Psystar Case Reveals Poor Email Archiving At Apple

Ian Lamont writes "Buried in the court filings of the recently concluded Psystar antitrust suit against Apple is a document that discussed Apple's corporate policy regarding employee email. Apparently, Apple has no company-wide policy for archiving, saving, or deleting email. This could potentially run afoul of e-discovery requirements, which have tripped up other companies that have been unable to produce emails and other electronic files in court. A lawyer quoted in the article (but not involved in the case) called Apple's retention policy 'negligent.' However, the issue did not help Psystar's lawsuit against Apple — a judge dismissed the case earlier this week."

Comments

Re:email is for communication... not documentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me put it this way - I know of a largeish piece of corporate litigation that turned almost entirely on a Christmas card.

Broadly speaking, anything that is recorded and is able to be read/interpreted/played back/whatever is a "document" for legal purposes and is discoverable if it is relevant to the issues in the case (or whatever your local rules are).

A conversation isn't a document as there is no persistent record of it. That is why you have "pens up" meetings and why some people will never put anything more informative in an email than "come see me".

However, if you do make any record of that conversation - be it five words on a napkin, a detailed minute of the meeting or an audio recording, then that becomes discoverable (provided it is relevant). If you are given a handout of powerpoint slides at a meeting and you make notes on it then that handout becomes a wholly distinct, individually discoverable "document" from a blank printout of the slides.

In most places it is considered contempt of court to destroy a document that is discoverable in actual or reasonably anticipated litigation.

And yes, IAAL.

Re:If Litigation is required.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Erm? Really? You cannot be serious?

You don't recall Apple suing one of its fanbase (a student & lifelong fan), a web design school (who mostly used Apple's products), New York (for daring to use an apple in a environmental awareness campaign) and of course Psystar (attempting to resell OS X).

I could go on & on. Sure. Plenty of people sue Apple (just like any other big tech corp), but Apple's penchant for pulling out the legal guns against small operators (and its fanbase) makes it stand alone in the tech crowd.