I lived through Hurricane Ike and have several relatives who lived through Hurricane Katrina.
We went 14 days without electricity and I came really close to losing my mind. Two things I learned:
1. the worst part of not having electricity is not the lack of air condition (although that did very much suck). The worst part was the darkness at night. Basic tasks become impossible in the dark. Once the sun sets you go to sleep because there isn't much else to do. Flashlights are great until you forget where you put the flashlight and its pitch black. Cell phones are very useful for illumination until they lose their charge.
2. Ice is the most valuable commodity when you don't have electricity. Stores will eventually restock bottled water, canned food, ect... Ice was the one product that I saw people literally fighting over and huge pallets of it would disappear within minutes of being placed.
Another thing - if you are involved in a massive disruption you are pretty much on your own in that you cannot rely on police or ambulance to come to your aid - they are overwhelmed. One good aspect of the whole ordeal was that I met and *gasp* actually talked to many of my neighbors. It was interesting to see that human beings are actually quite good at banding together during times of extreme duress. Of course, once the power was restored we went back to our indifferent ways but at least I know my neighbors now!
Finally, contrary to popular belief, there was no mass hysteria, no large group of roving bandits breaking into stores or looting homes. I have a feeling that potential criminals knew they would have been shot on site because people were on edge. This is Texas after all.
Semantics. Substitute the word "documents" for "evidence" if it bothers you that much. Either way, if your argument is "sorry judge, we can't produce all those relevant e-mails you wanted us to produce because they no longer exist" then you might as well just write a check to the other side.
One thing you tech folks probably already realize - it is very difficult to permanently delete e-mails. Sure, if they are sent between two people, its not so hard. Most e-mails, however, have multiple recipients, cc:, blind cc:, ect...
The only way to really complete this task would be formatting the hard drives or storage media of every computer which touched the e-mail. Good luck in that endeavor. If the e-mails which were erased have relevant discoverable information, god help the company that "destroys" that evidence. This applies more to larger companies where more custodians exist (anyone whose computer contains relevant documents).
Not yet. Just wait until the corporate lobbyists enact legislation which permits a company to detain you indefinitely for exceeding their $35.00 per day food allowance by $2.34.
You appear to be confusing the legality of a retention policy with the real world outcome of implementing such a policy.
Let me make it simple. Despite what overlawyered.com says, if a judge perceives that a defendant destroyed discoverable evidence in order to reduce legal liability, the defendant is is screwed.
The judge might render a death penalty discovery sanction. A pissed off judge might decide to rule against every objection, pleading, or motion the defendant makes throughout the rest of the trial. The judge might instruct the jury to assume that the destruction or omission of certain evidence is a direct admission that the defendant is liable.
In essence, the attempt to control information to save money is likely to lead to less control than would have existed had the you-must-delete-e-mails-after-180-days retention policy never been implemented in the first place.
The first rule of litigation is don't piss off the judge.
As an attorney who practices e-discovery, I can tell you that any company which implements the policy described above better hope to god they never find themselves embroiled in multi-state class action litigation. Sooner or later, they will run into a judge who views the destruction of evidence for the express purpose of avoiding liability as a bad thing and they will lose the case.
A policy designed to protect the company from litigious plaintiffs will have the opposite result and create huge awards for the plaintiffs. If you work for a large company which has been sued in major litigation, you should probably assume that all of your e-mails will be read by an attorney at some point and write your e-mails accordingly.
I am an attorney and would fully expect to be fired immediately if I disclosed privileged information to any media outlet. If this was settlement information, that is even worse because typically proposed settlements are extremely confidential. This single event will ensure that every large law firm across the country disables the auto fill feature on outlook.
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I lived through Hurricane Ike and have several relatives who lived through Hurricane Katrina. We went 14 days without electricity and I came really close to losing my mind. Two things I learned: 1. the worst part of not having electricity is not the lack of air condition (although that did very much suck). The worst part was the darkness at night. Basic tasks become impossible in the dark. Once the sun sets you go to sleep because there isn't much else to do. Flashlights are great until you forget where you put the flashlight and its pitch black. Cell phones are very useful for illumination until they lose their charge. 2. Ice is the most valuable commodity when you don't have electricity. Stores will eventually restock bottled water, canned food, ect... Ice was the one product that I saw people literally fighting over and huge pallets of it would disappear within minutes of being placed. Another thing - if you are involved in a massive disruption you are pretty much on your own in that you cannot rely on police or ambulance to come to your aid - they are overwhelmed. One good aspect of the whole ordeal was that I met and *gasp* actually talked to many of my neighbors. It was interesting to see that human beings are actually quite good at banding together during times of extreme duress. Of course, once the power was restored we went back to our indifferent ways but at least I know my neighbors now! Finally, contrary to popular belief, there was no mass hysteria, no large group of roving bandits breaking into stores or looting homes. I have a feeling that potential criminals knew they would have been shot on site because people were on edge. This is Texas after all.
Semantics. Substitute the word "documents" for "evidence" if it bothers you that much. Either way, if your argument is "sorry judge, we can't produce all those relevant e-mails you wanted us to produce because they no longer exist" then you might as well just write a check to the other side.
One thing you tech folks probably already realize - it is very difficult to permanently delete e-mails. Sure, if they are sent between two people, its not so hard. Most e-mails, however, have multiple recipients, cc:, blind cc:, ect... The only way to really complete this task would be formatting the hard drives or storage media of every computer which touched the e-mail. Good luck in that endeavor. If the e-mails which were erased have relevant discoverable information, god help the company that "destroys" that evidence. This applies more to larger companies where more custodians exist (anyone whose computer contains relevant documents).
Not yet. Just wait until the corporate lobbyists enact legislation which permits a company to detain you indefinitely for exceeding their $35.00 per day food allowance by $2.34.
You appear to be confusing the legality of a retention policy with the real world outcome of implementing such a policy. Let me make it simple. Despite what overlawyered.com says, if a judge perceives that a defendant destroyed discoverable evidence in order to reduce legal liability, the defendant is is screwed. The judge might render a death penalty discovery sanction. A pissed off judge might decide to rule against every objection, pleading, or motion the defendant makes throughout the rest of the trial. The judge might instruct the jury to assume that the destruction or omission of certain evidence is a direct admission that the defendant is liable. In essence, the attempt to control information to save money is likely to lead to less control than would have existed had the you-must-delete-e-mails-after-180-days retention policy never been implemented in the first place. The first rule of litigation is don't piss off the judge.
As an attorney who practices e-discovery, I can tell you that any company which implements the policy described above better hope to god they never find themselves embroiled in multi-state class action litigation. Sooner or later, they will run into a judge who views the destruction of evidence for the express purpose of avoiding liability as a bad thing and they will lose the case. A policy designed to protect the company from litigious plaintiffs will have the opposite result and create huge awards for the plaintiffs. If you work for a large company which has been sued in major litigation, you should probably assume that all of your e-mails will be read by an attorney at some point and write your e-mails accordingly.
I am an attorney and would fully expect to be fired immediately if I disclosed privileged information to any media outlet. If this was settlement information, that is even worse because typically proposed settlements are extremely confidential. This single event will ensure that every large law firm across the country disables the auto fill feature on outlook.
Supreme Court: 5-4, ES&S wins! Diebold: 9-0, we win lol!
I judge a sci fi movie by the quality of its spaceship battles. Nothing tops Star Wars, but Serenity does have a brief yet excellent battle scene.