Lest anyone think that hair-raising e-discovery sanctions opinions are a thing of the past, U.S. District Judge David Herndon of the Southern District of Illinois issued a blistering 51-page opinion (PDF) imposing nearly $1 million in punitive sanctions on the defendants in In re Pradaxa Products Liability Litigation on Dec. 9, 2013, and indicated that more sanctions are almost certainly on the way.
The case is an example of how electronic data discovery generally, and implementing legal holds in particular, can be fraught with peril. Why is that? Lots of things can, and sometimes do, go wrong in handling EDD, even where the intentions of a party and its counsel are good. Companies are justifiably concerned about costs—the costs of preservation itself, of retaining sophisticated e-discovery counsel as part of the legal team, and of a high-quality EDD vendor—and, as a result may not put the most robust e-discovery process or team in place. Or they simply may not fully appreciate the need to do so.
