Case Law & Court Rules

In the Introduction section of the opinion, the court provided a brief background of the case, the motion at hand, and the issues for consideration: “This is the fifth written opinion in this case, a relatively routine employment discrimination dispute in which discovery has now lasted over two years. Laura Zubulake is once again moving to […]

From the Opinion: “This opinion addresses both the scope of a litigant’s duty to preserve electronic documents and the consequences of a failure to preserve documents that fall within the scope of that duty.” After UBS was ordered to produce documents from certain backup tapes, the parties discovered that certain tapes were missing. The court […]

UBS was previously ordered produce emails from a sample group of backup tapes to provide a factual basis for a cost-shifting analysis. Having completed the sample production, Zubulake sought production from the remaining tapes with UBS bearing the expense. UBS argued that cost-shifting was appropriate based on the results of the sample. The court reiterated […]

The heart of the dispute was succinctly recited by the court as follows: “This case provides a textbook example of the difficulty of balancing the competing needs of broad discovery and manageable costs. Laura Zubulake is suing [the defendants] under Federal, State and City law for gender discrimination and illegal retaliation. Zubulake’s case is certainly not […]

A motion was filed by plaintiffs seeking, among other things, production of archived emails that were authored by one of the defendants and that related to either plaintiff. The defendants argued that the production request was unduly burdensome and would require them to search backup tapes containing the archived emails. Under the facts, the court […]