Famulare v. Gannett Co., Inc. (D.N.J. 2022)
Key Insight: The discovery dispute involved whether defendants are obligated to produce screenshots of certain computer generated reports from defendants’ computer program known as Salesforce. Salesforce maintains and memorializes various performance metrics of individual account executives. Plaintiff generated and printed some of her own performance metrics and seeks in discovery the same reports for certain other defendant employees for purposes of comparison. Defendants assert that the reports are not free-standing, fixed reports but are screenshots of the Salesforce dashboard and they cannot generate reports but can only provide her with the underlying historical data in Excel, which they already provided. The court affirmed the magistrate judge’s opinion, ruling that whether Salesforce is incapable of generating and printing the reports as they maintain it is would need to be determined by a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition. The functionality of the Salesforce data is the core issue in the motion and the court reiterated the magistrate’s sentiments that until the deposition is completed, the nature of the Salesforce program and its capabilities are unknown.
Nature of Case: Employment Discrimination
Electronic Data Involved: Screenshots