Magistrate Orders Production of Metadata and Electronic Documents

Rodriguez v. City of Fresno, 2006 WL 903675 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 7, 2006)

In this civil rights action stemming from plaintiffs’ arrest, the court granted in part and denied in part plaintiffs’ motion to compel production of documents and responses to interrogatories. Among other things, plaintiffs sought the production of electronic documents relating to the arrest and detention of plaintiffs. With little discussion of particulars (including what constituted “Exhibit K” referenced below), the court ruled as follows:

Request for Production Numbers 5, 18 and 23 seek metadata for documents regarding the events of March 5-6, 2005. Although Defendants point to Exhibit K as responsive to these requests, the document does not identify what changes were made to the documents. By way of the declaration of Conrad Nerdahl, manager of the Police Information Services Bureau of the FPD, Defendants estimate that it would take approximately eight hours to gather the requested metadata. This amount of time is not unreasonable. Accordingly, Defendants must produce the requested metadata.

Request for Production of Documents Numbers 3, 19, 24, and 31 seek electronic documents relating to the events in question. As this information is relevant, Defendants shall produce these documents to the extent they have them in an electronic format. This includes email communications, radio communications and unit-to-unit electronic communications.