U & I Corp. v. Advanced Med. Design, Inc., 2007 WL 4181900 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 26, 2007)

In this breach of contract case, plaintiff sought a protective order blocking the production of documents by a non-party in response to defendant’s subpoena.  The court found that plaintiff had not established good cause for the protective order, in part because the time frame of the requests was reasonable.  The court also noted that, because plaintiff’s 2004 emails were allegedly unavailable (discussed below), defendant had no other way to obtain some of the information.  The court thus denied the motion for protective order; it also denied the non-party’s motion to quash, which was based on general relevancy and (unsupported) undue burden arguments.

At the same time, defendant sought an order compelling plaintiff to produce the hard drives of certain employees for inspection by an independent expert, and to produce all responsive 2004 emails.  Defendant also sought various sanctions for plaintiff’s alleged failure to produce the material in accordance with the court’s prior order on the subject.

Plaintiff responded that it had produced all responsive documents in its possession.  However, it explained that, due to a computer error following a server change that occurred prior to litigation, its 2004 emails were "unloadable.”  It also claimed that it had no hard copies of any 2004 emails.  As such, plaintiff contended that it could not produce any 2004 emails.

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Parkdale Am., LLC v. Travelers Cas. and Sur. Co. of Am., Inc., 2007 WL 4165247 (W.D.N.C. Nov. 19, 2007)

In this case, Carolina corporations that manufacture and sell cotton yarn sought a declaratory judgment that, pursuant to an insurance contract, the defendant was obligated to defend and indemnify plaintiffs concerning claims in ten underlying antitrust lawsuits.  Plaintiffs also asserted state claims for breach of contract, bad faith denial of insurance claims, and unfair and deceptive trade practices.  The court in this opinion resolves a number of discovery disputes, one of which related to the production of email by plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs had raised an objection in their briefs to producing unidentified but admittedly non-privileged emails on the grounds of undue burden and expense ($20,000 to convert the emails into a searchable format).  However, at the hearing the parties’ counsel explained to the court that those emails were a key player’s emails which were subsequently produced at a lesser (and shared) cost.  When defense counsel argued that there was “very little useful information in those emails,” plaintiff’s counsel renewed plaintiffs’ objection as to other emails on the grounds of relevance and the burden and cost of searching them for privileged information.

The court cited Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(B) and 26(b)(2)(C), and found that the disputed discovery requests sought evidence that was relevant, and in some cases, “pivotal” to the issues in the case.  It stated: “In other words, absent a valid privilege or an undue burden or expense in production sufficient to override the Defendant’s right to conduct otherwise reasonable discovery, the Plaintiffs must respond fully to those discovery requests.”

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Smith v. Cafe Asia, 246 F.R.D. 19 (D.D.C. 2007)

Plaintiff was formerly employed as a host and waiter at Café Asia, a restaurant located in Washington, D.C.  Plaintiff claimed that he was the victim of discrimination based on his sexual orientation, and that he was the subject of assault and battery in the form of unwanted touching.  Among other things, plaintiff alleged that the kitchen staff routinely harassed him, that management tolerated and encouraged the verbal and physical harassment, and that one manager had sent him an email containing pornographic images portraying homosexual acts.  The defendant restaurant responded that all of the alleged incidents were welcomed, encouraged and instigated by plaintiff.

Defendant requested that it be permitted to inspect and make copies of images stored on plaintiff’s cell phone.  Defendant alleged that the images portray plaintiff’s genitalia at various states of arousal, and graphic images of other men purported to be plaintiff’s sexual partners.  Defendant argued that the images were relevant to whether plaintiff invited a hostile work environment and whether he was subjectively offended by defendant’s alleged conduct.

Plaintiff conceded that his cell phone contained “intimate, highly personal” and “unclothed images,” but denied having willingly shared the images with his co-workers.

Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola ruled that, balancing defendant’s need for the images against plaintiff’s valid privacy concerns, plaintiff would be required to preserve the images and permit inspection by one attorney designated by defendant only so far as necessary to fully inform its discovery and trial preparation. Read More