most recent discovery dispute contains allegations of delays, omissions, and misrepresentations, and “threatens to make this case more about document production than about breach of a contract. After the second motion to compel, Armstrong made at least nine separate document productions and produced over 34,000 documents before the first deposition was even taken. In that first deposition, Optimum deposed Thomsen, who was an Armstrong Director, and he revealed to Optimum for the first time that any Armstrong product using the relevant patents went through a five-step development process. This deposition led Optimum to accuse Armstrong of withholding documents and information related to the development process. Optimum now argues that information recently acquired should have been provided years earlier and that Thomsen and other pertinent employees need to undergo further deposition to reflect the newly acquired information. Optimum believes that Armstrong is hiding or delaying information about unauthorized sales that violate the License Agreement and that therefore, Armstrong should be sanctioned and ordered to compel further responses. Armstrong counters that it has been sufficiently responding to the discovery requests and accuses Optimum of demanding more information and documentation without reviewing what has already been handed over. Armstrong also argues that Optimum did not follow Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure by meeting with Armstrong to discuss its concerns prior to filing the current motion. After taking the time and effort to express its frustration at this exceedingly adversarial case, the court goes on to write that certain requests have “wasted the court’s time.” The court further notes that “no one, in this history of the case, has objected to any discovery requests enough to make a motion for a protective order” under Rule 26(c). The court goes as far as to accuse the bickering parties as preferring that “the Court forget what the actual claims are in this case and start obsessing over [frivolous] details.” After explaining the foundational premise of Rule 37, helping to enforce proper conduct, the court hands down an order finalizing once and for all what documents Armstrong must produce. The court utilizes a refined keyword list, based on certain phrases that appear repeatedly in previous motions, to rule that Armstrong must “search ALL corporate documents, files, communications, and recordings for EACH of the above phrases.” When the search is complete, a representative of Armstrong along with Armstrong’s counsel must file a sworn statement confirming that Armstrong made a good-faith effort to comply with the court’s order of production. The court concludes by warning that failure to comply will lead to sanctions under Rule 37(b)(2)(A) and puts Optimum on notice that “the Court will not hesitate to apply to the same approach to its document production.” Nicole was a 2010 magna cum laude graduate of Northeastern University located in Boston, Massachusetts, where she earned her B.A. in English and Political Science. She will receive her J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2015. After graduation, Nicole will serve as a clerk to a trial judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey in the Morris-Sussex Vicinage. Want to read more articles like this? Sign up for our post notification newsletter, here.

In Freedman v. Weatherford Int’l, Ltd., Weatherford hired law firm Latham & Watkins to review allegations of security fraud made to Weatherford’s whistleblower hotline. Latham found no evidence of fraud. However, a second investigation was conducted by Davis Polk & Wardwell, LLP. Plaintiff’s alleged that Davis’s second investigation reveal that Latham actually discovered evidence of wrongdoing. Plaintiffs sought reports comparing the results of Weatherford’s production with search terms and productions related to the two investigations and search terms proposed by the plaintiff, in order to test the adequacy and reasonableness of Weatherford’s initial production. Weatherford objected, noting that Plaintiff had no legal basis for its request and its requested production was “hugely burdensome.” The District Court for the Southern District of New York held that the plaintiff’s request was “outside the bounds of Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure . . . [because they did] . . . not proffer an adequate factual basis for their belief that the production [was] deficient.” Plaintiff’s claim that Weatherford’s production was deficient because 85% of the pages produced related to different case was too conclusory. Furthermore, the Court was not surprised that Weatherford used dramatically different search terms here compared to search terms used in the two investigations and a related action, because of the differing class periods and varying false statements. The court also addresses arguments related to Subject matter waiver and the crime-fraud exception of the attorney-client privilege, but these arguments were not related to e-discovery. Aaron Cohen, a Seton Hall University School of Law student (Class of 2015), focused his studies in the area of Family Law. He participated in the Seton Hall Center for Social Justice’s Family Law Clinic. After graduation, he will clerk for a judge in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Family Division. Prior to law school, he was a 2011 cum laude graduate of The George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, where he earned a B.A. in Psychology. Want to read more articles like this? Sign up for our post notification newsletter, here.

This dispute stems from Plaintiff Linda Riley’s slip and fall at a Marriott hotel in Hawaii (her husband, James, is another named plaintiff). As a result of this fall, in simple terms, Riley broke her right leg and sustained permanent nerve damage including sensory motor loss and weakness in her right foot. Riley contends Marriott was negligent for failing to remove accumulated water (it had been raining that day), provide a non-slip surface, or provide warning signs. The entire accident was recorded on Marriott’s security cameras, and according to the loss prevention manager, the footage is maintained for 30 days. However, during discovery, instead of being provided with several hours of footage, Riley was only provided with about 7 minutes; the rest was destroyed. The footage released began about one minute before Riley’s accident, and ended before Riley was even lifted off of the ground! Plaintiff rightfully believed she was prejudiced because: (1) she is unable to determine how much water was removed from the location and how long it took hotel staff to remove it, and (2) that the loss prevention manager’s testimony regarding the footage cannot be meaningfully challenged because the footage was gone. This recording was apparently turned over to the Marriott’s liability insurance carrier, but neither Marriott’s investigation into its destruction (if one occurred) nor the results of any such investigation were ever disclosed. Even maintenance logs—that might have also denoted any water that was removed from the floor or the placement of any signs—were also allegedly destroyed. From this, the court “easily” found Marriott had a duty to preserve both the sweep logs and the video footage from the day of the accident. Further, the court recognized Marriott’s failure to offer any justification for its failure to preserve the evidence. For these actions, the court found “at a minimum, gross negligence.” The question then turned to imposing sanctions. Fortunately for Marriott, their answer was not stricken. Nonetheless, their failure to preserve evidence still resulted in an adverse inference instruction regarding the video footage, or lack thereof. This means the absence of a recording can, at trial, corroborate Plaintiffs’ statements that there were no warning signs at the time of the accident and that water had also accumulated on the floor. Of note here, the jury would not be required to make such an inference. However, Marriott might not be eager to take that chance. Samuel is in the Seton Hall University School of Law Class of 2015 pursuing the Intellectual Property concentration. He received his master’s from the Rutgers Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and became a registered patent agent prior to entering law school. Want to read more articles like this? Sign up for our post notification newsletter, here.

In January 2014, the Hon. Lawrence E. Kahn in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granted plaintiff Dataflow, Inc.’s motion for sanctions in a case regarding deleted email correspondence. Sanctions took the form of the often-case-ending adverse inference, with the judge reserving on the specific language of the adverse inference jury instruction until trial. Defendant Peerless Insurance Co. might not wait that long, as even the neophyte lawyer can tell when blood is in the water. Dataflow’s claim arose out of a discovery request for production of documents that “targeted, inter alia internal communications and investigations regarding Plaintiffs’ claim.” Dataflow, Inc., v. Peerless Ins. Co., No. 3:11-cv-1127 (LEK/DEP), 2014 WL 148685, *2 (N.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2014). When the defendant failed to produce any internal communications responsive to the document request, the plaintiffs tried again. After the plaintiffs submitted an even narrower request for production, the defendants still didn’t produce anything responsive. Perhaps smelling something fishy, Dataflow started taking depositions and asking questions about the internal communications at Peerless. The plaintiffs quickly learned that email was routinely used to communicate about claims. The emails that Dataflow already asked for. The emails that Dataflow was told didn’t exist. The plot thickens. Hon. David E. Peebles, the Magistrate Judge handling discovery in this matter filed a Report and Recommendation urging sanctions be granted and fees shifted. The District Court, reviewing Judge Peebles’s ruling de novo determined that the Magistrate got it right—and that sanctions are appropriate. The court analyzed the facts of the case under the spoliation framework set forth in Residential Funding Corp. v. DeGeorge Fin. Corp., 306 F.3d 99, 107 (2d Cir. 2002): On a motion for sanctions due to spoliation, the moving party must show that: (1) the party having control of the evidence had an obligation to preserve it at the time it was destroyed; (2) that party had a culpable state of mind; and (3) the destroyed evidence was of a nature that a reasonable trier of fact could find that it would support the moving party’s claim or defense. Dataflow, at *2 (citing Residential Funding Corp, at 107). Here, the duty to preserve for an insurance party was triggered when a claim was submitted. As such, any internal communication regarding that claim is obviously supposed to be preserved. The culpable state of mind can be inferred by the gross negligence displayed by email deletion resulting from a “system change.” A “system change” that also conveniently “changed” the methods of preservation of documents related to paid and unpaid claims. Finally, since the plaintiff was able to prove that the contents of the internal email conversations likely would have supported the plaintiffs’ theory of the case, sanctions in the form of an adverse inference just make sense. Perhaps it’s time for Peerless to have a “system change” with regards to their general counsel. Kevin received a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Scranton (2009), and will receive his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2015. Prior to joining the Seton Hall community, Kevin worked as an eDiscovery professional at two large “white-shoe” law firms in Manhattan. Want to read more articles like this? Sign up for our post notification newsletter, here.

We have entered the age of information! Every conversation, e-mail, text message, attachment, voicemail, and other electronic data are being stored all day, every day. These types of electronically stored information (a.k.a. “ESI”) are regularly used during litigation. So why is there a problem collecting information for trial? Lawyers need to search through these massive amounts of ESI in order to provide the materials to the opposing party before trial. This process is known as eDiscovery, or electronic discovery, and it has raised a number of issues regarding who, what, where, when, why, and how ESI is produced. The issue discussed here is what defines the scope of eDiscovery. In ChenOster v. Goldman, Sachs & Co., the court made it clear that the scope of discovery, whether electronic or not, is still defined by traditional discovery requests and demands. However, what brought forward this conclusion? Traditionally, the process of discovery is the period when lawyers exchange requests and demands for information, documents, and other materials that may be used in the case. Generally, this can be broken down into three steps: (1) Requesting party will make a discovery request; (2) the opposing party will use any means she deems appropriate to find the materials; and (3) the opposing party will respond to the request in the form of producing the materials or an objection. However, in Chen-Oster, the parties deviated slightly from this traditional process. Here, the requesting party, the plaintiffs, made traditional discovery requests for ESI. Then the plaintiffs negotiated with the opposing party, the defendants, in order to determine what search terms would be used to filter through the enormous amounts of ESI available. Now, why is this different from a traditional discovery process? This is different because both parties collaborated to determine how the ESI requested would be located. The issue presented in Chen-Oster begins upon production of the ESI by the defendants. The defendants only produced the ESI they deemed to be relevant to the discovery requests set forth by the plaintiffs. However, the plaintiffs intended to collect all ESI produced by the search terms they agreed upon. This brings us back to the main question: what defines the scope of eDiscovery? It is either all ESI located under the agreed upon search terms; or it is only ESI located under the search terms that are relevant to the original discovery request. According to Chen-Oster, an agreement to use specific search terms or discovery protocol does not override discovery demands and requests. In other words, search terms used to filter through electronic data do not define the scope of discovery. The scope of discovery is determined by the discovery requests rendered. Victoria O’Connor Blazeski received her B.S. form Stevens Institute of Technology, and she will receive her J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2015. Prior to law school, she worked as an account manager in the Corporate Tax Provision department of Thomson Reuters, Tax & Accounting. Victoria is a former D3 college basketball player, and she has an interest in tax law and civil litigation. After graduating, she will clerk for the Hon. Joseph M. Andresini, J.T.C. in the Tax Courts of New Jersey. Want to read more articles like this? Sign up for our post notification newsletter, here.

We all have personal social media pages. No matter who you are, you likely have an online presence in the form of a profile on one of the many sites available on the Internet. One who simply forgets about a newly created social profile can be the subject of worldwide scrutiny—the page is available for all to see. Who cares, right? Most likely, you will not have anything important on there. However, what happens when you are facing a criminal charge and the prosecution uses your social media profile in order to prove your guilt? Meet Aliaksandr Zhyltsou, a Ukrainian native living his life in Brooklyn, New York. All was well until Zhyltsou allegedly furnished Vladyslav Timku with a forged birth certificate, which claimed that Timku was the father of a baby daughter. Timku, as a cooperating witness for the government, admitted that he had sought the forged birth certificate in order to skirt his responsibility to military service in his native Ukraine. During the trail, Timku offered testimony that Zhyltsou had sent him the forged document from the gmail account “[email protected].” However, the prosecution was unable to offer any other evidence other than Timku’s testimony that tied Zhyltsou to this e-mail address. Therefore, more evidence was necessary in order to corroborate Timku’s claim. Special Agent Cline, from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, provided the prosecution with the link between the e-mail address and the VK.com profile (the Russian equivalent of Facebook). Cline asserted that this profile on VK belonged to the defendant and was linked to the very same gmail account used to send the forged document to Timku. To prosecutors, it seemed like a slam-dunk: here was the evidence needed to corroborate Timku’s testimony and sufficiently tie Zhyltsou to the Gmail account in question. Everything seemed in order; the profile contained a picture of the defendant, his work experience, and most importantly the “azmadeuz” Gmail account. Furthermore, the district court agreed that this was the Zhyltsou’s profile page and therefore the prosecution could use it as evidence to establish the link between the defendant and the gmail account. However, one pesky evidence rule could ruin it all in an instant, Federal Rule 901. Simply, Federal Rule 901 requires that in order to “authenticate or identify” a piece of evidence, a proponent asserting any form of evidence “must produce evidence sufficient to support a finding that the evidence is what the proponent claims it is.” Therefore, in the instant case, the prosecution had the duty to prove that this VK profile page belonged to Zhyltsou alone and was not created by any other person. However, in his haste to provide this vital piece of evidence, the prosecutor failed to adhere to this rule and the case was ultimately overturned on appeal. This case is a prime example of the need for all lawyers to have a firm understanding of electronic discovery. While it may be easy to access social media profiles and the like in order to obtain evidence against an opponent, that is only part of the process. It must be proven that the profile actually belongs to your opponent before you may use it against them as evidence in a court of law. In today’s world, it is not difficult to create fake profiles on such sites and therefore the court was correct in overturning this ruling. However, it is not outside of the realm of possibility that the prosecution could have tied Zhyltsou to this VK profile, it would have simply taken a little more digging and investigative work. A.S. Mitchell received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Central Florida (2008). He will receive his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2015. Presently, A.S. clerks for the Monmouth County Office of the Public Defender. Want to read more articles like this? Sign up for our post notification newsletter, here.