FRCP 26(b)(2)(b) “Not Reasonably Accessible” – Page 8

General Steel Domestic Sales, LLC v. Chumley, No. 10-cv-01398-PAB-KLM, 2011 WL 2415715 (D. Colo. June 15, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Court denied motion to compel production of plaintiff?s audio calls where plaintiff asserted that defendant?s claims were ?thin? and did not specify any damages and where in light of this, plaintiff asserted that the burden of producing the requested audio recordings outweighed any potential benefit; plaintiff supported its assertions that the audio recordings were ?not reasonably accessible? with affidavits indicating the high volume of calls to review, the need to listen to each call to determine its responsiveness, the incredible time and financial costs of such a review, and the possibility that privileged calls were present in the mix such that a third party could not be relied on to assist

Nature of Case: False and misleading advertising, deceptive sales practices

Electronic Data Involved: Audio recordings of phone calls

McNulty v. Reddy Ice Holdings, Inc., 2011 116892 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 13, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where defendant preserved 4 terabytes of electronically stored information and 744 boxes of paper documents to be reviewed for production, court cited Rule 26(b)(2)(B) for the proposition that burdensome discovery should be limited but found that plaintiff had good cause for requesting relevant information and ordered the parties to meet and confer to develop search terms or objective search criteria for identifying responsive ESI as well as to develop a search plan for the hard copy

Nature of Case: RICO

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, hard copy

Star Direct Telecom, Inc. v. Global Crossing Bandwidth, Inc., 272 F.R.D. 350 (W.D.N.Y. 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where, in response to the at-issue request for production, defendant failed to identify its archives as a source of information that it would not search or to object to plaintiff?s request and, in fact, represented that it would produce responsive information, court found the information sought was relevant, that plaintiff?s motion was timely, and ordered defendant to search its archives upon rejecting defendant?s untimely assertions of undue burden and cost

Nature of Case: Breach of contract, claims under the Communications Act, and various tort claims

Electronic Data Involved: Archived emails

Hudson v. AIH Receivable Mgmt. Servs. LLC, No 10-2287-JAR-KGG, 2011 WL 1402224 (D. Kan. Apr. 13, 2011)

Dec 01 2011

Key Insight: Where defendant, ?a small company with 13 employees? who presented evidence that it was not profitable, objected to discovery pursuant to 26(b)(2)(C)(iii) based on an estimated cost of $2,630 to comply with plaintiff?s request (which included, in part, the cost of necessary software to complete the review), the court declined to shift the cost of production but stated that defendant could choose to produce un-reviewed ESI to plaintiff, thus shifting the cost of software necessary for review, but if defendant wished to review the data first, it would bear the costs of doing so

Nature of Case: Sexual harassment

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Johnson v. Neiman, 2010 WL 4065368 (E.D. Mo. Oct. 18, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Court granted defendants? motion for a protective order precluding their obligation to produce evidence contained only on backup tapes where defendants made a sufficient showing of the burden to do so in terms of both money and time and where plaintiff was unable to establish good cause to compel the production; court found it ?most significant? that plaintiff had ?no idea what, if any? discoverable information could be obtained by the restoration and search of the tapes

Electronic Data Involved: Emails stored on backup tapes

Colony Ins. Co. v. Danley, Inc., 2010 WL 3894203 (D. Me. Oct. 4, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendants? counsel refused to electronically search its files for potentially responsive information, the court found the data ?not reasonably accessible? and denied plaintiffs? motion to compel the search where defendants? counsel had already spent 30 hours searching and had produced or logged the documents discovered in that search, and where plaintiffs? offered ?no reason to believe that further responsive documents exists or, if any do, that they are not cumulative??; ?alternatively? court denied the motion ?pursuant to 26(b)(2)(c)? where ?the burden ? of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit?

Electronic Data Involved: Electronic contents of files of defendants’ counsel

Cartel Asset Mgmt. v. Ocwen Fin. Corp., 2010 WL 502721 (D. Colo. Feb. 8, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where defendants bore the burden of persuasion when asserting that ESI was inaccessible because of undue burden or cost and where defendants? supported their claim of inaccessibility with only one declaration which lacked specific information regarding defendants? storage practices, the number of back-up or archival systems that would need to be searched, or defendants? capability to retrieve information from those back-up or archival systems, the court denied defendants? Motion for a Protective Order

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, unfair competition, unjust enrichment and fraud

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Universal Del., Inc. v. Comdata Corp., 2010 WL 1381225 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 31, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Where third-party (and former defendant) signed stipulation to preserve and produce ESI as if still a party to the litigation and later sought reimbursement for the review and production of data in a particular database, court ordered a database be created comprised of the four custodians at issue, that plaintiff pay $4085 to the vendor as a ?start-up fee? (pursuant to their agreement to do so), and that plaintiff and third-party split the remaining costs of creating the database, but ordered third-party to bear the costs of its own review prior to production

Nature of Case: Antitrist litigation

Electronic Data Involved: Database

Nissan N.Am., Inc. v. Johnson Elec. N. Am., Inc., 2010 WL 1790354 (E.D. Mich. May 5, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Upon defendant?s motion to compel pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(B), court ordered plaintiff to supplement its discovery to specifically identify sources of ESI claimed to be ?not reasonably accessible? and to provide the anticipated costs and efforts involved in retrieving that ESI

Nature of Case: Defective design of air conditioner components leading to recall

Electronic Data Involved: Not reasonably accessible ESI

Phillip M. Adams & Assoc., LLC v. Fujitsu Ltd., 2010 WL 1901776 (D. Utah May 10, 2010)

Dec 01 2010

Key Insight: Addressing a number of issues related to the format and organization of plaintiff?s production and a motion to compel plaintiff?s response to interrogatories, court ordered the production of ESI in its native format where plaintiff failed to object to a request for the same but, where native production was not specified, plaintiff was allowed to select the form of production; unable to determine whether the burden of production of computer data from all computers used by plaintiff over a period of many years would outweigh the value of production, court ordered plaintiff to produce a detailed inventory of each computer and to allow sampling of one or two computers of defendant?s choice in order to determine the need for additional discovery

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, hard drives

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