First Half Of 2016 Saw A Large Decline.
Gibson Dunn has published a mid-year 2016 review of electronically stored information (ESI) decisions in federal courts involving requests for sanctions.
There has been a large decline. In the first half of 2016, there were only 32 reported decisions, 13 granting sanctions and 19 denying them for ESI violations. This compares to 150 reported decisions in 2011 and 120 in 2012 (federal courts). The authors of the review believe that some of the decline is related to the federal rule amendments requiring both relevancy and proportionality.
Some of the most volatile decisions involve how to deal with text messages and mobile data.