Rule 34(b)(2)(E)(i) “Documents” Do Not Include ESI, Requirement to Produce in the Usual Course of Business or to Label to Correspond to Categories in the Request Does Not Apply
Anderson Living Trust v. WPX Energy Prod., LLC, —F.R.D.—, 2014 WL 930869 (D.N.M. Mar. 6, 2014)
In this case, the court analyzed the question of whether “a party must, under rule 34(b)(2)(E)(i) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, arrange and label electronically stored information (‘ESI’) to correspond to the categories in the request, or whether compliance with rule 34(b)(2)(E)(ii)—production of ESI in the form that the requesting party requests, or in another reasonably usable form—is sufficient” and concluded that “the rule 34(b)(2)(E)(i) requirement that documents be produced either in the usual course of business or labeled to correspond to categories in the request does not apply to ESI.” Thus, the court declined to order Defendants to arrange and label their production, including approximately 20,000 pages of hard copy documents which had already been scanned and produced in .PDF format at Plaintiff’s request. Read More