FRCP 26(c) Protective Orders – Page 2 – Electronic Discovery Law

Javo Beverage Co. Inc. v. California Extraction Ventures, Inc. (S.D. Cal. 2020).

Apr 29 2020

Key Insight: The court granted defendant’s motion to compel production of filepath information, but allowed defendant to object to producing discrete filepath information if defendant can articulate a good faith basis for the objection, including irrelevance as to time or scope, or if the filepath data is misleading. If any filepath data is not readily accessible, the parties must confer and attempt to reach a cost-effective resolution prior to seeking the court’s involvement. The court also confirmed the parties’ mutual understanding that they are obligated to “preserve ephemeral, deleted, and other related kinds of data where counsel reasonably suspects such data is relevant” to the litigation.

Nature of Case: Trade secret misappropriation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI generally

Case Summary

Corker v. Costco Wholesale (W.D. Wash. 2020)

Apr 27 2020

Key Insight:

Electronic documents should be produced in the form it is ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably useable form. PDF images of a spreadsheet are not a reasonably usable form due to the functional limitations. While they are readable and searchable, they cannot be sorted or filtered as an original spreadsheet can be. Spreadsheets should be produced in their native form.

A party cannot unilaterally redact a document based on relevance absent a claim of privilege. In cases where the document contains highly confidential commercial information, a protective order may be issued requiring the information not be revealed or only be revealed in a specified way, such as designating it for “counsel eyes only.”

Nature of Case: Class Action, Unfair Competition

Electronic Data Involved: Spreadsheets

Case Summary

Vaks v. Quinlan, et al. (District of Massachusetts, 2020)

Feb 24 2020

Key Insight: plaintiff violated the protective order by filing a pleading attaching confidential documents

Nature of Case: employment discrimintation

Electronic Data Involved: confidential documents protected under the protective order

Keywords: protective order, confidentiality

View Case Opinion

Grande v. U.S. Bank National Association (W.D. Wash. 2020)

Feb 20 2020

Key Insight: The requested business guidelines were relevant. The scope of discovery is very broad. A request for discovery is relevant “unless it is clear that the information sought can have no possible bearing upon the subject matter of the action.”

The court declined to find the guidelines so confidential that they cannot be produced. Defendants did not move for a protective order nor did they provide any evidence of harm that would result from producing the guidelines.

Attorney fees were awarded to Plaintiff because Defendant caused substantial delay in responding to discovery despite Plaintiff’s multiple good faith attempts to obtain the requested discovery.

Nature of Case: Breach of Contract

Electronic Data Involved: Business Guidelines, Business Policies

Case Summary

Allscripts Healthcare, LLC v. DR/Decision Resources, LLC d/b/a Decision Resources Group (District of Massachusetts, 2020)

Feb 20 2020

Key Insight: enhancement of protective order to ensure heightened confidentiality of one document.

Nature of Case: breach of contract and false and misleading statements

Electronic Data Involved: confidentiality of proprietary aggregate data product

Keywords: protective order, heightened confidentiality

View Case Opinion

Grande v. U.S. Bank National Association, et al (Western District of Washington, 2020)

Feb 20 2020

Key Insight: Defendants here have not described any harm that would result from producing the guidelines and have not sought a protective order, the Court declines to find the documents so confidential that they cannot be produced

Nature of Case: bad faith and fraudulent banking

Electronic Data Involved: general discovery responses, voicemails, loan documents, loan history, and communications

Keywords: fraud, trade secrets, incomplete responses, bad faith

View Case Opinion

Taylor v. Kilmer (Northern District of Illionis, 2020)

Feb 07 2020

Key Insight: argue that those requests and subpoenas are overly broad

Nature of Case: Motor vehicle accident negligence, personal injury

Electronic Data Involved: medical bills, records, and data for treatment received over a year before incident pertaining to rate of reimbursement

Keywords: subpoena, provider billing structure, medical billing and records, overly broad and burdensome

View Case Opinion

Rhino Metals, Inc. v. Sturdy Gun Safe, Inc. (District of Idaho, 2020)

Jan 22 2020

Key Insight: two reports for different suits, written by the same expert. defendants in those cases subpoenaed each other’s report to get it without confidentiality restrictions

Nature of Case: intellectual property infringement

Electronic Data Involved: expert report deemed confidential

Keywords: subpoena, expert report, confidential, privilege, protective order

View Case Opinion

Opternative, Inc. v. Jand, Inc., 17-CV-6936 (RA)(SN) (S.D.N.Y. July 12, 2019)

Jul 12 2019

Key Insight: Protective Order in place regarding source code. Defendant asked for portion to be printed, which was refused. Plaintiff was ordered to produce requested source code.

Nature of Case: Unlawful Use of Information

Electronic Data Involved: Source Code, Log Files, File Directory

Keywords: Source Code; Protective Order

View Case Opinion

Tafolla v. County of Suffolk, No. CV-17-4897 (E.D.N.Y. July 8, 2019)

Jul 08 2019

Key Insight: Cost burden for recovery of backup tapes

Nature of Case: workplace discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: backup tapes

Keywords: undue burden or expense, discovery cost shift, cost sharing, excessive discovery costs, vendor estimate

View Case Opinion

Tag:FRCP 26(c) Protective Orders