Electronic Discovery Law

Lewis v. Sch. Dist. #70, 2006 WL 2506465 (S.D. Ill. Aug. 25, 2006)

In this wrongful termination lawsuit, plaintiff sought production of “All emails with attachments sent or received by anyone at the school since 1-1-97.” Defendants objected that the request was vague, ambiguous, overly broad, unduly burdensome, oppressive, and would encompass matters not relevant to the litigation. Notwithstanding their objections, defendants subsequently produced all existing emails sent to or from the plaintiff, or pertaining to plaintiff's performance during the time period at issue.

The Court does not doubt that modern technology would lessen the burden of searching for relevant emails, but the search would undoubtedly not be perfect. Plaintiff hopes to cull out emails that show her doing her job, problem solving and interacting well with her colleagues. Nevertheless, emails are not the only manner of proving those things. In any event, according to Superintendent Hawkins' declaration, it appears that defendants have made a reasonable attempt to provide responsive emails that are still in existence, so plaintiff has been provided with more materials than she is rightfully entitled to.

The court denied plaintiff’s motion for an order to show cause:

Insofar as plaintiff asserts that the defendants should have altered their usual document retention practices as early as October 2004 because they anticipated litigation, plaintiff relies on case law from the Southern District of New York, which is not controlling on this Court. Furthermore, the Court does not perceive that the defendants should have reasonably anticipated litigation as early as October 2004, which was even before plaintiff took FMLA leave, and before the Board decided to replace plaintiff in March 2005. In addition, it is not reasonable for the defendants to have foreseen that all e-mails would be relevant to plaintiff's situation. Therefore, the defendants need not produce anything more in response to Request No. 19.