Extract from Doug Austin’s article “Court Denies Plaintiff’s Request to Avoid Forensic Imaging of Devices in Apple Performance Case: eDiscovery Case Law”
In the case In Re: Apple Inc., No. 5:18-md-02827-EJD (N.D. Cal. Aug. 22, 2019), California District Judge Edward J. Davila denied the plaintiffs’ motion to modify the Special Discovery Master order that authorized the forensic imaging of devices belonging to 10 of the more than 90 named plaintiffs in order to allow Apple’s outside experts to performance test the devices, finding that “Apple’s interest in performance testing the forensic images outweighs Plaintiff’s privacy interest because Plaintiffs put the performance of the devices at the center of the lawsuit.”
Case Background
In this litigation involving the performance of Apple devices after software updates, the Special Discovery Master entered an order authorizing the forensic imaging of the devices belonging to 10 of the more than 90 named Plaintiffs in order to allow Apple’s outside experts to performance test the devices. The plaintiff’s objected to the order and sought to modify the Order so that Apple’s discovery of the devices is limited to the extraction of “limited diagnostic data” instead of full forensic imaging, arguing that the Special Discovery Master made “erroneous factual findings and reached incorrect legal conclusions.”
