For reasons that should come as no surprise, our Technology Today/Federal E-Discovery column tends to focus on cases that apply the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure relating to e-discovery, including in the context of traditional and newer sources of electronically stored information (ESI). Indeed, previous articles have addressed Rule 37(e), which has, since 2015, set forth the legal standard and process for determining whether a federal court should impose sanctions on a party for spoliation of ESI, resolving a circuit split on the topic.

Since the adoption of Rule 37(e), even while interpretations of the rule have varied, federal courts across the country have consistently used it as the basis for their ESI spoliation and sanctions analyses.