FRCP 34(b) Procedure or Format – Page 2

Javo Beverage Co. Inc. v. California Extraction Ventures, Inc. (S.D. Cal. 2020).

Apr 29 2020

Key Insight: The court granted defendant’s motion to compel production of filepath information, but allowed defendant to object to producing discrete filepath information if defendant can articulate a good faith basis for the objection, including irrelevance as to time or scope, or if the filepath data is misleading. If any filepath data is not readily accessible, the parties must confer and attempt to reach a cost-effective resolution prior to seeking the court’s involvement. The court also confirmed the parties’ mutual understanding that they are obligated to “preserve ephemeral, deleted, and other related kinds of data where counsel reasonably suspects such data is relevant” to the litigation.

Nature of Case: Trade secret misappropriation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI generally

Case Summary

Corker v. Costco Wholesale (W.D. Wash. 2020)

Apr 27 2020

Key Insight:

Electronic documents should be produced in the form it is ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably useable form. PDF images of a spreadsheet are not a reasonably usable form due to the functional limitations. While they are readable and searchable, they cannot be sorted or filtered as an original spreadsheet can be. Spreadsheets should be produced in their native form.

A party cannot unilaterally redact a document based on relevance absent a claim of privilege. In cases where the document contains highly confidential commercial information, a protective order may be issued requiring the information not be revealed or only be revealed in a specified way, such as designating it for “counsel eyes only.”

Nature of Case: Class Action, Unfair Competition

Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheets

Case Summary

Lundine v. Gates Corp. (D. Kan. 2020)

Mar 30 2020

Key Insight: Plaintiff moved to compel defendant to produce ESI of class-member pay data in Excel format or native format, or in the alternative, to allow her experts to access the data and download it. Defendant opposed the motion, asserting it had adequately responded by producing the data in PDF format. The court denied plaintiff’s motion. Neither party disputed that defendant produced the information in the form in which it is ordinarily maintained and the data in PDF form is still usable. “[R]equiring defendant to re-produce data in Excel format would be duplicative and unduly burdensome.”

Nature of Case: Wage and Hour Class Action

Electronic Data Involved: Payroll Data

Case Summary

Shotwell, et al. v. Zillow Group Inc., et al. (Western Washington, 2019)

Nov 07 2019

Key Insight: detailed stipulation of the discovery plan

Nature of Case: violation of the securities exchange act

Electronic Data Involved: all relevant discovery

Keywords: stipulation, discovery plan

View Case Opinion

Stone Brewing Co., LLC v. MillerCoors LLC (Southern District of California, 2019)

Sep 17 2019

Key Insight: Requests for Production; marketing materials; Unreasonably cumulative or duplicative

Nature of Case: Trademark Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Hard copy; Historical records; on-site inspection; Marketing materials (documents, recordings, video, displays, etc.)

Keywords: Discovery violations; adequacy of discovery responses; Vague/overbroad/burdensome/ not calculated to lead to discovery of documents relevant to claims or defenses; proportionality; access; costs/Attorney’s fees; resources; “Senior user”; Cherrypicking; Evidentiary preclusion; Court order; Representative samples

View Case Opinion

Shim-Larkin v. City of New York, 16-CV-6099 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 16, 2019)

Sep 16 2019

Key Insight: The obligation to preserve evidence in a workplace discrimination suit can extend to personal devices known to contain relevant material.

Nature of Case: workplace discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: text messages

Keywords: personal device, text message, obligation to preserve

View Case Opinion

True Freight Logistics LLC et al v. Global Tranz Enterprises Incorporated et al (D. Ariz., 2019)

Aug 30 2019

Key Insight: production from additional custodians not justified because expensive and not fruitful to date

Nature of Case: TRO

Electronic Data Involved: emails

Keywords: additional custodians

View Case Opinion

Bellamy v. Wal-Mart Stores, No. SA-18-CV-60-XR (W.D. Tex., 2019)

Aug 19 2019

Key Insight: Properly clawed back privileged documents may not be relied upon for evidence in a case. However, if the contents of these clawed back documents demonstrates bad faith discovery conduct, then sanctions can still be awarded.

Nature of Case: slip-and-fall injury

Electronic Data Involved: inadvertently produced privileged documents

Keywords: clawback, bad faith, intent to deprive

View Case Opinion

Ice Cube Building, LLC v. Scottsdale Insurance Company (D. Conn., 2019)

Apr 08 2019

Key Insight: Form of production inadequate but can be remedied by providing table of contents

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: emails and business records

Keywords: mode of production

View Case Opinion

Tag:FRCP 34(b) Procedure or Format