Court Declines to Compel Production of All Documents Identified by Agreed-Upon Search Terms
Gardner v. Continental Cas. Co., 3:13 CV 1918 (JBA), 2016 WL 155002 (D. Conn. Jan. 1, 2016)
Plaintiffs sought to compel production of all 38,000 documents hit by agreed-upon search terms. Following review for relevance and privilege, Defendant produced only 2,214 pages “of which 274 pages consisted of copies of the complaints, with exhibits, filed in this lawsuit.” The court declined to compel the production of all search hits, but acknowledged concerns regarding Defendant’s production based on documents produced by a third party. Accordingly, the court ordered the parties to confer regarding variations of “sampling and iterative refinement” or “a quick peek protocol” of the documents hit by search terms and also indicated willingness to consider appointment of a Special Master to conduct a review of the documents at the expense of the parties.