Tag Archives: Bow Tie Law’s Blog

Can Plaintiff Defeat Defendant’s Motion In Limine To Exclude Facebook Evidence?

25 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by in Admissibility, Evidence, Rule 403, Social Media

≈ Comments Off on Can Plaintiff Defeat Defendant’s Motion In Limine To Exclude Facebook Evidence?

Tags

, , , , , ,

Swabbing the Decks of Admissibility, by Joshua Gilliland, Esq., Bow Tie Law’s Blog

http://tinyurl.com/koeyrb5

Working as a deckhand can be extremely dangerous. There are plenty of reality TV shows with fishermen, tugboats, and salvage crews to highlight the risks professional mariners face daily.

What is also risky in litigation is posting on social media information that could hurt your case.

In Newill v. Campbell Transp. Co., a former deckhand brought motions in limine to limit social media evidence and other testimony in what apparently was a trial over a shipboard injury.

Red Skies in the Morning

The Plaintiff attempted to preclude the Defendant from introducing Facebook posts that showed the Plaintiff could engage in physical activities, despite his claimed injury. Newill v. Campbell Transp. Co., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4350, 1-2 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 14, 2015).

The Defendant sought to introduce Facebook posts that the Plaintiff engaged in ‘painting, landscaping, flooring, going to the gym, undercoating a truck, and going physical.’ Newill, at *2. The Plaintiff further offered his skills as a handyman on social media. Id.

The Court held that the Facebook posts that reflected physical capabilities that were inconsistent with his claimed injury would be allowed at trial. Id. However, if during the trial the Plaintiff felt a social media exhibit was overly embarrassing, the Plaintiff could challenge that specific post under Federal Rule of Evidence 403 at that time. Newill, at *3.

Red Skies at Night

The Defendant had a witness [presumably an expert] who was to testify that the Plaintiff’s Facebook posts ‘probably [were] not giving the employers a good impression,’ was simply speculation and thus not admissible. Newill, at *4. This might have been different if there was some evidence that the connected the Plaintiff’s employment status to his social media posting, but none was offered. Id.

Bow Tie Thoughts

I am an Evidence geek. Love it as much as the Rules of Civil Procedure. The difference is Evidence goes to the heart of a trial: What is admissible? . . . .

Continue reading →

Is It That Hard To Follow Rule 34? Not According To The Judge.

28 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by in E-Discovery, Federal Rules of Discovery, Requests for Production, Rule 34

≈ Comments Off on Is It That Hard To Follow Rule 34? Not According To The Judge.

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Rule 34: As Basic As You Get, by Joseph Gilliland, Bow Tie Law’s Blog

http://tinyurl.com/mbrcqlf

Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal is one of the new heroes of eDiscovery jurisprudence. In Venture Corp. Ltd. v. Barrett, the good Judge opened with the following on Rule 34:

Most lawyers (and hopefully judges) would be forgiven if they could not recite on demand some of the more obscure of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 80 (Stenographic Transcript as Evidence) and Rule 64 (Seizing a Person or Property) come to mind. But Rule 34 (Producing Documents, Electronically Stored Information, and Tangible Things) is about as basic to any civil case as it gets. And yet, over and over again, the undersigned is confronted with misapprehension of its standards and elements by even experienced counsel. Unfortunately, this case presents yet another example.

Venture Corp. Ltd. v. Barrett, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147643, 1 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 16, 2014).

Here is what happened: The Defendant served discovery requests on the Plaintiff and wanted the discovery and organized and labeled to identify the requests to which they were responsive; The Plaintiff did not want to do that and instead produced 41,000 pages of discovery, which ended with the Court ordering re-production for not following either Rule 34(b)(2)(E)(i) or (ii). Venture Corp. Ltd., at *1-2.

The Tactical Document Dump

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 34 is supposed to prevent the ‘document dump,’ which was the attorney Cold War equivalent of a doomsday weapon. . . .

Avoidable E-Discovery Mistake – A Good Lesson on Proportionality.

02 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Discovery, E-Discovery, Federal Rules of Discovery, Interrogatories, Requests for Production

≈ Comments Off on Avoidable E-Discovery Mistake – A Good Lesson on Proportionality.

Tags

, , , , ,

Nebraska, Where Proportionality is Alive and Well in Discovery, by Joshua Gilliand, Esq., Bow Tie Law’s Blog

http://tinyurl.com/qgymkto

One lesson from United States v. Univ. of Neb. at Kearney, is that maybe you should take depositions of key parties and use interrogatories to find out relevant information to your case before asking for over 40,000 records that contain the personal information of unrelated third-parties to a lawsuit. . . .

Why Defendant Former Employers Do Not Get Mirror-Image of Plaintiff’s Personal Computer.

30 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Computer Forensics, Discovery, E-Discovery, Emails, Employment Law, Evidence, Forensic Evidence, Law Office Management, Legal Technology, Requests for Production, Technology

≈ Comments Off on Why Defendant Former Employers Do Not Get Mirror-Image of Plaintiff’s Personal Computer.

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Proportionality Prevents Mirror Imaging of Family Computers, by Joshua Gilliland, Bow Tie Law’s Blog

http://tinyurl.com/osvw3ws

The Defendants in employment litigation sought the mirror imaging of the Plaintiff’s personal computers three years after she had been terminated. The crux of the eDiscovery centered on the former employee forwarding emails from her supervisors email to her personal account, which the Defendants claimed were lost by the Plaintiff. The Court denied the motion to compel. Downs v. Va. Health Sys., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74415, 6-11 (W.D. Va. June 2, 2014).

Judge James G. Welsh did a very nice job of summarizing ESI relevant to a case,proportionality, and the rules for conducting forensic analysis on an opposing party’s hard drive. The Court held the following:

(1) Nothing in the record suggests any willful failure, fault or bad faith by the plaintiff on her discovery obligations that would justify the requested computer forensics examination;

(2) The “mirror-imaging” of the plaintiff’s family computers three years after her termination raises significant issues of confidentiality and privacy;

(3) There was no duty on the part of the plaintiff to preserve her family computers as evidence;

(4) Principles of proportionality direct that the requested discovery is not sufficiently important to warrant the potential burden or expense in this case; and

(5) On the current record that the defendants have failed to justify a broad, and frankly drastic, forensic computer examination of the plaintiff’s two family computers.

Downs, at *9-10, referencing McCurdy Group v. Am. Biomedical Group, Inc., 9 Fed. Appx. 822, 831 (10th Cir. 2001); see also Basile Baumann Prost Cole & Assocs., Inc. v. BBP & Assocs. LLC, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51264, *8 (D. Md. Apr. 9, 2013). . . .

 

Skype For Video Depositions?

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Court Rules, Depositions, Discovery, Employment Law, Federal District Court Rules, Federal Rules of Discovery, Video Deposition

≈ Comments Off on Skype For Video Depositions?

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

“Stop and Think” About Skype for Depositions, by Joshua Gilliland, Bow Tie Law’s Blog

http://bowtielaw.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/another-skyping-judge/

Judge G.R. Smith issued a great reminder that lawyers must ‘stop and think’ when dealing with discovery disputes. This duty is imposed by Rule 26(g) and is ‘an affirmative duty to engage in pretrial discovery in a responsible manner that is consistent with the spirit and purposes of Rules 26 through Rule 37, and obligates each attorney to stop and think about the legitimacy of a discovery request, a response thereto, or an objection.’ Hernandez v. Hendrix Produce, Inc., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4837 (S.D. Ga. Jan. 9, 2014) citing Bottoms v. Liberty Life Assur. Co. of Boston, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143251, 2011 WL 6181423 at * 4 (D. Colo. Dec. 13, 2011). 

The case at issue requiring lawyers to ‘stop and think’ involved the plaintiffs in a farmworker rights lawsuit. Three of the plaintiffs were in Mexico and unable to return to Georgia for their depositions. The Defendants wanted the depositions to be held in Georgia. . . .