Armies of lawyers gird for e-discovery battles in Penn State-Sandusky cases

Penn State and the parties involved by the alleged crimes of Jerry Sandusky will encounter ESI of all sorts in coming wave of litigation

The mushrooming scandal surrounding the allegations of serial child abuse by former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky will produce countless lawsuits against countless defendants by a still-unknown number of plaintiffs. A vital weapon in the legal battles will be the multitude of sources and custodians of electronically stored information that could provide vital evidence in lawsuits that will seek damages probably totaling several hundred million dollars.

The cases will provide crucial lessons in records management, preservation of electronically stored information (ESI), the interplay between the paper era and the electronic era, the limits of liability insurance policies where prior knowledge of similar acts was not conveyed to the insurer, best practices in the maintenance of surveillance cameras and devices to protect persons, and many others.

Paying close attention to these lessons will be the General Counsel, records managers, IT and litigation support staffs of all colleges, foundations, not-for-profit organizations, sports teams and public institutions of all kinds

University's 'Right to Know' exemption creates hurdles to ESI

The cases will be fought principally in Pennsylvania, which has laws that provide “blanket exceptions” to Penn State University from compliance with the state’s Right to Know" law, according to Terry Muchler, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records. Whether in the face of strong public opinion the university foregoes its exemption is not known, though Mutchler tells ACEDS there is a “flurry of legislative activity” around the law.

The Right to Know law does not come into play when litigants sue the university or when criminal investigators or grand juries issue subpoenas. However, electronic communications between players and coaches in the form of emails, texts, and tweets are exempt from public records requests, Mutchler says.

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Source: aceds.org
By: Seth Row and ACEDS staff