Doc1 Computer Forensics

Case Law

United States of America v. Philip Morris U.S.A. Inc.
2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13580 (D.C. 2004)
This case ordered monetary sanctions ($2.75 million) to address the lack of preservation of electronic evidence.
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Zubulake v. UBS Warburg
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13574 (S.D.N.Y. 2004)
This case allowed an adverse inference instruction for the destruction of electronic evidence.
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Wiginton v. CB Richard Ellis
2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19128 (D. III. 2003)
This case stated: "A party has a duty to preserve evidence over which it had control and ‘reasonably knew or could reasonably forsee was material to a potential legal action.’"
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Westchester Media Co. L.P. v. PRL Holdings, Inc.
103 F.Supp. 935, 1007 (S.D. Tex 1999)
An "adverse factual inference" may be drawn if there is evidence that data destruction occurred in bad faith.
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Rowe Entertainment, Inc, v. William Morris Agency, Inc.
205 F.R.D. 421 (S.D.N.Y. 2002)
This case outlined eight factors to determine if cost-shifting should occur.
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Linnen v. A.H. Robbins Co.
1999 WL 462015
This case stated "while the reality of electronic discovery may require a different approach and more sophisticated equipment than a photocopier, there is nothing about the technological aspects involved which renders documents stored in electronic media ‘undiscoverable.’"
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Phoenix Four Inc. v. Strategic Resources Corp.
No. 05-CV-4837
Sanctions were imposed for the destruction and late production of discovery material.
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Coleman v. Morgan Stanley
2005 WL 679071
Mishandling of backup tapes and electronic documents adverly effected the case.
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Krumwiede v. Brighton Assocs., L.L.C.
2006 WL 1308629 (N.D. Ill. May 8, 2006)
Court determined that willful and bad faith spoliation of evidence occurred due to the destruction of electronic data.
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Crandall v. City of Denver
2006 WL 2683754 (D. Colo. Sept. 19, 2006)
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Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition
535 U.S. 234 (2002)
This case successfully argued that depections of children under the age of 18 that are computer generated can not have an age associated with them and therefore must be protected under the First Amendment. In this decision, the Supreme Court threw out parts of the The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA).
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The Gates Rubber Co. v. Bando Chemical Industries Ltd.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit
This case addressed the fact that the defendant had destroyed critical information during the course of litigation. The plantiff hired a computer forensic expert to examine the hard drives in the case and determind that evidence had been destroyed.
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