Texas Case Offers Lessons Learned From Data Requests And Criminal Causes Of Action

A jury verdict on Nov. 6, 2024, for the plaintiff in a case involving claims of violation of Texas Penal Code provides valuable lessons for the collection, use and storage of data.

Case Background

In Angelyn A. Olson et al. v. The Consilio LLC, et al. filed in Tarrant County, Texas, plaintiff Angelyn Olson alleged that she was involved in other litigation during which an e-discovery service provider (Consilio) was engaged to collect her personal emails. In that other litigation, the plaintiff had agreed to a collection of her emails from her personal email account that were responsive to certain search terms. The plaintiff alleged her lawyer had stressed that the search terms should be applied at the point of collection, rather than after a full collection of her email account. Instead, the plaintiff alleged Consilio downloaded all of her emails (34,000 files) and then applied the search terms. The plaintiff further alleged she had sensitive information in