In this employment case, the magistrate imposed monetary sanctions and recommended an adverse inference jury instruction for the defendants’ spoliation of electronically stored information (ESI). Although the defendants were on notice of the plaintiff’s claims and had a clear obligation to preserve relevant information, they intentionally deleted her email and work data…
Experience Hendrix, LLC v. Pitsicalis No. 17 Civ. 1927 (PAE) (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 27, 2018)In this copyright infringement case, the court imposed sanctions on specific defendants for their continued discovery abuses. Specifically, it ordered an adverse inference jury...
Sinclair v. Cambria Cnty.No. 3:17-cv-149 (W.D. Pa. Sept. 28, 2018) In this employment discrimination case, the court sanctioned the plaintiff for her prejudicial spoliation of text messages. The plaintiff, Tammy Sinclair, was previously employed as a counselor at the...
In this negligence case arising from a car accident, the plaintiff moved to compel the production of daily driving reports.
Ball v. George Washington Univ., No. 17-cv-0507 (DLF) (D.D.C. Sept. 27, 2018). In this employment discrimination claim, the court denied sanctions despite the defendant’s failure to preserve a surveillance video. It found that before any duty to preserve attached, the...
Beck v. Access E Forms, LP In this Fair Labor Standards Act claim, the court denied sanctions despite the plaintiff’s deletion of emails and other evidence. Sidney Beck, the plaintiff, alleged that during her employment with Access eForms, LP, she routinely worked...
In this employment case, the court sanctioned the plaintiff for destroying cell phone records and lying under oath.
Understand the definition of spoliation under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. With respect to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), spoliation is the loss or destruction of potentially relevant information that should have been preserved for a civil...
The court ordered issue preclusion and costs as severe sanctions against a party that engaged in continuous discovery misconduct, including failing to take reasonable steps to preserve evidence stored on a third-party server and making innumerable excuses for the failure to produce documents. The court also sanctioned the party’s counsel for his failure to check his client’s behavior and for taking steps that inappropriately lengthened the proceedings.