Edgar N. James
JAMES & HOFFMAN, P.C.
1130 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 950
Washington, D.C. 20036
[email protected]
Re: Seniority Integration in US Airways - American Merger
Dear Ed,
This letter serves as written notice that the West Pilot Class, as certified in
cause No. CV-10-01570-PHX-ROS in the United States District Court District
of Arizona, anticipates future litigation and hereby requests that the Allied
Pilots Association, its principles, agents, lawyers, representatives, members,
directors, and assigns (collectively “APA”), place a litigation hold on certain
materials that will be discoverable in any such litigation.
Please hold, maintain, preserve and be prepared to disclose all materials
now existing, or that will be created in the future, that are related to pilot
seniority integration between those pilots currently represented by APA and
those currently represented by the US Airline Pilots Association (“USAPA”),
dating back to the beginning of discussions between APA and US Airways. We
understand that such discussions may have commenced in early 2012 but
perhaps earlier. So, this notice is intended to cover the entire time period
during which such discussions, whether formal or informal, occurred.
This notice applies to all materials related to: (1) discussions and/or
negotiations of those aspects of the February 2013 Memorandum of
Understanding Regarding Contingent Collective Bargaining Agreement (“MOU”)
that relate to seniority integration (including draft language that was not
adopted); (2) designating participants in all MOU seniority integration
processes, including participants in the process of negotiating the Seniority
Integration Protocol referenced in the MOU; (3) actual discussions and/or
negotiations of, and implementation of, that Seniority Integration Protocol; (4)communications with US Airways pilots and American Airlines pilots on all
issues related to seniority integration whether in their capacity as union
representatives or otherwise; and (5) communications related to protecting all
aforementioned materials.
Please note that APA is obligated to preserve all evidence encompassed
by this request, including evidence that may be stored electronically. We
anticipate the strong possibility of future litigation wherein we will need to
conduct discovery of such evidence from APA including, but not limited to emails
and drafts of documents, agreements, presentations and similar things,
even if paper copies are available. Please be aware that this and other relevant
electronic evidence may be stored on APA’s computers, local hard drives, backup
files, back-up tapes, local servers, remote servers, personal digital
assistants, and other storage sites for electronic data. As such, please advise
APA and all relevant privies, personnel, agents and the like that they need to
disable or suspend any and all routine or automatic deletion procedures and
take all other necessary steps to preserve electronic evidence relevant to the
requested items and the lawsuit.
As you know, courts order sanctions against parties and, in some cases,
their lawyers, for failure to preserve electronic evidence. Therefore, please
immediately take all necessary steps to ensure that relevant electronic evidence
is preserved and not intentionally or inadvertently destroyed.
Sincerely,
Marty Harper
MH:asj