Good Cause Exists for Production of “Not Reasonably Accessible” Claims Information
W.E. Aubuchon Co., Inc. v. BeneFirst, LLC, 245 F.R.D. 38 (D. Mass. 2007)
In this case, plaintiffs sued the third-party administrator of their employee medical benefits plans, alleging that it breached its fiduciary duty and the underlying contract by failing to perform its duties in a reasonably prudent manner. In an earlier motion to compel, plaintiffs had sought, among other things, to compel BeneFirst to produce all medical claims files, including the actual medical bills in BeneFirst’s custody or control. The court ruled that BeneFirst was to provide those files and bills. BeneFirst sought reconsideration of that ruling, arguing that the requested claims forms were not reasonably accessible within the meaning of FRCP 26(b)(2)(B) because of the high cost to retrieve such information (both in monetary terms and in terms of the man hours it would require to retrieve the information).