Court orders a $3 million fine for e-discovery misconduct.

• Position: E-DISCOVERY - Brief article

Legal experts have called the recent GN Netcom v. Plantronics decision a "teaching opinion" for how e-discovery should be conducted and one of the more significant opinions since the enactment of the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) amendments in December 2015.

In the antitrust case, the District of Delaware issued a scathing opinion relating to the scope of sanctions that may be applied for e-discovery misconduct. A senior manager for Plantronics Inc. instructed employees to delete emails and deleted messages from his own account. After the establishment of a litigation hold, the senior manager deleted as many as 90,000 unrecoverable e-mails, of which 6.5% were estimated to be responsive.

The court imposed sanctions on Plantronics, including the fees and costs incurred for bringing the motion, $3 million in punitive damages, possible evidentiary sanctions to be determined at a later date, and an adverse inference jury instruction, according to Legaltech News.

The court said that although Plantronics may have taken reasonable, and even extensive, steps to preserve...