Court Shifts Costs to Discover Emails from Backup Tapes
Elkharwily v. Franciscan Health Sys., No. 3:15-cv-05579-RJB, 2016 WL 4061575 (W.D. Wash. July 29, 2016)
In this case, Defendant successfully established that retrieving archived emails from disaster recovery backup tapes “would result in an undue burden and cost” pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(B). Although Plaintiff was unable to establish good cause to compel production, the court indicated that the archived emails were nonetheless “‘discoverable’ under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1)” and ordered that “upon a request by Plaintiff, Defendant should facilitate access to the discovery” but that Plaintiff would bear the expense, payable in advance.