Major Tours, Inc. v. Colorel, 2009 WL 3446761 (D.N.J. Oct. 20, 2009)

Key Insight: Court granted protective order precluding obligation to search archived emails or emails stored on backup tapes where such emails were ?not reasonably accessible? in light of the estimated $1.5 million retrieval costs and because backup tapes are generally considered inaccessible, and where plaintiffs failed to establish good cause for such production; where defendant offered a ?scaled back alternative,? court ordered parties to split the cost of retrieving emails from a particular subset of backup tapes and provided plaintiffs the opportunity to compel searches of an additional subset of tapes – at their expense – including the cost of review

Nature of Case: Allegations of discriminatory safety inspections of African American owned buses en route to Atlantic City

Electronic Data Involved: Backup tapes, email