e-Lessons Learned

Not only was Jannx scolded by the District Court on three separate issues, they are now responsible for significant legal fees, and lost a motion to protect their own data. It’s safe to say the Indiana District Court was not impressed with the Jannx legal team.

Basically, this case involves a dispute over pre-trial discovery motions between the plaintiff, Jannx Medical Systems and defendants, Methodist Hospital, Crothall Healthcare, Inc., and Propoco Professional Services. The Court issued an opinion and order on Defendant’s motion to get Jannx to comply with electronic discovery and Jannx’s motion to withhold electronic data from discovery by reason of trade secrets, etc.

First and foremost, both Plaintiff and Defendants were off to a bad start for not complying with federal and local rules of procedure when they failed to attach a separate certification that shows the movant has in good faith tried to resolve the discovery issue without court intervention. Let’s be real…COURTS HATE INTERVENING IN DISCOVERY SQUABBLES.

The Court started the opinion explaining exactly how each party failed to comply with the rules ultimately deciding that since the parties had somewhat inadvertently complied with the spirit of the rules their motions would not be denied at the outset. In essence, letting the parties know that their motions could have been flat out denied procedurally, but likely allowing them just the judge did not have to deal with this twice.

Specifically, the Defendant’s exhibits adequately supported their good faith attempts to resolve the discovery issues but Jannx’s motion did not. The Court found a way to use the Defendant’s attached exhibits to support Jannx’s motion. Strike ONE for Jannx…it’s not looking good.

The Defendant’s first issue involved Jannx’s boilerplate responses on interrogatories. Jannx responded to at least nine questions with “see those response, non-privileged and non-confidential business documents produced herewith” and failed to attach any documents. The rule on interrogatories is if an answer can be obtained from examining documents and the burden of ascertaining the information would be the same for either party, the answering party may specify the records containing the answer. However, referring to unspecified “documents” is not an option. The Court granted Defendant’s motion for actual answers…Strike TWO for Jannx.

The Defendant’s second issue regarded electronic discovery. Not only had Jannx failed to produce some electronic data but they had converted all data to .pdf form before supplying it to the Defendants, making the data unsearchable. Jannx cited the leading case on this issue claiming if a party does not specify a format then the information must be “reasonably usable.”

This is when the Court really started in on Jannx, noting a disapproval of Jannx’s mischaracterization of said case law.

Jannx had cherry-picked only half of that case’s holding. The case further holds that if the data is searchable the data cannot be produced in a format that significantly degrades that feature or use the information efficiently in litigation. Again, the Court granted Defendant’s motion. STRIKE THREE FOR JANNX.

Punishment time…

Next up was Jannx’s motion for protection of electronic data, claiming trade secrets, confidential research, and confidential business information. At this point, there was no way Jannx would get any favorability from this Court and were thus denied for not meeting their burden of showing good cause.

Finally, Jannx was ordered to pay the Defendant’s legal fees and court costs, including attorney’s fees. YIKES.

Takeaway: Discoverable data must be produced in a reasonably usable form in which it is ordinarily maintained and not in a format more difficult for the requesting party to use in litigation.

Jannx really ticked off this Court. The judge reprimand Jannx within the opinion but the real punishment was denying their motion, granting all of Defendant’s motions and fee-shifting all of the Defendant’s bills.

Courts seem to be getting familiar with the e-discovery issues and shady tactics implored. This court wasn’t having it. Law usually drags behind technology but here that was not the case. Often in litigation a party will produce dozens of boxes with one incriminating statement buried within. Searchable data obviously curbs that tactic significantly and will be very useful in litigation going forward.

M.J.R. received a B.S. in Business Administration from the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire at Durham. He will receive his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2011. Currently, he is clerking for a medical malpractice defense firm.

Article posted on June 12, 2011 at 6:00 AM |              More... 
Tagged as: Accessibility, Chain of Custody, Computer Forensics Protocols, Cost Sharing & Shifting, Good Faith, Legal Hold/Preservation, Metadata, Procedure, Production of Data, Sanctions, Spoliation, Work-Product Doctrine.
View more articles implicating: In-House Counsel, Information Technology Professionals, Outside Counsel, Upper Management
Subscribe to this post's comments through its RSS 2.0 feed.