Comments on: Who’s On First? - New Case Repeats the Classic Miscommunications Between Law and IT

By: Two New Articles of Interest on e-Discovery Teams « e-Discovery Team

Two New Articles of Interest on e-Discovery Teams « e-Discovery Team — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:01:15 +0000

[...] e-discovery originate from problems in communication between IT and Legal. I call this the “Who’s On First” phenomena of lawyer/tech miscommunication. Friedberg refers to Judge Scheindlin’s [...]

By: The ABA Releases a Popular Book on e-Discovery which has already been cited by Judge Facciola « e-Discovery Team

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:44:07 +0000

[...] Id. pg. 11. Apparently, plaintiff offered no contradictory testimony, and so there was no real dispute. This appears to be another classic example of law-IT miscommunication which I previously wrote about in Who’s On First? [...]

By: Ralph Losey

Ralph Losey — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:20:37 +0000

Thanks again Shawn, I’d be happy to take my computer to you for repair any day. I hear and agree with your comments.

By: Shawn Cusolito

Shawn Cusolito — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:06:03 +0000

Just noticed I didn’t answer your underlying question. The board was not powering on at the time of diagnostic. While there were no physical signs of damage to the board, I cannot rule out a possible surge or EMP damage due to the lightning, it was never indicated by me that lightning caused the failure. On a daily basis I see multiple component failures, and have seen plenty of evidence of direct lightning strikes, often bearing some very nice indicators of arcing and burning- but these components are all created by man and can and do fail with or without lightning.

By: Shawn Cusolito

Shawn Cusolito — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:49:03 +0000

Once I read your blog, I felt it was imperative that I responded to your questions, as my name was attached with a question of competence. It very often happens in a lightning prone area, that people, unaware of the cause of an actual failure, will say it was lightning- I have even seen systems whose sole failure was viruses/adware/spyware checked in as a lightning strike. Because of this, we have to be very cautious to identify and isolate a system component failure. However, with a lack of physical evidence- scorched boards or components, it is considerably harder to indicate that a system has been damaged due to the lightning.

By: Ralph Losey

Ralph Losey — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:31:44 +0000

Thanks for commenting Shawn. I am glad to hear from your comment that you did the right thing. Not all store techs are as careful, as I am sure you know. Moreover, from my reading, you never actually testified in court, so that is why I asked what I thought would be rhetorical questions. Who knew you would actually answer them on this blog! Also, your use of the term “logic board” instead of “motherboard” illustrates my fundamental point nicely.

As to why anyone would discard the system, the answer is not too hard to understand, but only if there was a lightning strike as Groves testified. Why waste more time on it? He trusted that you did your best and the logic board was functioning, but something else failed. Why return it to have another repair, and likely be told it is something else. If Groves was telling the truth and it was a lightning strike, then its not too hard to believe the computer had more problems then an illogical board. He could be facing more charges to try and fix hopelessly damaged goods, and in any event, more wasted time and effort dealing with it. Lots of folks dont like coming in and talking to computer technicians and trying to enforce warranties. Good money after bad, he might think, might as well buy a new computer.

But you seem to question whether there was in fact lightning strike damage, and say you saw no evidence of that. That is troubling, there should be some evidence of it. I assume something was wrong with the mother board, since you replaced it, but you did not say what was wrong, or why it had to be replaced? What caused the damage? My analysis is based on the assumption that the computer was damaged by ligtning. The opinion indicates the insurer did not challenge this, so I assumed it. If there was no strike, then I agree, Groves whole story falls apart, and it logical to assume that even his mother might not believe him.

Anyway, thanks for setting the record straight on your work, and giving us all better insights into this case!

By: Shawn Cusolito

Shawn Cusolito — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:45:42 +0000

Thought I would answer some of your questions.

I wonder how Cusolito knew that the lightning strike that fried the motherboard would not have caused any loss of data on the hard drive(s)? This is an alleged lightning strike as stated by the customer, I can neither prove nor disprove lightning damage, as there was no physical evidence of lightning damage

Did he run complete diagnostic tests on the hard drives to be sure no sectors were damaged?
Thorough diagnostics were run on each and every component of the system prior to generating a quote for repair. Both the Dell diagnostics and a third party diagnostic were run on the hard drive to check the sectors. Additionally, there was no evidence of corruption to the file indexes.

Did he even check that at all? Or did he just replace the motherboard, turn it on, and see that it booted ok?
The faulty part was already identified and the customer issued a quote for repair prior to a logic board ever being ordered based on the diagnostics of all of the components. I did not slap in a board and say “I reckon it was just the motherboard.”

Additionally, it defies logic that one would spend money on a repair that carries both a labor and parts warranty, for them to simply discard the system.