Here's an interesting excerpt from this month's Case Law Update from Kroll Ontrack (www.krollontrack.com) that mentions different discovery requirements for e-mail and chatroom discussions. On the last sentence, I've added emphasis for... um... emphasis:
 
Malletier v. Dooney & Bourke, Inc., 2006 WL 3851151 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2006). In this trademark infringement case, the plaintiff moved for discovery sanctions against the defendant, claiming the defendant failed to do the following: conduct complete or timely searches for electronic documents, issue a proper litigation hold, and preserve chat room discussions taking place on the defendant's Web site. Denying the plaintiff's motion, the court found no discovery misconduct. Instead, the court questioned the plaintiff's delay in raising these discovery issues and stated the plaintiff failed to demonstrate the defendant's discovery production was materially incomplete. The court noted an ambiguity as to whether some employees' e-mail accounts had been searched and ordered the defendant to confirm this in writing.  The court also found that the defendant's failure to instruct certain employees to preserve documents after the lawsuit was either imminent or already pending did not result in any relevant documents being destroyed. **Lastly, the court held that chat room discussions on the defendant's Web site would not fall under the same discovery requirements as e-mail, and the defendant could not be sanctioned for failure to preserve the discussions.**
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It's unfortunate that this summary doesn't specify the reason for the decision about the discoverability of chatroom discussions. Would anyone on the listserv care to opine?
 
Cheers,
Taina Makinen
Vital Records Specialist
Canadian Tire Corporation
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