FRCP 34(b) Procedure or Format – Page 10

Am. Gen. Life Ins. Co. v. Vistana Condominium Owners Assoc., No. 2:12-cv-01324-JAD-NJK, 2014 WL 2041950 (D. Nev. May 16, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where defendant produced documents as they were received from third parties and with metadata allowing plaintiff to identify the documents by bates range, file path, and document title, court found that the production ?largely complied? with Rule 34 and the obligation to produce documents as kept in the usual course of business and that sanctions were not warranted but also found that the responses created unnecessary obstacles to the plaintiff and ordered defendant to indicate whether the documents it produced were actually responsive, reasoning that plaintiff should not have to ?guess at which requests were responded to and which were not?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Melian Labs, Inc. v. Triology, LLC, No. 13-cv-04791-SBA (KAW), 2014 WL 4386439 (N.D. Cal. Sep. 4, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court denied defendant?s motion to compel production of all emails and spreadsheets in native format, since the parties? Joint Rule 26(f) Report was a stipulation and therefore Rule 34(b) did not govern their dispute; the parties? Joint Rule 26(f) Report did not require that all ESI be produced electronically but only stated that ESI may be produced in paper, PDF, or TIFF and that electronic files should be produced in native format when it was more practicable to do so; defendant failed to articulate why metadata was important to emails; and plaintiff had already produced some of its spreadsheets in native format (Excel) where the printouts were difficult to read

Nature of Case: Trademark infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email and spreadsheets

A & R Body Specialty & Collision Works, Inc. v. Progressive Cas. Ins. Co., No. 3:07CV929 (WWE), 2014 WL 4437684 (D. Conn. Sep. 9, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Magistrate judge denied as moot defendants’ request for plaintiffs’ consent to release emails stored with third party vendors Earthlink and AT&T in light of vendors? representations that, when an Earthlink.net or ATT.net user deletes an email from Outlook, the email simultaneously is deleted from the vendor’s server and cannot be recovered; magistrate judge also denied plaintiffs’ request for defendants to produce a merged data set, where one data set had 157 columns and was extracted from third-party provider?s system, and second set had more information but used different field identifiers, since a party cannot be compelled to create a document for its production and the creation of requested data compilation would inherently require the creation of a ?document,? and producing party is not required to produce ESI in more than one form

Nature of Case: Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email, data

Castillon v. Corrections Corp. of Am., No. 1:12-cv-005590EJL, 2014 WL 517505 (D. Idaho Feb. 7, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where defendant produced data from timekeeping system in searchable .PDF format and provided attestation from the vice president of technology and chief information officer that that .PDF was the ?only, built-in, reasonably accessible data format? and that producing in the requested format would require Defendant to undertake the ?lengthy and daunting? task of writing a script and where Plaintiffs did not specify the format of production in their request, the court declined to compel re-production of the at-issue data, but noted that if Plaintiffs were willing to pay for the expense of writing a script, ?they may approach Defendant with such a request.?

Nature of Case: Prisoners’ civil rights

Electronic Data Involved: Data from timekeeping system

Enargy Power (Shenzhen) Co. v. Xiaolong Wang, No. 13-11348-DJC, 2014 WL 4687542 (D. Mass. Sep. 17, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where defendants maintained hard copy business records that they produced electronically on CD-ROM, but did not make a sufficient showing that documents were produced as they were kept in the usual course of business since defendants provided no details regarding where and how documents were maintained, court ordered defendants to organize and label documents to correspond to the categories of documents requested by plaintiffs; court further ruled that defendants need not ?affirm that their document searches and productions are complete without qualification, or that no additional responsive documents exist,? but directed defendants, once they had completed their search and produced all documents they intended to produce, to confirm their efforts in locating responsive documents were complete and whether they were withholding any documents

Nature of Case: Violations of Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, conversion, misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of fiduciary duty

Electronic Data Involved: Hard copy documents scanned and produced on CD-ROM

Lozoya v. Allphase Landscape Constr., Inc., No. 12-cv-1048-JLK, 2014 WL 222068 (D. Colo. Jan. 21, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: In case where defendants estimated: (1) production costs for discovery from computers and smart phones would run $35,000 to $45,000 for uploading and processing of data, and (2) plaintiffs’ potential recovery as between $10,350 to $29,700, court granted plaintiffs’ motion to compel finding that plaintiffs’ conduct was far more accommodating and professional than defendants’ and that production in Bates numbered .pdf format would not place undue burden on defendants

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, emails, texts

Skepkek v. Roper & Twardowsky, LLC, No. 11-4102-KHV, 2014 WL 289470 (D. Kan. Jan. 27, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Noting that discovery dispute was good example of one which could have been avoided had the parties adequately conferred at their Rule 26(f) conference regarding production of ESI, court found that defendants failed to comply with prior discovery order by failing to produce attachments to responsive emails and granted motion to compel production of attachments

Nature of Case: Contract dispute concerning attorney fee-sharing agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Attachments to e-mails

Dixon v. Experian Info. Solutions, Inc., No. 2:13-CV-227-PPS-PRC, 2014 WL 2881589 (N.D. Ind. June 25, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff requested production of ESI in native format and defendant failed to object (thus waiving any objection) but produced the requested data as scanned .pdfs and argued that the native format would contain the same information but would be more difficult to understand (because of shortcut codes, etc.), the court reasoned that plaintiff nevertheless requested native format to no objection and ordered that the native format be produced

Nature of Case: Fair Credit Reporting Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, database

XL Specialty Ins. Co. v. Bollinger Shipyards, Inc., No. 12-2071, 2014 WL 295053 (E.D. La. Jan 27, 2014)

Dec 01 2014

Key Insight: Court rejected plaintiff’s complaints regarding format of defendant’s production of documents, because plaintiff failed to make any Rule 34(b)(2)(B) ESI specification in its discovery requests and defendant’s production of scanned images on OCR readable disc was a reasonably usable form; court ordered defendant to explain its document naming and numbering system to the extent it had not already done so, but denied any additional logistical relief, stating: ?Whatever burden XL and its counsel face in reviewing these materials that they themselves have requested is rightfully borne by them.?

Nature of Case: Insurance coverage

Electronic Data Involved: Database of more than 808,000 documents consisting of more than four million pages

Franco-Gonzalez v. Holder, No. CV 10-2211-DMG (DTBx), 2014 WL 8116823 (C.D. Cal. May 3, 2013)

Dec 01 2013

Key Insight: Court partly granted plaintiffs? motion to compel, requiring government: (1) to re-produce all documents it had produced in a “locked” password-protected file either as they were kept in the ordinary course or organized and labeled to correspond to document requests, (2) as to other documents government had previously re-produced, to provide an index identifying, by date of production and bates number, which documents each reproduction was meant to replace, and whether any documents were new, and (3) as to documents from which government had redacted on the basis of non-responsiveness and not on the basis of any privilege, to produce unredacted versions of such documents

Nature of Case: Class action concerning government’s detention and removal of immigrants with mental issues

Electronic Data Involved: Various documents related to over 200 detainees, includingi A-file, medical documents, records of proceedings and database information

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