Chancery Court Issues Major Decision on Duty to Preserve Electronically Stored Information and Imposes Adverse Inference as Penalty for Spoliation of Evidence

Beard Research, Inc. v. Kates, No. 1316-VCP (Del. Ch., May 29, 2009), read opinion here. This is One of Three Chancery Court Decisions Decided in May 2009 that Address Electronic Discovery Issues This Chancery Court decision by Vice Chancellor Parsons is one of three Chancery Court cases decided in May... Continue Reading...

Federal Court Refuses to Shift Cost of OCR:Multi-Factor Test Applied When Conducting Cost-Shifting Analysis

Proctor & Gamble Co. v. S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 2009 U.S. Dist. Lexis 13190 (E.D. Tex.), read Order of Court here. Danielle Blount, an associate in our Wilmington office, prepared this case summary. Optical Character Recognition (“OCR”), is where static images of text are translated into a format, via... Continue Reading...

Delaware Decision Imposes Penalties for Spoliation of Evidence

Kevin Brady is a well-respected Delaware litigator and a nationally-recognized e-discovery expert. We are pleased to have his summary of a recent Delaware decision that addresses key issues of great import to all litigators. In Micron Technology, Inc. v. Rambus, Inc., (D.Del., Jan. 9, 2009), read opinion here, the U.S.... Continue Reading...

E-Discovery Rulings--2008 in Review

Here is an article from Law.com that provides an overview of key court rulings during 2008 in the extremely important area of e-discovery (a/k/a EDD).... Continue Reading...

Chancery Court Disqualifies Counsel Due to Litigation Conduct Involving Privileged Documents and Witness Interviews; and Addresses Standing to Allege Ethical Violations

In Postorivo v. AG Paintball Holdings, Inc., 2008 WL 3876199 (Del. Ch., Aug. 20, 2008), read opinion here, the Chancery Court disqualified from the case (i.e., colloquially, kicked off the case) certain lawyers of the defense team due to their litigation conduct which also raised issues about their compliance with... Continue Reading...

Clawback Provision Honored to Avoid Waiver of Inadvertently Produced Privileged Email

In Hexion Specialty Chemicals, Inc. v. Huntsman Corp., 2008 WL 3522445 (Del. Ch., Aug. 12, 2008), the Chancery Court denied a motion to compel an inadvertently produced communication that was an attorney/client communication. Importantly, the parties had signed a stipulated Confidentiality Order that had a "standard non-waiver and clawback" provision... Continue Reading...