![]() Section leaders offer advice to practitioners. ![]() “Speculation that cell phone use might be relevant to an incident is not going to cut it.” “It’s difficult to imagine what ‘smoking gun’ type of evidence the plaintiffs could present,” Gilbert surmises. It is unclear what, if anything, the plaintiffs could do to clear that hurdle. The plaintiffs “ultimately may show themselves entitled” to further discovery of cell phone data, the court wrote, but only if they can show that cell phone use by on-site employees was “a potential contributing cause of the release.” With that showing made, the court suggested, “evidence of cell-phone use outside time period may become relevant.” A late footnote in the opinion, however, offered the plaintiffs a glimmer of hope. Ultimately, the Texas Supreme Court directed the trial court to vacate its orders requiring production of cell phone data. Stitch-in-Time Lessons for Cell Phone Data Disputes Gilbert, New Orleans, LA, newsletter co-editor of the Section’s Pretrial Practice & Discovery Committee. ![]() “This appears to be part of an ongoing trend in treating cell phone records differently and being much more reluctant to give comprehensive access to cell phone records,” agrees James H. “While the court’s opinion is broadly applicable to any scope-of-discovery argument,” Schaeffer explains, “there’s undoubtedly a sense, with cell phones, that there are greater privacy interests at stake.” The court’s discomfort with the production order may have stemmed, in part, from the type of records at issue, Shaeffer adds. Schaeffer, Pittsburgh, PA, cochair of the Section’s Pretrial Practice & Discovery Committee. I find the case surprising only because courts frequently err on the side of granting discovery,” opines Joseph V. “The Texas Supreme Court issued a thoughtful decision that is grounded in the relevance of the documents at issue, as the plaintiffs don’t appear to have provided any evidence that cell phone use was relevant. ![]() Litigation Section leaders were surprised with the outcome. The court concluded that the trial court should not have ordered production of cell phone data “without first undertaking a person-by-person analysis of whether cell-phone use within that time period could have been a contributing cause of the release.” Lingering Wariness about Access to Cell Phone Data? The court began its analysis by noting that even in their petitions, plaintiffs had failed to allege “that cell-phone use by anyone was a contributing cause of the release.” The court held that cell phone use could only have “made a difference in how events unfolded” if it occurred in the hours leading up to the reactor leak. In In re Kuraray America, Inc., the Texas Supreme Court agreed. The defendant sought mandamus relief from the Texas Supreme Court, arguing that the trial court had abused its discretion “by ordering production without limitation.” The defendant argued that because the plaintiffs had failed to adequately establish relevance of the cell phone usage data, their discovery requests were impermissibly broad. That production included not only text messages and photos, but also “usage data” showing when and potentially how employees were using their cell phones. After a hearing, the trial court ordered production of six weeks of cell phone data from two supervisors, and four months of cell phone data from three board operators. ![]()
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