Pippins, et al. v. KPMG LLP

Case Updates

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied the defendant's motion to set aside the magistrate judge's order to preserve the hard drives of the putative class members. However, the court reaffirmed that the "proportionality" principle applies to preservation orders, as argued by NCLC's amicus brief.

NCLC urged the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to set aside a magistrate judge’s unprecedented order requiring a defendant in a putative class action to rip out and retain every single hard drive from every computer that any member of the putative class or collective may have used before leaving the company. NCLC’s amicus brief argued that the magistrate’s order failed to apply a “proportionality” standard to preservation orders, ignoring that the possible benefits of such preservation may be disproportional to the well-recognized technical and financial burdens of preserving electronic records. NCLC also argued that the magistrate erred by holding that every member of the proposed class or collective action was a “key player” for purposes of discovery and the retention of electronic information. NCLC’s brief warned that if the magistrate judge’s order is not overturned, the threat of costly preservation and discovery of electronically stored information will give plaintiffs even greater leverage to coerce settlements of even the most frivolous claims.