Finding Defendants’ Summaries an Insufficient Discovery Response, Court Grants Motion to Compel and Authorizes Plaintiff to Submit Proposed Hard Drive Inspection Protocol for Court’s Consideration
Anthropologie, Inc. v. Forever 21, Inc., 2009 WL 690239 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 13, 2009)
In this copyright infringement case, defendants refused to properly respond to discovery and instead provided summaries of the requested information designated “for settlement purposes only.” Finding these responses inadequate, and noting defendants numerous misrepresentations to the court, the court granted plaintiff’s motion to compel the production of the data underlying the proffered summaries and for all information responsive to plaintiff’s requests. However, despite finding inspection of defendants’ hard drives justified, the court declined to order such access where plaintiff had failed to provide any specifics of its proposal and where the court sought to avoid additional delay and expense. Accordingly, upon receipt of defendants’ ordered production, if it still wished, plaintiff was authorized to submit a proposed inspection process and further explanation of its need for access for consideration by the court.