FRCP 26(b)(2)(C) Limitations – Page 15 – Electronic Discovery Law

EEOC v. Supervalu, Inc., 2010 WL 5071196 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 7, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff?s motion to compel production of portions of defendants? human resources database where defendants showed that it would take at least a week, perhaps longer, to write the code necessary to pull the requested data and where the information sought required ?significant analysis? and relied on an unproven assumption such that plaintiff did not establish that ?the purported relevance or benefit of the information outweigh[ed] the burden or expense of producing it?

Nature of Case: Violations of ADA

Electronic Data Involved: Portion of Human Resources database

Edelen v. Campbell Soup Co., 2010 WL 774186 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 2, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court ordered 4 pages of privileged documents be returned to defendants where the pages were privileged on their face and inadvertently produced (4 pages of privileged material were produced among 2000 pages and the documents were subject to review by three attorneys prior to production) and where counsel immediately sought their return upon discovery of their production; court ordered narrowing of search terms and fewer custodians upon defendants? objection to plaintiffs? proposed scope (including 55 custodians and 50 search terms) where plaintiff failed to respond to the objection within the ten day period provided by the court

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, privileged materials

Lynch v. Int. Assoc. of Machinist & Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, 2010 WL 5299879 (E.D. Wis. Dec. 17, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant claimed it did not regularly maintain the information requested and that to search for such information manually in its database would result in substantial cost, the court found that plaintiff had not shown that the likely results of a search would produce admissible evidence or that such evidence could justify the expense to defendant and denied plaintiff?s motion to compel, including plaintiff?s request for the entire database to be produced; where plaintiff?s request ?showed a preference for maintaining functionality but did not specify a format for response? and where the request for Excel format was verbal and occurred after defendant had begun to generate its production in Word format, court found production in Word format was sufficient and that defendant did not convert the information to remove functionality in contravention of Rule 34

Nature of Case: Allegations arising from union’s failure to pursue plaintiff?s grievances following his retirement

Electronic Data Involved: Database

In re Subpoenas, 692 F.Supp.2d 602 (W.D.Va. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where recipient of government subpoenas refused to comply on grounds of unreasonableness and burden, court approved government?s offer to reduce number of custodians from 13 to 3 (out of a workforce of approximately 72,000) and ordered recipient to produce live emails and snapshot of emails from backup tapes for each of the years between 2002 and 2008 which, the court noted, had been preserved for other litigation

Nature of Case: Government investigation

Electronic Data Involved: Email, snapshot of email from backup tapes

Garcia v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 2010 WL 5392660 (D. Kan. Dec. 21, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiffs? motion to compel additional searching and to restore back up tapes where the court determined that plaintiffs? motion was untimely in light of their knowledge of the relevant facts (namely defendants? intention to search the hard drives of a limited number of custodians and not everyone listed on their litigation hold notice and their assertion that backup tapes were inaccessible) and failure to move to compel within the court-established deadline for such motions and where plaintiffs failed to establish good cause to justify the belated filing; court also noted plaintiffs? failure to show a likelihood that additional searching would result in the discovery of additional responsive emails

Nature of Case: Class action employment/wage litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Emails, backup tapes

Covad Commc?n Co. v. Revonet, Inc., 267 F.R.D. 14(D.D.C. 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court declined to compel production of non-email ESI in native format where defendant previously produced the information sought in hard copy, reasoning that native production is not required by the rules and that the documents, previously produced in hard copy, were in a sufficiently usable format absent a showing that the metadata would ?yield an answer that the hard copy will not?; court also recognized obligation to seek ?just, speedy, and inexpensive? adjudication and to limit burdensome discovery where defendant represented significant hardship to re-produce in native format

Nature of Case: Misappropriation and conversion of trade secret information

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Hunsaker v. Proctor & Gamble Mfg. Co., 2010 WL 5463244 (D. Kan. Dec. 29, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendant sought leave to serve a subpoena upon a public library seeking information related to plaintiff?s internet use to confirm his alleged job seeking activities, the court found the subpoena overly broad on its face and found that even a more limited subpoena would impose a burden and expense outweighed by the likely benefit; court found proposed subpoenas to internet job search sites (e.g. Monster) would result in an undue burden in light of the expansive definition of document, but that defendant would be allowed to serve the subpoenas if the list of ?definitions? was removed

Nature of Case: Violations of ADEA and ADA

Electronic Data Involved: ESI related to online job searches

In re Subpoena to Wisconsin Energy Corp., 2010 WL 715429 (E.D. Wis. Feb. 24, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court quashed non-party subpoena upon finding it unduly burdensome where non-party estimated the cost of compliance in excess of $1,000,000 and argued that the information sought was irrelevant and cumulative of information available to the plaintiff from an alternative source

Electronic Data Involved: Stochastic modeling reports

In re IKB Deutsche Industrie Bank AG, 2010 WL 1526070 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 8, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Denying third-party corporation?s motion to quash a subpoena, court rejected corporation?s claims of undue burden where the discovery sought was relevant to the foreign litigation and where the support for claims of burden was conclusory and failed to sufficiently identify the basis for the corporation?s objection or ?connect a dollar amount to the particular tasks that would be necessary to provide the requested information? and thus, the court was ?effectively prevented from making a meaningful determination as to whether the financial costs is unreasonable?

Nature of Case: Foreign litigation claiming $1.5 billion in damages arising from “Put Option Agreement”

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Estate of Eva Boles v. Nat?l Heritage Realty, Inc., 2010 WL 1759026 (N.D. Miss. Apr. 27, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where production of defendants? general ledger was necessary because there was no suitable alternative to provide the information, but where defendants? counsel asserted that such production would require ?hundreds of hours? and involve great expense, court noted defendants failure to produce any details in support of its assertion and that plaintiff was willing to bear the reasonable costs and granted plaintiff?s motion to compel

Electronic Data Involved: General ledger in electronic format

Tag:FRCP 26(b)(2)(C) Limitations