Document Dumps May Cost You

Document Dumps May Cost You

 

Michael Ross

Associate

 

Document Dumps May Cost You

 

A recent decision from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Gowing Contractors Ltd v. Walsh Construction Company Canada, 2023 ONSC 4407, confirms there will be cost consequences to parties whose productions contain a significant proportion of irrelevant records.  On a motion for further and better production, the Court considered, inter alia, whether the defendant Walsh had failed to meet its discovery obligations by producing an “astounding 25%” of irrelevant documents.

 

By way of background, the overall litigation relates to an infrastructure construction project. Walsh was the general contractor, Gowing was Walsh’s mechanical subcontractor, and Zurich Insurance Company Ltd.… Read More

Clarification — Redactions of Irrelevant Information

Clarification — Redactions of Irrelevant Information

Michael Ross

Associate

 

June 9, 2023

A recent family law decision from the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta, MBH v CKI, 2023 ABKB 284, clarifies the principles that apply in Alberta to redactions of non-privileged irrelevant information from otherwise relevant and material records.

 

The Court considered, inter alia, whether the Plaintiff/Respondent must produce redacted portions of previously produced medical/physician records. While medical information is often redacted as irrelevant personal information, the information here was potentially relevant to issues involving the primary care and control of the parties’ children.

 

The Court noted that, in Alberta, irrelevant information is often redacted or removed from records.… Read More

Is it Really Possible to Accurately Review Close to a Million Emails Over a Weekend?

Is it Really Possible to Accurately Review Close to a Million Emails Over a Weekend?

Heuristica Discovery Counsel

 

February 6, 2023

 

Q: Is it really possible to accurately review close to a million emails over a weekend?

A: It depends.

 

In connection with an ongoing controversy about alleged inappropriate emails sent from the Premier’s office to the provincial prosecutorial service (ACPS), the Alberta government recently confirmed that it had identified emails from over 900+ email accounts and caused almost one million emails to be searched by provincial government employees in an effort to establish that the alleged emails had not been sent. All this was said to have occurred within three/four days of the Premier’s direction that the review be conducted.… Read More

Preservation Obligations may change with new Auto-Expiration of Teams Meeting Recordings

Preservation Obligations may change with new Auto-Expiration of Teams Meeting Recordings

Candice Chan-Glasgow

Director, Review Services and Counsel

 

February 7, 2022

 

Parties to anticipated litigation should be mindful of announced changes to the auto-expiration of Teams recordings and their preservation obligations once litigation is reasonably anticipated.

 

In July 2021, Microsoft announced the initial development of a new auto-expiration feature on Microsoft Teams meeting recordings stored on OneDrive and Sharepoint.  On January 31, 2022, Microsoft announced that the default auto-expiration period for Teams recordings will increase to 120 days from the previously announced 60 days.

 

New recordings will be set to automatically expire 120 days after they are recorded if no action is taken.… Read More

US Case Law Update: Failing to suspend routine document retention process leads to sanctions

US Case Law Update:  Failing to suspend routine document retention process leads to sanctions

December 15, 2021

 

In a recent case from the United States, the failure to properly implement a legal hold led to a motion for spoliation sanctions.

 

In Mahboob v. Educ. Credit Mgmt. Corp., Case No.: 15-cv-0628-TWR-AGS (S.D. Cal. Mar. 1, 2021), the plaintiff alleged that the defendant failed to suspend its two-year document retention policy, which resulted in the loss of months of relevant call data and recordings.  Countering, the defendant argued that the plaintiff’s motion should be denied due to unreasonable delay.

 

In the result, the Magistrate Judge granted the plaintiff’s motion for spoliation sanctions, in part. … Read More