Proportionality – Page 22 – Electronic Discovery Law

Robertson v. People Magazine, No. 14 Civ. 6759 (PAC), 2015 WL 9077111 (S.D. N.Y. Dec. 16, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court addressed motion to compel and held that requests were burdensome, disproportionate to the needs of the case, and irrelevant to Plaintiff?s claims reasoning that Plaintiff?s requests for ?nearly unlimited access to People?s editorial files? would ?extend far beyond the scope of Plaintiff?s claims and would significantly burden Defendants?

Nature of Case: Employment litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Knauf Insulation, LLC v. Johns Manville Corp., No. 1:15-cv-00111-WTL-MJD, 2015 WL 7089725 (S.D. Ind. Nov. 13, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where Defendants identified 38 potential email custodians who may possess relevant ESI but proposed to load the emails of only ten custodians to save money and ?facilitate the predictive coding process? and where Plaintiff indicated that Defendant refused to informally disclose information sufficient to evaluate the importance of each custodian, the court briefly opined re: e-Discovery and the lack of any guarantee that all relevant documents will be found and then, reasoning that it had no evidence with which to weigh the likelihood that the 28 ?tangential custodians? would have relevant information but that in ?a high value? case the burden of $18,000 (the amount Defendant proposed to save) did not outweigh the potential benefit to Plaintiff of receiving the emails, declined Defendants? request to limit custodians; regarding cost-shifting, the court ordered that if the search of the 28 additional custodians returned fewer than 500 responsive documents Plaintiff would bear the cost of loading the materials but that if more than 500 were identified, Defendant would bear the costs

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Email

Lanteri v. Credit Protection Assoc. LP, No. 1:13-cv-1501-WTL-DKL, 2015 WL 6607494 (S.D. Ind. Apr. 3, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court denied motion for protective order where Defendant?s ?general assertions of hardship and burden? re: the at-issue search were insufficient to justify a protective order, and explained that they had ?offered no affidavits or evidence of any kind to substantiate the general assertion of ?disruption? to their business? and had not ?shown with specificity that the proposed search would cause and undue burden and is thus improper?

Nature of Case: TCPA, FCPA

Electronic Data Involved: Allegedly burdensome search of ESI

Hespe v. City of Chicago, No. 13 C 7998, 2016 WL 7240754 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 15, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Where a magistrate judge found the requested inspection of Plaintiff?s devices was not proportional to the needs of the case ?especially? in light of Plaintiff?s privacy and confidentiality interests despite the production of thousands of text messages by Plaintiffs? mother (which Plaintiff confirmed she had sent to her for safekeeping) and alleged inconsistent testimony from the Plaintiff, the District Court Judge overruling Defendants? objections acknowledged the need for caution in allowing such inspections (including by citing the 2006 Advisory Committee Notes to Fed. R. Civ. P. 34) absent evidence of a responding party?s failure as to its discovery obligations or a ?substantiated connection? between the at-issue device and the claims of the case and concluded that neither had been established in the present case

Nature of Case: Employment discrimination

Electronic Data Involved: ESI, text messages

Shaw v. Experian Info. Sol., Inc., 2015 WL 1260552 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 18, 2015)

Dec 01 2015

Key Insight: Court granted Plaintiffs? motion to compel production of defendant database records. Defendant argued that the harm to third parties from disclosure of personal information contained in the requested data outweighed the relevance of the information to plaintiffs? claim, and that the preparation, review, and production presented an undue burden. Finding that the requested data was highly relevant to the class certification requirements, the court concluded plaintiffs? need significantly outweighed privacy concerns given the option of producing subject to protective order and Plaintiffs? agreement to accept data with personal information redacted. Nor was the court persuaded by defendant?s burden argument, finding the estimate and explanation from plaintiffs? database consultant ?more persuasive, appropriate, and accurate? than that provided by defendant – particularly in light of modifications Plaintiffs made to their request after defendant clarified how the data was stored in their systems. The court also noted that defendant?s briefing failed to allege any facts supporting its assertion that the information was more readily available from other sources.

Nature of Case: Class Action; Violation of Fair Credit Reporting Act

Electronic Data Involved: Database

Tag:Proportionality