A great indicator of trends for mobile device discovery is case law rulings. Cimplifi discusses that in this post on mobile device case law trends!
In their post titled Going Mobile: Recent Mobile Device Case Law Trends, Part 1 (available here), Cimplifi discusses how, in recent years, we’ve seen a steady rise in the number of disputes related to the relevance and accessibility of mobile device data. Many of these relate to whether evidence from mobile devices is relevant and proportional – including whether the forensic collection of evidence from mobile devices is relevant and proportional. Cimplifi provides eight cases related to these disputes, here’s one of those cases:
In re Pork Antitrust Litigation: This case was particularly instructive in that the plaintiffs took a “belt and suspenders” approach to requesting mobile device discovery. They requested it from the defendant who objected that it did not have possession, custody, or control of the custodians’ personal cell phone data. The Court agreed with the defendant, finding “an employer does not legally control personal text messages despite a BYOD policy when the policy does not assert employer ownership over the texts and the employer cannot legally demand access to the texts.” However, the plaintiffs also subpoenaed the custodians directly for the information and the Court granted that request. So, the plaintiffs were able to get the information they sought in a different way.
So, what are the other seven cases that Cimplifi discusses in part 1 of their series regarding mobile device case law trends? Find out here, it’s only one click! You can even read them on your mobile device! 😀
So, what do you think? How often does mobile device data factor into your litigation cases today? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
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