2006 E-Discovery Amendments Do Not Require Forensic Computer Search as a Matter of Course; Court Orders Parties to Meet and Confer on Certain Issues
Scotts Co. LLC v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 2007 WL 1723509 (S.D. Ohio June 12, 2007)
In this case, plaintiff asked the court to enter a discovery order to "ensure the production of all electronically stored information in an acceptable format as required by law and the most recent amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure." Plaintiff also sought to compel the re-production of ESI previously produced by defendant in hard copy form, and to compel the production of deleted documents.
Forensic Search
Plaintiff first contended that, pursuant to the 2006 amendments to Fed. R. Civ. P. 34, it was entitled to an order that would require defendant to allow a forensic expert to search defendant’s computer systems, network servers and databases and would require defendant to provide back up tapes of certain information systems. Plaintiff offered to pay the cost of the forensic expert and to allow defendant ten days to review the data for privilege before any production was made. Defendant objected, arguing that the 2006 amendments required no such discovery order as a matter of course. The court agreed with defendant, and observed:
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