Magistrate Denies Request for Production of Native PST Files But Orders Defendants to Produce Electronic Material in a Readable, Usable Format
CP Solutions PTE, Ltd. v. General Elec. Co., 2006 WL 1272615 (D. Conn. Feb. 6, 2006)
In this recently published case, plaintiff found fault with defendants’ production of 301,539 pages of documents in response to its 131 requests for production. Plaintiff moved to compel defendants (1) to supplement their production so as to identify every document which is responsive to each of plaintiff’s requests for production; (2) to organize and label each responsive document to correspond to the categories of plaintiff’s requests; and (3) to produce the “native” or “original” electronic documents identified as “Personal Folder Files” (“PST files”) which, plaintiff alleged, underlie the hundreds of thousands of pages of emails and accompanying attachments comprising defendants’ production “as they are kept in the normal course of business.” Plaintiff argued that, due to the volume and disorganized state of defendants’ production, defendants should be required to organize and label the documents produced to correspond to plaintiff’s requests for production. Plaintiff complained that thousands of emails were separated from their attachments, thousands of pages of “gibberish” were produced, and documents were commingled and, thus, were not produced as kept in the ordinary course of business. Plaintiff further claimed that the PST files, as they are kept in the ordinary course of business, would drastically reduce the time needed to prepare an index of defendants’ documents. Read More