Federal District Court Examines Evidentiary Issues Concerning Electronic Records

The Chief Magistrate Judge of the federal court in Maryland has issued an important opinion analyzing a myriad of evidentiary issues that parties using electronic documents face in summary judgment and trial situations.

In Lorraine v. Markel American Ins. Co., 241 F.R.D. 534 (D. Md. May 4, 2007), the court denied the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment on the grounds that courts may only consider on summary judgment those materials that are in the form of admissible evidence, and the electronic evidence offered here was not shown to be admissible. In analyzing the motions, the court published a lengthy opinion studying in detail a variety of means to satisfy federal evidentiary requirements for the admission of electronically stored information (“ESI”).

Of particular interest is the court’s discussion of the need to properly authenticate various forms of ESI, which the movants did not even attempt to do, thereby causing what the court termed “self-inflicted wounds.”