Keyword Search – Page 10 – Electronic Discovery Law

FDIC v. Baldini, No. 1:12-7050, 2014 WL 1302479 (S.D. W. Va. Mar. 28, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied plaintiff’s motion for protective order, rejecting plaintiff’s proposed protocol that would require defendants to supply search terms (which plaintiff would then apply to the ESI) and require defendants to pay ESI copying costs; court ordered plaintiff to fashion initial set of search terms and work with defendants to reach agreement on search terms to be used, and set out protocol to be followed by the parties for the production

Nature of Case: Breach of fiduciary duties, negligence

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Capital Ventures Int?l v. J.P. Morgan Mortgage Acquisition Corp., No. 12-10085-RWZ, 2014 WL 1431124 (D. Mass. Apr. 14, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Plaintiff’s request for all RMBS-related documents that defendants previously produced in other lawsuits or to “any congressional body, regulatory agency, law enforcement agency or person” was overbroad and of speculative relevance; court granted motion to compel but adopted defendants’ proposal to run agreed-upon search terms over their productions to the SEC and NY attorney general, deeming such method sufficient to capture materials relevant to pending action; court also extended relevant time period for electronic searches

Nature of Case: Claims under the Massachussetts Uniform Securities Act relating to residential mortgage-backed security (“RMBS”) offerings

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

McNabb v. City of Overland Park, No. 12-CV-2331 CM/TJJ, 2014 WL 1493124 (D. Kan. Apr. 16, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel defendant to produce additional 10,189 responsive emails where plaintiff did not identify any specific discovery request for which she sought to compel production, or any specific objection thereto that she claimed to be invalid, and defendant had already produced five categories of emails totaling over 36,000 documents; court advised that plaintiff must present something more than mere speculation that search of 14 custodians’ email files using 35 proposed search terms was likely to reveal additional responsive emails, and further noted that, on its face, search term list was overly broad and likely to capture many emails having nothing to do with issues in case

Nature of Case: Sexual discrimination, harassment, hostile work environment and retaliation claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email

The Shaw Group Inc. v. Zurich Am. Ins. Co., No. 12-257-JJB-RLB, 2014 WL 4373210 (M.D. La. Sep. 3, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where parties? agreed protective order stated that parties would endeavor to agree on search terms to be utilized in the search for responsive ESI, and current discovery dispute centered solely on the reasonableness of the search terms chosen by each party and the willingness of the parties to negotiate reasonable search terms, court rejected defendant?s proposed list of 90 search terms in light of plaintiff?s showing that the broad search would result in undue burden and expense by generating an excess of irrelevant documents, and instead ordered plaintiff to search for responsive documents using plaintiff?s 28 proposed search terms and protocol which the court found reasonable and well-tailored to locate responsive documents; court faulted parties for their lack of diligence in completing discovery within the court?s deadlines, observing: ?In short, both sides chose to do nothing, waiting to see if the other side would blink first. In doing so, they have compromised the deadlines in the court?s scheduling order, the briefing on dispositive motions, and have essentially gambled with the parameters of ESI discovery.?

Nature of Case: Insurance dispute

Chen-Oster v. Goldman, Sachs & Co., No. 10 Civ. 6950(AT)(JCF), 2014 WL 716521 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 18, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied a motion to compel defendants to produce all documents (including those determined to be not responsive) identified by ?a computerized search tool that utilized a series of search terms agreed to by the parties? reasoning that the parties did not agree to such production, that the agreed upon protocol did not ?override the discovery demands and responses? (including defendants’ objection to the scope of certain requests) and that it was ?too late in the day for the plaintiffs to contest the scope defined by the defendants? objections, which were served in January 2011?

Nature of Case: Class action employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: All ESI identified by search terms

Shaw Group Inc. v. Zurich Am. Ins. Co., No. 12-257-JJB-RLB, 2014 WL 1891543 (M.D. La. May 12, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Finding that defendant had failed to obey previous discovery orders by not timely searching for and producing ESI in response to plaintiff’s requests for production and that defendant?s representations regarding compliance were not completely correct, court once again ordered defendant to produce complete responses, without objections or redactions, ordered defendant to pay plaintiff?s expenses incurred in filing second motion, and ordered parties to endeavor to agree on search terms to be used to obtain responsive ESI; in the event parties could not agree to search terms, custodians and date ranges, then defendant must use those proposed by plaintiff

Nature of Case: Insurance dispute

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

TVIIM, LLC v. McAfee, Inc., No. 13-cv-04545-VC (KAW), 2014 WL 5280966 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 15, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Magistrate judge granted in part and denied in part plaintiff?s request to compel defendant to produce emails employing particular keywords in Boolean search of five identified custodians, stating that defendant need not run two of the requested searches because they used truncated versions of defendant?s product names — something that was prohibited by the parties? ESI Order barring use of indiscriminate terms, such as the producing company?s name or its product name, unless combined with narrowing search criteria to reduce risk of overproduction; as to third requested search, magistrate judge ordered parties to confer to identify keywords that would remove ?out of office? and other automatic responses from the results, and ordered defendant to produce emails within seven days of parties? agreement

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

In re Bridgepoint Educ., Inc., No. 12cv1737 JM (JLB), 2014 WL 3867495 (S.D. Cal. Aug. 6, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Plaintiff sought to expand the scope of defendants? review and argued that defendants? alleged cost and burden would be lower than represented because defendants based their representations on manual review, rather than predictive coding. Defendants responded that manual review was still necessary where the predictive coding tool merely indicated a probability that a document was relevant and was not ?foolproof? – thus requiring the review. Relying on Rule 26(b)(2)(C), the court concluded that the additional discovery would be unduly burdensome and declined to grant Plaintiff?s request. The court also addressed Plaintiff?s request to require the defendants to run documents already produced through the predictive coding process. The court declined, reasoning that it had previously approved defendants? method of ?using linear screening with the aid of search terms? but, where defendant was willing to run additional terms, directed the parties to meet to discuss such terms.

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, email

Skepnek v. Roper & Twardowsky, No. 11-41-2-KHV, 2013 WL 5499801 (D. Kan. Oct. 3, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Where defendant sought to avoid running the searches proposed by plaintiff based on irrelevance, overbreadth and undue burden, the court found that defendant had failed to meet the burden to show cause for entry of a protective order and granted plaintiffs? motion to compel

Nature of Case: Breach of contract

Electronic Data Involved: Emails

E.E.O.C. v. Original Honeybaked Ham Co. of Georgia, Inc., No. 11-cv-02560-MSK-MEH, 2013 WL 753480 (D. Colo. Feb. 27, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Following up on its November 2012 opinion (2012 WL 5430974), the court adopted the EEOC?s proposed search terms (with certain additions proposed by Defendant) and amended its November order to hold that the EEOC would bear the initial costs of the Special Master appointed for the purpose of conducting the relevant searches of Plaintiffs? email, social networks, and cell phones and could seek reimbursement from the Defendant by motion and argument at an appropriate time (court had initially ordered that the parties would bear the cost equally

Nature of Case: Sexual Harassment, retaliation

Electronic Data Involved: Social media, text messages, email

Tag:Keyword Search