Recent Articles

Hinshaw partner Steve Puiszis authors ediscovery chapter in healthcare risk management treatise

Hinshaw & Culbertson
June 23, 2009 16:43

The American Health Lawyers Association has published the first edition of its Enterprise Risk Management Handbook for Healthcare Entities. The work is a comprehensive treatise to assist healthcare entities implement an enterprise risk management system. There is no doubt that ediscovery...

Requesting party permitted to see only metadata and not substance of documents

Hinshaw & Culbertson
June 15, 2009 15:47

Kravetz v. Paul Revere Life Insurance Co., 2009 WL 1639736 (D.Ariz. June 11, 2009) Plaintiff sought disability benefits from defendant insurance companies, but the insurance companies denied the claim. So plaintiff sued. The insurance companies sought discovery of the hard drives and storage media...

Electronic discovery costs recoverable by a prevailing party under 28 U.S.C. §1920

Hinshaw & Culbertson
June 11, 2009 14:50

Kellogg Brown & Root, Intern., Inc. v. Altanmia Commercial Mktg. Co. W.L.L., 2009 WL 1457632 (S.D. Tex. May 26, 2009) In one of our prior posts, we discussed the types of ediscovery costs that a prevailing party can recover under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54. The Kellogg Brown & Root (“KBR”) dec...

Failure to timely object to production format constitutes a waiver

Hinshaw & Culbertson
May 26, 2009 22:34

Ford Motor Co. v. Edgewood Properties, Inc., 2009 WL 1416223 (D.N.J. May 19, 2009) This lawsuit arose out of the distribution of contaminated concrete following the demolition of a Ford assembly plant in Edison, New Jersey. Edgewood entered into a contract with Ford to haul 50,000 cubic yards of...

General concern over litigation does not trigger a duty to preserve evidence

Hinshaw & Culbertson
May 14, 2009 18:26

Realnetworks, Inc. v. DVD Copy Control Ass’n, Inc., 2009 WL 1258970 (N.D. Cal. May 5, 2009) Determining when the duty to preserve evidence arises can be a “sticky wicket” as our friends “across the pond” like to say. Clearly, when a party has decided it will pursue litigation, a duty to preserve ESI...

Default judgment entered as a sanction for spoliation and deliberate withholding of ESI

Hinshaw & Culbertson
May 08, 2009 22:05

MeccaTech, Inc. v. Kiser, 2008 WL 6010937 (D. Neb. April 2, 2008) You know things are bad when the lawyers withdraw. In MeccaTech (MTI), the magistrate judge observed: “Misconduct of this magnitude is a rare occurrence.” It was determined through discovery that one of the defendants employed a con...

Conundrum of preserving backup tapes and inaccessible sources of information

Hinshaw & Culbertson
April 27, 2009 20:58

Forest Laboratories, Inc. v. Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Ltd., 2009 WL 998 402 (E.D. Mich. April 14, 2009) By now, any attorney worth his or her salt knows that the federal rules have set up a two-tier system for the discovery of electronically stored information (“ESI”). Under Rule 26(...

Court acknowledges the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause may limit the sanctions that can be imposed for destroying electronic documents

Hinshaw & Culbertson
April 23, 2009 21:29

Preferred Care Partners Holding Corp. v. Humana, Inc., 2009 WL 982460 (S.D. Fla. April 9, 2009) It is every trial lawyer’s worst nightmare. You are one month away from trial, drafting motions in limine, and preparing jury instructions when your client calls to advise that they just found over 1...

Undue burden argument prompts court to shift the cost of reviewing documents to the requesting party subject to a non-waiver order

Hinshaw & Culbertson
April 17, 2009 19:08

In re Motor Fuel Temperature Sales Practices Litig., 2009 WL 959493 (D. Kan. April 3, 2009) In this multi-district litigation, plaintiffs brought claims against the defendants asserting various state law theories because the defendants sold motor fuel at a specific price per gallon without...

Fed. R. Civ. P. 1 used to limit Rule 30(b)(6) depositions addressing a party’s email policies and search for responsive emails

Hinshaw & Culbertson
April 16, 2009 15:35

Newman v. Borders, Inc., 2009 WL 931545 (D.D.C. April 6, 2009) In Newman v. Borders, Judge John Fasciola relied upon Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to limit a party’s request for an additional 30(b)(6) deposition sought by the plaintiff in a motion to compel. Newman involved a r...