Source: https://www.xactdatadiscovery.com/articles/a-new-mobile-devices-case-every-few-months/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 16:32:13+00:00

Document:
In the first Part of this series, we reviewed the ubiquity, usage, and business realities of mobile devices. In the second Part, we reviewed what is encompassed by “mobile devices” and what data is potentially contained on them. In the third Part, we reviewed the realities of acquiring that data from them. In this Part, we begin our review of relevant case law.
For this failure to preserve text messages, as well as the other discovery failures covered in the motion, they paid a monetary sanction of $931,500.
On that device alone, plaintiff permanently deleted all text messages, call logs, email data, voicemails, internet history and bookmarks, pictures, network activity history, contacts, calendars, notes, applications, social media, and video stored on the device. Plaintiff similarly deleted two years’ worth of information from his Blackberry device before producing it to defendant.
The extent, significance, and apparent intentionality of the spoliation (of both mobile device data and other materials) led the Judge to apply terminating sanctions, dismissing his suit with prejudice. The Plaintiff was also ordered to pay $55,755 in fees and $53,164.89 in costs.
Taking the 26,374 text messages identified by Sprint as having been sent or received since November 19, 2012 and subtracting the 64 text messages UMC produced, one finds that approximately 26,310 messages were lost or deleted by UMC prior to UMC making its production of text messages.
In this case, an employer that allowed employees to use their personal mobile devices for work communications used its remote device access to initiate a factory reset of a terminated employee’s personal iPhone. This deleted both the business communications on the device and all of the employee’s personal contacts, messages, photos, videos, passwords, etc. The employee sued over the loss on several different legal grounds, including violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”) and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”). The federal District Court concluded that the data on his mobile device was not protected by the ECPA, and the types of losses he incurred were not covered by the CFAA. The case was then transferred to state court to proceed on other legal grounds.
In the next Part of this series, Even More Mobile Devices Cases, we will conclude our review of cases touching on mobile devices in eDiscovery.
In this case law survey, we are briefly reviewing a dozen cases from across the past five years that have touched on mobile device discovery issues. We are reviewing them in chronological order: Stinson v. City of New York, No. 10 Civ. 4228 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 2, 2016), NuVasive, Inc. v. Madsen Med. Inc., No. 13cv2077 BTM(RBB) (S.D. Cal. Jan. 26, 2016), First Financial Security., Inc. v. Lee, No. 14-1843 (D. Minn. Mar. 8, 2016), Living Color Enterprises, Inc. v. New Era Aquaculture, Ltd., No. 14-cv-62216-MARRA/MATHEWMAN (S.D. Fla. Mar. 22, 2016), Brown Jordan Int’l, Inc. v. Carmicle, Nos. 0:14-CV-60629, 0:14-CV-61415 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 2, 2016), and Ronnie Van Zant, Inc. v. Pyle, No. 17 Civ. 3360 (RWS) (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 28, 2017).
When considered together, the twelve cases we reviewed suggest a few key points to remember regarding mobile devices in eDiscovery: the fact that mobile devices are a novel or challenging source is no excuse to skip them; there will be potentially serious consequences for inadvertent losses from mobile devices, and there will be very serious consequences for intentional spoliation of mobile device data; and, it may be possible to establish the prior existence of lost text messages using phone records from the relevant wireless carrier. Read on to review the three other main key points from the case law as well as the key takeaways from our review of mobile devices in eDiscovery.
Because of the huge diversity in smartphone and tablet hardware and software, collecting from these sources poses special challenges and requires special tools. These tools are collection kits akin to those used for forensic acquisitions from traditional computer sources, but they feature connection options for all of the common mobile standards and more specialized software for interfacing with the wide range of potential data formats, file systems, etc. When executing mobile device acquisitions, there are a range of options similar to those available when conducting traditional computer drive acquisitions. Read on to learn more about the three types of acquisitions and the additional challenges presented by mobile device data after its acquisition.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.