Miami, Florida — August 4, 2026
Stumphauzer Kolaya & Sloman, PLLC is pleased to announce that the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida has granted final summary judgment in favor of the firm’s clients — eDiscovery and digital forensics company Lawgical Insight, LLC and two of its executives — in a putative federal class action alleging violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and the Stored Communications Act (SCA). Mohamad v. Lawgical Insight, LLC, et al., No. 6:24-cv-2354 (M.D. Fla. July 28, 2026). The court’s order, available here, disposed of all claims and directed the clerk to close the case. We were honored to represent our friends at Lawgical Insight, a first-rate forensics and eDiscovery firm, and we are very pleased with the result.
Background
The dispute traces back to a pending state court commercial case in Orange County, Florida. In that action, the state court ordered a forensic examination of the defendant’s computers and electronic data as part of discovery, and the parties jointly selected Lawgical Insight as the third-party forensic examiner. Pursuant to an agreed order, the state court directed Lawgical to image the devices, search for categories of responsive financial and tax-related records, assess the data for evidence of tampering, and deliver a forensic production to the parties.
While the state court litigation was ongoing, a non-party to that case—a tax client of the state court defendant—filed a putative class action in federal court against Lawgical, its executives, and the lawyers who represented the state court plaintiff. Notably, the theory of liability against the lawyers was not that they had touched a single device or account themselves. They were sued for doing what litigators do: moving to compel discovery, asking the state court for and obtaining the orders authorizing the forensic examination, and allegedly receiving the forensically collected materials that the examination produced. The federal complaint alleged that, in carrying out and directing the court-ordered examination, the defendants had unlawfully accessed and disclosed the plaintiff’s financial and tax return information in violation of the ECPA and SCA. The class action was ultimately unsuccessful: the court denied class certification in July 2026 and has now entered summary judgment for the defendants on all claims.
The ECPA and the SCA
The ECPA, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510–2523, often called the federal Wiretap Act, prohibits the intentional interception, use, or disclosure of wire, oral, and electronic communications and creates a private civil cause of action, including statutory damages, for violations. Its companion statute, the SCA, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701–2713, protects communications and data at rest: it imposes liability on one who intentionally accesses without authorization (or exceeds an authorization to access) a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided and thereby obtains stored communications. Because modern discovery and digital forensics work necessarily involves collecting, searching, and producing electronically stored information, accounts and cloud storage, these statutes are increasingly invoked against litigants, counsel, and their vendors by persons whose data is swept up in the process.
The Good Faith Reliance Defense
Both statutes contain a powerful, and often overlooked, safeguard. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2520(d)(1) (ECPA) and 18 U.S.C. § 2707(e)(1) (SCA), “a good faith reliance on . . . a court warrant or order” is “a complete defense” to any civil or criminal action brought under the statutes. As the Eleventh Circuit has explained, the defense is subjective in nature, and, unlike qualified immunity, it is “available to everyone,” private parties included. Tapley v. Collins, 211 F.3d 1210 (11th Cir. 2000).
That defense proved dispositive here. The defendants supported their motions with sworn declarations establishing that Lawgical collected and examined data strictly pursuant to the state court’s facially valid discovery orders, which expressly authorized and directed the collection; that Lawgical did not access any source it understood to be outside the scope of those orders; and that it used the collected data only to prepare its court-contemplated forensic report. The lawyer defendants likewise declared that they had reviewed the discovery orders and relied on them as exactly what they were: valid, enforceable orders duly signed by the presiding judge. They further declared that they neither exceeded the scope of the orders nor instructed Lawgical to do so. The plaintiff, in response, offered no evidence contradicting the defendants’ good faith — he relied solely on a declaration from the state court defendant that said nothing about the defendants’ state of mind. The court held that although a defendant’s subjective good faith is ordinarily a jury question, summary judgment is proper where the plaintiff fails to identify affirmative evidence creating a genuine dispute. Rejecting the plaintiff’s argument that the defense is limited to law enforcement or those acting under color of law, the court entered judgment for all defendants on every count.
Why It Matters
The decision is an important one for the eDiscovery and digital forensics industry, and just as much for the lawyers who practice in it. Court-appointed forensic examiners occupy a sensitive position: they are ordered to access other people’s devices, accounts, and data, often over vigorous objection, and often touching information belonging to non-parties. This ruling confirms that when an examiner acts in good faith within the scope of a facially valid court order, the ECPA and SCA provide a complete defense to civil liability, and that conclusory allegations of overreach will not defeat summary judgment without actual evidence calling the examiner’s good faith into question.
For litigators, the case is a bracing reminder that aggressive discovery advocacy can itself become the target of a federal lawsuit. The lawyer defendants here were haled into federal court and forced to defend a putative class action seeking compensatory and punitive damages because they sought and obtained discovery orders from a state court judge and received the court-ordered forensic production that followed. The decision confirms that counsel who pursue electronic discovery through the courts, and who rely in good faith on facially valid orders signed by the presiding judge, are entitled to the same complete statutory defense as anyone else. But it also underscores that the defense must be built: it was won on a record of carefully drafted discovery orders, agreed forensic protocols with defined scope and parameters, and sworn declarations establishing good faith reliance, the kind of record that separates a swift summary judgment from a jury trial on a defendant’s state of mind.
SKS regularly represents clients in disputes at the intersection of litigation and technology, drawing on the firm’s deep experience with complex electronic discovery, forensic examination protocols, and data privacy statutes including the ECPA and SCA. SKS partner Timothy A. Kolaya served as lead counsel for the Lawgical defendants.
