Key Insight: Where plaintiff demonstrated that allowing defendant unrestricted access to database would result in a clearly defined and serious injury, court held that plaintiff’s “confidential – attorneys’ eyes only” designation was appropriate and denied motion to compel
Nature of Case: Contract dispute
Electronic Data Involved: Database containing research data
Key Insight: Parties agreed to narrow the scope of archived email search, both in terms of the number of employees whose email was to be produced and the number of days per month for which that email was to be produced; defendants to bear cost of production ($130,000) initially, but court reserved decision about who ultimately would bear cost; court denied plaintiff’s request that defendant make its production available on CD-ROM
Nature of Case: Antitrust
Electronic Data Involved: Archived email
Key Insight: District court upheld magistrate’s order requiring defendants to produce all responsive electronic information in native format
Nature of Case: Securities class action
Electronic Data Involved: Emails
Key Insight: Employer entitled to discover, at its own expense, copies of database on computer disk, code books and user manual created by EEOC’s expert from information produced by employer to allow for effective cross-examination of EEOC’s expert; in addition, employer to pay “fair portion of the fees and expenses incurred” in the past by EEOC for the expert’s work in encoding the requested data and formulating the database
Nature of Case: Consolidated Title VII action brought by individual and EEOC
Electronic Data Involved: Database created by EEOC’s expert from information produced by employer
Key Insight: Motion to compel production of computer-generated salary data granted; court further ordered parties to preserve all relevant evidence including all data compilations, computerized data and other electronically-recorded information
Nature of Case: Employment discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Computerized payroll records
Key Insight: Where certain information was not available through defendant’s computer system and cost of recovering information through physical search could exceed damages claimed, court ruled that “prudent course” would be to place cost of physical search on plaintiff and instructed parties to develop a protocol for manual inspection of records at ten (of 3,000) stores; court further ordered defendant to provide available computer records
Nature of Case: Drug company claimed drug store chain improperly substituted one drug for another
Electronic Data Involved: Computer databases
Key Insight: Where there were gaps in plaintiff’s production of email, administrative law judge granted motion to compel production of email from plaintiff’s backup tapes but ordered parties to share the costs of such production
Nature of Case: Case before the U.S. International Trade Commission
Electronic Data Involved: Email
Key Insight: Scheduling and case management order provides, inter alia, that document requests shall be responded to and documents produced within ten days after service, and that parties will produce documents in either hard copy form, or, in the case of electronic documents, in the native electronic format (or a mutually agreeable format)
Key Insight: Court did not abuse discretion in denying request for computer tapes where requesting party already possessed all information from tapes on wage cards and were not deprived of any data
Electronic Data Involved: Computer tapes containing wage information
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