Zubulake v. Ubs Warburg LLC

220 F.R.D. 212 (2003)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Laura Zubulake (P), an equities trader who earned approximately $650,000 a year with UBS (D) is suing D for gender discrimination, failure to promote, and retaliation under federal, state, and city law. P states that the evidence she needs to prove her case exists in e-mail correspondence sent among various UBS employees and stored only on UBS's computer systems. On July 24, 2003, the judge ordered the parties to share the cost of restoring certain D backup tapes that contained emails relevant to P's claims. In the restoration effort, the parties discovered that certain backup tapes are missing. In addition, isolated e-mails -- created after D supposedly began retaining all relevant e-mails --were deleted from D's system, although they appear to have been saved on the backup tapes. P now seeks sanctions against D for its failure to preserve the missing backup tapes and deleted e-mails. P seeks (a) an order requiring D to pay in full the costs of restoring the remainder of the monthly backup tapes; (b) an adverse inference instruction against D with respect to the backup tapes that are missing; and (c) an order directing D to bear the costs of re-deposing certain individuals concerning the issues raised in newly produced e-mails.