Extract from Samantha Green’s article “2019 E-Discovery Sanctions Case Law Update”
In 2019, many e-discovery decisions focused on when sanctions are appropriate. While case law still mandate parties are responsible for preserving all potentially relevant data in anticipation of future litigation, with new technology, a party’s preservation obligations are constantly expanding and presented new challenges for the courts to tackle.
Select cases from 2019 highlight the trend of judges awarding sanctions only if a party acted inappropriately when handling electronically stored information (ESI), such as altering evidence or auto-destroying text messages.