Gibbons Law Alert

Gibbons Law Alert

Tagged: Data Preservation

Expert Panel Offers Advice On Executing Effective Legal Holds Following Pension Committee, Rimkus and Victor Stanley II At Gibbons Fourth Annual E-Discovery Conference

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Posted in Litigation Preparedness and Strategies

On November 8, 2010

The failure to properly implement, monitor and refine legal holds can have devastating results, transforming manageable legal issues into high-stakes nightmares. To offer guidance on avoiding this, on Thursday, October 28, 2010, Gibbons P.C. held its Fourth Annual E-Discovery Conference, where it assembled a panel of experts for a roundtable discussion on legal hold best practices after the issuance this year of three must-read decisions on this topic: Pension Committee, Rimkus and Victor Stanley II.

Federal Judge Rules Government Failed to Preserve Text Messages and Orders Adverse Inference Instruction in Criminal Case

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Posted in E-Discovery: Legal Decisions and Court Rules

On November 2, 2010

On October 21, 2010, in the highly publicized New Jersey government corruption case U.S. v. Suarez, et ano., No. 09-932, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112097 (D.N.J.), the Honorable Jose L. Linares, U.S.D.J., held that the FBI had a duty to preserve Short Message Service electronic communications (i.e., text messages) exchanged between its agents and their cooperating witness, Solomon Dwek, during the course of the investigation of defendants Anthony Suarez (mayor of Ridgefield, NJ) and Vincent Tabbachino (former Guttenberg, NJ councilman and police officer). Despite the lack of evidence of bad faith on the part of the government, because the text messages were not preserved, the Court found clear prejudice to defendants and ordered that the appropriate sanction was a “permissive” adverse inference jury instruction.

“Private” Facebook and MySpace Postings are Discoverable

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Posted in E-Discovery: Legal Decisions and Court Rules

On October 11, 2010

A New York trial court has ordered a personal injury plaintiff to produce her Facebook and MySpace postings, notwithstanding that plaintiff self-designated them as private. Justice Jeffrey Arlen Spinner, in Romano v. Steelcase Inc., 2010 N.Y. Slip Op. 20388, 2010 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 4538 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., Suffolk Cty. Sept. 21, 2010), reasoned that New York’s “liberal discovery policies” favored allowing access to posts that might undermine plaintiff’s claim for loss of enjoyment of life and further that, “as neither Facebook nor MySpace guarantee complete privacy, Plaintiff has no legitimate reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Gibbons to Host 4th Annual E-Discovery Conference – October 28, 2010

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Posted in Corporate Information and Records Management Policies / Litigation Preparedness and Strategies

On October 6, 2010

The Gibbons E-Discovery Task Force will host its fourth annual full day E-Discovery Conference on October 28, 2010, in the firm’s Newark, NJ office. Devoted to the latest developments in electronic discovery and corporate information management, this program will include speakers who are among the most respected names in the e-discovery field, including former United States Magistrate judges John Hughes and Ronald Hedges, e-discovery authority Michael Arkfeld, and representatives of leading corporations and e-discovery service providers.

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