Among hot topics in discovery practice, some of the most noteworthy include enterprise messaging systems, privilege logging workflows, and the proliferation of new data sources through the Internet of Things (IoT). With courts having issued few decisions on these topics, three recent cases addressing these issues are particularly significant.

The first is Charter Communications Operating v. Optymyze (Del. Chanc. Ct. 2021), which focused on the discovery of relevant chat messages from the defendant’s Microsoft Teams platform. The second is Maxus Energy Corp. v. YPF (D. Del. 2021) in which a Delaware bankruptcy court ordered produced thousands of communications previously withheld as privileged and which were reflected on a categorical privilege log. The final case is State v. Burch (Wis. 2021), in which the Wisconsin Supreme Court considered both the nature and admissibility of Fitbit data and other non-traditional ESI.

Charter Communications v. Optymyze