Format Of Production – Page 9 – Electronic Discovery Law

Good v. Am. Water Works Co., Inc., No. 2:14-1374, 2015 WL 1757978 (S.D. W. Va. Apr. 17, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where defendant objected to Plaintiffs? requests for production on grounds of relevance, but nevertheless produced the information in the format in which it was ordinarily maintained (Microsoft SQL Server format) and also provided Plaintiffs with the means to access the data in a ?parallel environment? and then later in an excel format for a limited period of time, indicating that the earlier periods of time were not reasonably accessible, and where Plaintiffs ultimately ?did not disagree? that the information was not as useful as they had thought, the court found the rest of the requested information (from the earlier time periods) was not reasonably accessible and that the burden of production outweighed its likely benefit and denied the motion to compel unless good cause could be shown

Electronic Data Involved: Archived ?SCADA? data from a Microsoft SQL Server format

Themis Bar Review, LLC v. Kaplan, Inc., No. 14CV208-L (BLM), 2015 WL 3397877 (S.D. Cal. May 26, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where the parties agreed to a Joint Discovery Plan requiring production in PDF unless metadata was requested and that in such cases the parties should meet and confer to discuss the format of production in good faith and where Defendant made such a request and sought to confer but was ignored, court ordered Plaintiff to re-produce emails with associated metadata at its own expense

Electronic Data Involved: Emails and metadata

Andra Grp. LP v. JDA Software Grp., LLC, No. 3:15-mc-K-BN, 2015 WL 1636602 (N.D. Tex. April 13, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court addressed 3rd party?s motion to quash allegedly burdensome subpoena and to preclude further production or to require the defendant to pay for the non-party?s expenses and found that the defendant had demonstrated its needs for ?most of the categories of documents? but also concluded that the 3rd party?s objections should be sustained in part and modified the subpoena?s requests to reduce the burden; Court rejected arguments that 3rd party?s lack of a ?dedicated IT specialist?, use of cloud based email and need to rely on employees? and or hire a vendor establish burden; court also found that ?by producing the documents in non-readable PDF format without the metadata specified by the subpoena?s instructions, and failing to serve any written objections to those instructions, p202 failed to comply with Rule 45(a)(1)(C) and 45(e)(1)?s requirement to comply with the subpoena?s specification of a form for producing ESI? and ordered re-production in accordance with the subpoena?s instruction

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Osborne v. Billings Clinic, No. CV 14-126-BLG-SPW, 2015 WL 1412626 (D. Mont. Mar. 26, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where requesting party failed to request a specific format of production and the responding party therefore produced in PDFs, the court reasoned that Defendant failed to assert that it could not produce the information as it was originally kept and that Plaintiff should not be at a ?disadvantage by having to slog through thousands of pages of records in unusable form? and granted Plaintiff?s motion to compel production of the at-issue medical records in the manner in which they were maintained

Electronic Data Involved: Electronically stored medical records

Nationwide Mut. Fire Ins. Co. v. Kelt, Inc., No. 6:14-cv-740-Orl-41TBS, 2015 WL 1470971 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 31, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff produced documents ?en masse? without any indication of what was produced or what request the documents were responsive to and claimed that they were produced as kept in the usual course of business and thus in compliance with Rule 34, the court reasoned that a party who produces documents as kept in the usual course has the burden of proving they were in fact produced in that manner and that a party may not wait until a motion to compel is filed to provide that information and concluded that Plaintiff had not complied with the requirements of Rule 34(b)(2)(E)(i) and ordered that Plaintiff must identify by Bates number which documents were responsive to each request

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Cuker Interactive, LLC, NOo. 5:14-CV-5262, 2015 WL 11120890 (W.D. Ark. April 9, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where parties agreed to produce in native format but Defendant then loaded its information into a hosted database and indicated that Plaintiff could view the docs, including some metadata, but could only receive production of specified documents in a static image format, at a cost for each such ?exportation,? and where Defendant argued such production complied with Rule 26(f) and that the data was in a reasonably usable form, the court held the parties to their agreement, reasoning that ?[s]imply put, native format means native format? and also rejected Defendant?s security concerns, agreeing with Plaintiff that production on an external hard drive was acceptable; court?s order stated that parties would ?produce discovery from electronic or computer-based media directly to each other in native format, on external hard drives whenever possible.?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Castillon v. Corrections Corp. of Am., No. 1:12-cv-005590EJL, 2014 WL 517505 (D. Idaho Feb. 7, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where defendant produced data from timekeeping system in searchable .PDF format and provided attestation from the vice president of technology and chief information officer that that .PDF was the ?only, built-in, reasonably accessible data format? and that producing in the requested format would require Defendant to undertake the ?lengthy and daunting? task of writing a script and where Plaintiffs did not specify the format of production in their request, the court declined to compel re-production of the at-issue data, but noted that if Plaintiffs were willing to pay for the expense of writing a script, ?they may approach Defendant with such a request.?

Nature of Case: Prisoners’ civil rights

Electronic Data Involved: Data from timekeeping system

Lozoya v. Allphase Landscape Constr., Inc., No. 12-cv-1048-JLK, 2014 WL 222068 (D. Colo. Jan. 21, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: In case where defendants estimated: (1) production costs for discovery from computers and smart phones would run $35,000 to $45,000 for uploading and processing of data, and (2) plaintiffs’ potential recovery as between $10,350 to $29,700, court granted plaintiffs’ motion to compel finding that plaintiffs’ conduct was far more accommodating and professional than defendants’ and that production in Bates numbered .pdf format would not place undue burden on defendants

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, emails, texts

Skepkek v. Roper & Twardowsky, LLC, No. 11-4102-KHV, 2014 WL 289470 (D. Kan. Jan. 27, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Noting that discovery dispute was good example of one which could have been avoided had the parties adequately conferred at their Rule 26(f) conference regarding production of ESI, court found that defendants failed to comply with prior discovery order by failing to produce attachments to responsive emails and granted motion to compel production of attachments

Nature of Case: Contract dispute concerning attorney fee-sharing agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Attachments to e-mails

Dixon v. Experian Info. Solutions, Inc., No. 2:13-CV-227-PPS-PRC, 2014 WL 2881589 (N.D. Ind. June 25, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff requested production of ESI in native format and defendant failed to object (thus waiving any objection) but produced the requested data as scanned .pdfs and argued that the native format would contain the same information but would be more difficult to understand (because of shortcut codes, etc.), the court reasoned that plaintiff nevertheless requested native format to no objection and ordered that the native format be produced

Nature of Case: Fair Credit Reporting Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, database

Tag:Format Of Production