Litigation partners Chris Boehning and Dan Toal’s latest Federal E-Discovery column, “Court Rejects Forensic Examination of Nonparty Cellphone,” appeared in the August 5 issue of the New York Law Journal. The authors discuss a recent decision in the Southern District of New York that reinforces the judiciary’s careful approach when analyzing requests for forensic examinations of personal computers and cellphones, particularly those belonging to nonparties to a litigation. In Liederbach v. NYU Langone Hospitals, the court denied the plaintiff’s motion to compel the forensic examination of a nonparty witness’s personal cellphone, recognizing the intrusive nature of such an examination and highlighting the necessity for applying standards of reasonableness and proportionality. The ruling indicates that courts generally will require a strong justification before authorizing forensic examination of nonparty personal devices, especially in the absence of concrete evidence of relevance or potential spoliation. In this case, speculative assertions that the device likely contained responsive information were deemed insufficient to support the request.
Deputy chair and counsel, e-discovery, Ross Gotler and e-discovery attorney Lidia Kekis assisted in the preparation of this article.
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