The Subtleties Of Spoliation And Other Recent E-Discovery Issues

A compilation of recent court actions from Sidley & Austin: In Arizona, a defendant’s “culpable state of mind” when he wipes his hard drive clean results in summary judgment, while in the District of New Jersey, the judge accepts the argument of the defendant hospital and rules surveillance video of a lobby was not improperly erased. In Puerto Rico, 38 destroyed emails garner an adverse inference instruction but not dismissal of a case. And in South Carolina, the defendant corporation in a pollution case mounted by the federal EPA and a state agency managed to avoid having to provide the date of its first litigation hold notice, as requested at a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition, possibly because the plaintiff attorney was too polite.