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Proportionality

Merely Stating That ESI Request Is Not Relevant Or Proportional Is Not Sufficient, Court Rules: eDiscovery Case Law

In Digital Ally, Inc. v. Utility Associates, Inc., No. 14-2262-CM-GEB (D. Kan. Apr. 15, 2016), Kansas Magistrate Judge Gwynne E. Birzer granted the plaintiff’s motion to compel discovery, overruling the defendant’s objections that the request was neither relevant nor proportional to the issues in this case, because the defendant “has not expounded on its objections to relevance or proportionality under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1)”.

Case Background

In this case for tortious interference stemming from the defendant’s hiring of a former sales manager of the plaintiff, the two parties were able to successfully resolve early disputes regarding discovery.  However, during the deposition of the defendant’s former vice president in November 2015, twelve categories of unproduced documents were identified which the plaintiff believed to be responsive to its First Requests for Production.  Communications between the parties resolved discussions regarding six of the categories, but when the parties could not agree on the other six categories, the plaintiff filed a Motion to Compel, seeking the remaining six categories of documents.  Subsequently, the plaintiff agreed to withdraw its motion regarding four of the requests, leaving requests for two categories for the court to address.

The defendant argued the motion to compel should be denied because it was filed more than ten months after the plaintiff served its initial Requests and was untimely under D. Kan. Rule 37.1(b). The defendant also maintained that the plaintiff failed to properly confer before filing its motion, as required by D. Kan. Rule 37.2.  With regard to the individual requests, the defendant argued the first request was “neither relevant nor proportional to the issues in this case” and also objected to the request as overbroad for failure to identify custodians of, and provide search terms for, any alleged e-mails as required by the Scheduling Order.  The defendant objected to the second request on the basis of relevance.

Judge’s Ruling

With regard to the defendant’s objection regarding the timeliness of the request, Judge Birzer disagreed, finding that, although the plaintiff failed to file its motion within 30 days after the defendant’s initial discovery responses, “the motion was filed within 30 days of the defendant’s final communication regarding production of the six categories of documents which became an issue after [the former VP’s] deposition”.  With regard to the defendant’s contention that the plaintiff failed to properly confer before filing its motion, Judge Birzer also disagreed with that, ruling that “[b]ecause the parties communicated both in writing and by phone regarding the disputed requests, the Court finds the duty to confer under Rule 37.2 is satisfied”.

With regard to the defendant’s objection to the first request, Judge Birzer stated:

“Aside from simply stating the terms, Defendant has not expounded on its objections to relevance or proportionality under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), and those objections are overruled. Because Plaintiff brings multiple claims of tortious interference with its business, the information sought by the request appears relevant on its face, and Defendant has not met its burden to demonstrate otherwise.  Additionally, any concerns regarding overbreadth or proportionality may be addressed by following the guidelines of the Scheduling Order.”

With regard to the defendant’s objection to the second request, Judge Birzer determined that the defendant “has not met its burden to demonstrate lack of relevance; therefore the objection is overruled.”  With all objections overruled, Judge Birzer granted the motion to compel with instructions for the plaintiff to resubmit the first request following the terms of the Scheduling Order.

So, what do you think?  Do you think we’ll see more cases where objections are overruled because they don’t provide specificity regarding the objections?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Citing Proportionality Concerns, Court Grants Plaintiff’s Motion for Protective Order: eDiscovery Case Law

In Noble Roman’s, Inc. v. Hattenhauer Distrib. Co., No. 1:14-cv-01734-WTL-DML (S.D. Ind. Mar. 24, 2016), Indiana Magistrate Judge Debra McVicker Lynch, citing proportionality concerns, granted the plaintiff’s motion for a protective order and ordered that the defendant was prohibited from obtaining the discovery sought by the defendant’s subpoenas from a major shareholder of the plaintiff.

Case Background

In this royalty dispute between parties, the defendant filed a counterclaim contending that the franchise agreements did not permit the type of audits requested by the plaintiff and that “the audits were based on flawed – and knowingly flawed – methodology and are invalid.”  To support its counterclaim, the defendant filed subpoenas seeking information from a major shareholder (Privet Fund) of the plaintiff that included production of 23 categories of documents and Rule 30(b)(6) testimony from shareholder witnesses.

The plaintiff asserted that the subpoenas were an “improper fishing expedition” and that they sought information “outside the proper bounds of discovery”, contending that the shareholder’s Schedule 13D shows it did not begin to amass large amounts of the plaintiff’s shares until after the plaintiff made the business decision to conduct audits of its non-traditional franchisees like the defendant company.  While the court denied the plaintiff’s request to quash the defendant’s subpoenas, it allowed the plaintiff to seek relief through a motion for protective order, which the plaintiff did.

Judge’s Ruling

Determining that the plaintiff “would be required to devote employee time and effort, as well as attorney time, effort, and expense, to review the documents requested by Hattenhauer from Privet Fund, and to devote substantial attorney time and expense for traveling to, preparing for, and cross-examining Privet Fund Rule 30(b)(6) deponent witness(es) in Atlanta, Georgia”, Judge Lynch ruled that the plaintiff had standing to challenge the subpoenas, even though they were issued against a non-party.

With regard to the information requested in the defendant’s subpoenas, Judge Lynch stated that “[t]he categories of information are wide-ranging and include essentially all documents and information relating to Privet Fund’s November and December 2015 letters to Noble Roman’s board of directors, to Privet Fund’s investigation and analysis of Noble Roman’s operations, management, finances, and business plans, and to Privet Fund’s acquisition of Noble Roman’s stock. The subpoenas also seek any documents and information about Noble Roman’s audits of its franchisees.”

Continuing, Judge Lynch cited Rule 26(b), stating that the defendant “beats the drum of ‘relevancy.’ It asserts that all of its deposition topics and document requests are ‘relevant.’ That’s not good enough. Hattenhauer never attempts to demonstrate that the discovery is in any way proportional to the needs of this case, considering such things as the amount in controversy, the importance of the information in resolving contested issues, whether the burden of the discovery outweighs its likely benefits, whether the information can be obtained from other and more convenient sources, or whether the information is cumulative to other discovery Hattenhauer has obtained.”

As a result, Judge Lynch found that “Hattenhauer’s documents and deposition subpoenas to Privet Fund constitute discovery run amok. Asking Privet Fund to provide every document and every piece of information it has – including information it may have obtained orally from Noble Roman’s personnel – about every aspect of Noble Roman’s business operations, finances, marketing plans, and management structure is discovery too far afield from the contested issues in this case.”  Therefore, Judge Lynch granted the plaintiff’s motion for a protective order.

So, what do you think?  Were the defendant’s information requests disproportionate to the case?  Or should its subpoenas have been granted?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Court Denies Request for Cost Reimbursement for Hosted eDiscovery Database: eDiscovery Case Law

In Associated Electric & Gas Insurance Services, et. al. v. BendTec, Inc., No. 14-1602 (D. Minn., Feb. 24, 2016), Minnesota District Judge Michael J. Davis found that the decision in Race Tires America, Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp. to deny certain eDiscovery costs to be persuasive and ruled that “the costs of creating and maintaining an electronic platform for e-discovery are not recoverable under § 1920(4)”, denying the prevailing defendant’s request for reimbursement of over $123,000 in costs to maintain their ESI database.

Case Background

The defendant asserted that the plaintiffs produced approximately 19 gigabytes of data from a prior related lawsuit and it retained eDiscovery vendors to create and maintain an electronic platform for these documents (at a cost of $90 per gigabyte per month), so they could be processed and hosted in a viewable format.  The defendant eventually added its additional 192 gigabytes of data in preparation for production to the plaintiffs, which was hosted at the same $90 per gigabyte per month rate.

After the court entered judgment in favor of the defendant in June 2015, the defendant submitted its bill of costs to the Clerk of Court in July 2015 and the plaintiffs filed their objection to the bill of costs in August 2015.  The Clerk of Court entered a Cost Judgment on October 15, 2015 denying the taxation of costs by the defendant on the basis that fees for electronic discovery are not taxable by the Clerk. The defendant subsequently filed a motion for review of cost judgment, seeking to recover $126,970.80 in costs incurred by creating and maintaining an electronic database to hold documents produced by the plaintiffs and collecting and securing its own documents.  Following an objection from the plaintiffs, the defendant reduced the requested amount to $123,260.80.

Judge’s Ruling

Noting that “a number of courts that have addressed whether costs associated with e-discovery are recoverable under § 1092 have found that such costs are recoverable only to the extent they qualify as exemplification fees or the costs of making copies”, Judge Davis cited Race Tires America, Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., indicating that “the district court awarded the prevailing party the costs for e-discovery on the basis that it ‘appeared to be the electronic equivalent of exemplification and copying.’”  However, Judge Davis indicated that, on appeal, “the Third Circuit held that where e-discovery did not produce illustrative evidence or the authentication of public records, the costs for such discovery did not qualify as exemplification fees under § 1920(4) and is not recoverable” (we covered both rulings here and here).  Judge Davis specifically noted that “[a]s to costs associated with the collection and preservation of electronically stored information (“ESI”), processing and indexing ESI, and keyword searching of ESI for responsive and privileged documents, the court held that such costs are not recoverable under §1920(4).”

Indicating that other courts had found the Race Tires decision persuasive, Judge Davis stated that he “also finds the Race Tire decision persuasive and holds that the costs of creating and maintaining an electronic platform for e-discovery are not recoverable under § 1920(4)” and denied the defendant’s motion for recovery of those costs.

So, what do you think?  Is § 1920(4) still timely for consideration of cost reimbursement to prevailing parties?  Or should it be revisited and updated to reflect the current technological environment?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

KMWorld Highlights CloudNine and Simplified eDiscovery

Extract from article in KMWorld by Judith Lamont on January 31, 2016: CloudNine is a cloud-based product used for e-discovery and investigation. The company also provides professional services to organizations that want to delegate some or all of their discovery tasks to a third party. CloudNine is designed to be simple to use, with a straightforward online process for uploading, reviewing and producing electronically stored information for litigation and investigations.

“Although we are CloudNine, we are not cloud-based the way most people think of it,” says Brad Jenkins, president and CEO of CloudNine. “We use a private infrastructure, and the data is highly secure, residing on dedicated servers on a dedicated network in a Tier 4 data center. We don’t use the public cloud at all.” Two pricing models are available; pay-as-you-go plans start at $25/GB per month, which includes 30 days of hosting but does not include processing (normally $100/GB for self-service processing). Subscription plans start at $1,000 per month, which includes unlimited self-service processing and up to 50GB of hosting.

The customers for CloudNine have typically been companies that provided litigation support as well as small to medium-sized law firms. Recently, larger law firms have started to use it to manage e-discovery for their clients, and that group of customers now includes dozens of firms, including more than 50 of the top 250 law firms. In addition, large (Fortune 100) corporations are using CloudNine for internal investigations and compliance.

CloudNine uses dtSearch as its search software. “It indexes very quickly,” says Doug Austin, VP of professional services, “and handles a range of file types from e-mail to documents and database information.” As for processing, CloudNine automatically unpacks the data, pulls out metadata and text and uses OCR to convert image files to searchable text.

“One thing that customers are very interested in is analytical capabilities,” Austin adds. “They want to be able to get an idea early on about whether they should settle or litigate. If they can analyze their data quickly, they can decide what their exposure is and then choose the best course of action. The simplified e-discovery automation that CloudNine provides enables our clients to perform that analysis and make those decisions quickly and effectively.”

Source: Article: Legal Applications of KM Trend Toward Flexibility, Simplicity

For the complete article, click here.

2015 eDiscovery Case Law Year in Review, Part 2

As we noted yesterday, eDiscovery Daily published 89 posts related to eDiscovery case decisions and activities over the past year, covering 72 unique cases!  Yesterday, we looked back at cases related to admissibility and proportionality, production format disputes and (once again) the ubiquitous Apple v. Samsung case.  Today, let’s take a look back at cases related to disputes about discovery, eDiscovery cost reimbursement and issues related to privilege and confidentiality assertions.

We grouped those cases into common subject themes and will review them over the next few posts.  Perhaps you missed some of these?  Now is your chance to catch up!

DISPUTES ABOUT DISCOVERY

Last year, we covered cases where parties requested discovery on their opponent’s discovery process.  Those, and other general disputes about the discovery process – including requesting 30(b)6) depositions and a notable dispute about whether contract attorneys should receive overtime pay – are included in this category.

Calling First 30(b)(6) Witness a “Waste of Time”, Court Orders a Second Deposition: In Rembert v. Cheverko et. al., New York District Judge Katherine B. Forrest granted the plaintiff’s motion “in its entirety” to compel the defendants to provide a properly prepared 30(b)(6) witness to testify regarding the defendants’ preservation and production of emails, to provide copies of document retention/preservation notices issued and to reimburse plaintiff’s costs and fees associated with having to conduct an additional deposition.

Court Acknowledges Lack of Expertise to Recommend Search Methodology, Orders Parties to Confer: In ACI Worldwide Corp. v. MasterCard Technologies, LLC and MasterCard International, Inc., Nebraska Magistrate Judge F.A. Gossett, acknowledging that the Court “simply does not have the expertise necessary to determine the best methodology to be employed in retrieving the requested materials in a safe, non-obtrusive, and cost-effective manner”, ordered the parties to “once again” confer in an effort to reach an agreement regarding the search methodology to be employed by the defendants in retrieving the information requested by the plaintiff.

Court Agrees with Plaintiffs, Orders Provision for Qualitative Sampling of Disputed Search Terms: In the case In Re: Lithium Ion Batteries Antitrust Litigation, California Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu ordered the defendants to comply with the plaintiffs’ proposed qualitative sampling process for keyword search terms, citing DaSilva Moore that keywords “often are overinclusive”.

Court Rules on Dispute about Search Terms and Organization of Produced Documents: In Lutzeier v. Citigroup Inc., Missouri District Judge Ronnie I. White ruled on two motions to compel discovery by the plaintiff, addressing (among other things) disagreement on search terms to be used by the defendant and lack of organization and labeling of the defendant’s production to date.

Should Contract Review Attorneys Receive Overtime Pay?: Whether they should or not, maybe they can – if they’re found NOT to be practicing law, according to a ruling from the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.  That case was ultimately settled (click here for more information).

“Quality is Job 1” at Ford, Except When it Comes to Self-Collection of Documents: In Burd v. Ford Motor Co., West Virginia Magistrate Judge Cheryl A. Eifert granted the plaintiff’s motion for a deposition of a Rule 30(b)(6) witness on the defendant’s search and collection methodology, but did not rule on the issue of whether the defendant had a reasonable collection process or adequate production, denying the plaintiff’s motion as “premature” on that request.

EDISCOVERY COST SHARING AND REIMBURSEMENT

This year, eDiscovery cost reimbursement began to trend toward the positive as there were four cases where the prevailing party was awarded reimbursement of eDiscovery costs and only one case where requests for reimbursement of eDiscovery costs were denied (one requested further declaration by the requesting party).

Court’s “Jazzy” Decision to Award Costs May “Bug” Plaintiff, But Defendant Doesn’t Mind a “Bit”: In Fitbug Ltd. v. Fitbit, Inc., California District Judge Samuel Conti, throwing in a jazz reference during his opinion, ruled to tax over $63,000 in costs to be paid to the prevailing defendant in the case.

Plaintiff Awarded Sanctions and Reimbursement of Some eDiscovery Costs: In Engineered Abrasives, Inc. v. American Machine Products & Service, Inc., Illinois District Judge Sara L. Ellis awarded the plaintiff damages, attorneys’ fees and some requested costs, as well as granting the plaintiff’s motion for sanctions and ordering the defendants to reimburse the plaintiff $12,800 for the cost of conducting a forensic computer examination, which the plaintiff maintained was necessitated by Defendants’ evasive and incomplete responses and their failure to produce documents during discovery.

Image is Not Only Everything, It Is Also Legally a Copy, Appeals Court Rules: In Colosi v. Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc., the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s judgment to approve a $6,369.55 bill of costs which included synchronization of deposition videos and imaging of hard drives that the defendant submitted after prevailing in the case.

Court Upholds Review of Taxable Costs by Clerk, Awards over $57,000: In Comprehensive Addiction Treatment Center, Inc. v. Leslea, Colorado District Judge Christine M. Arguello denied the plaintiffs’ motion to review Clerk’s Taxing of Costs Under F.R.C.P. 54(D)(1), upholding the award by the Clerk of the Court of $57,873.61 in taxable costs.

Appeals Court Reverses Award for Attorney Fees for Overbroad ESI Requests: In Bertoli et al. v. City of Sebastopol, et al., the California Court of Appeals, while not disagreeing with the trial court’s finding that the plaintiff’s ESI request was “unfocused and nonspecific, unduly burdensome, and an alarming invasion of privacy rights”, disagreed that their Public Records Act (PRA) requests were “clearly frivolous” and reversed the trial court’s order for attorneys fees and costs.

Court Orders Defendant to Submit Further Declaration after Plaintiff Disputes its Claimed eDiscovery Costs: In Bonillas v. United Air Lines Inc., California Chief Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. LaPorte ordered the defendant to submit a further declaration supporting its claimed eDiscovery costs by addressing several issues raised by no later than January 5, 2015, with the plaintiff having until January 8, 2015 to submit a brief response to the further declaration if he chose to do so.

PRIVILEGE  AND CONFIDENTIALITY ASSERTION ISSUES

There were a few cases related to disputes regarding privilege and confidentiality, including one where the producing party submitted a 2,941(!) page privilege log and another where a party classified 95% of its production as “highly confidential”!  Here are six cases discussing privilege and confidentiality assertions:

Court Denies Plaintiff’s Request for In Camera Review of Defendants’ Privileged Emails: In Armouth International, Inc. v. Dollar General Corp. et. al., Tennessee Magistrate Judge Barbara D. Holmes, calling the plaintiff’s request a “fishing expedition”, denied the plaintiff’s expedited motion to compel, requesting that the defendants be required to produce emails that were either withheld or redacted based on claims of attorney-client privilege for an in camera review of the emails by the Court to confirm the privilege claims.

Privilege Log Identifies Additional Documents to be Produced by Defendant: In U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Commonwealth Advisors, Inc. et al., Louisiana Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Riedlinger ordered the defendants to produce additional documents that were identified on the defendants’ privilege log, but for which the defendants had waived attorney-client privilege.

Defendant Ordered to Produce Emails Between Non-Attorney Employees That Were Deemed Privileged: In Cicon v. State Farm Mutual Auto Ins. Co., Pennsylvania District Judge Richard P. Conaboy denied the plaintiff’s request for the defendant to produce attorney-client communications that occurred before the filing of the complaint, but granted his request regarding communications between non-attorney employees before the plaintiff’s counsel sent a letter threatening litigation, ordering the defendant to produce those emails, while allowing the defendant to redact explicit discussion of an attorney’s advice.

Court Orders Plaintiff to Re-Review 95% of its Production Classified as “Highly Confidential”: In Procaps S.A. v. Patheon Inc., after the plaintiff designated 95% of its forensically-produced documents (141,525 of 148,636) as “highly confidential”, Florida District Judge Jonathan Goodman ordered the plaintiff to re-review and re-designate those documents within ten days, and also assessed a $25,000 fees award against the plaintiff’s outside counsel to compensate the defendant for its efforts in reviewing the documents.

If You’re Going to Submit a 2,941 Page Privilege Log, You’d Better Be Able to Demonstrate Privilege: In United States v. Louisiana, Louisiana Magistrate Judge Richard L. Bourgeois, Jr., after reviewing 40 documents provided by the defendant for in-camera review, granted the plaintiff’s Renewed Motion to Compel a Proper Privilege Log, after denying the original motion because the plaintiff only provided 13 examples of “insufficient descriptions” within the privilege log’s entries.

Apple’s Motion to Seal eDiscovery Vendor Invoice Line Items Granted by Court: In GPNE Corp. v. Apple, Inc., California District Judge Lucy H. Koh granted the defendant’s motion to file under seal specific line items from third-party e-discovery vendor invoices that were submitted in support of its bill of costs.

Tomorrow, we will cover cases related to cooperation issues, social media and mobile phone discovery, the one case involving technology assisted review and the first part of the cases relating to sanctions and spoliation (yes, there were that many).  Stay tuned!

Want to take a look at cases we covered the previous four years?  Here they are:

So, what do you think?  Did you miss any of these?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

2015 eDiscovery Case Law Year in Review, Part 1

Did you think we forgot?  No, we didn’t forget!

It’s time for our annual review of eDiscovery case law!  Once again, we had more than our share of sanctions granted and denied, as well as disputes over production formats, admissibility of electronically stored information (ESI) and even a dispute regarding whether contract review attorneys can receive overtime pay!  So, as we have done for the last four years, let’s take a look back at 2015!

Last year, eDiscoveryDaily published 89 posts related to eDiscovery case decisions and activities over the past year, covering a record 72 unique cases!  We’ve covered over 300 unique cases since our inception back in 2010.  And, believe it or not, we still didn’t cover every case that had eDiscovery impact.  Sometimes, you want to cover other topics too.

Nonetheless, for the cases we did cover, we grouped them into common subject themes and will review them over the next few posts (a few of them could be categorized in more than one category, so we took our best shot).  Perhaps you missed some of these?  Now is your chance to catch up!

ADMISSIBILITY AND PROPORTIONALITY

As always, there are numerous disputes about data being produced and not being produced and whether the costs to do so are overly burdensome.  Here are seven cases related to admissibility, the duty to preserve and produce ESI and the proportionality for preserving and producing that ESI:

Court Denies Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel the Defendant to Assist with Access to its Data: In SFP Works, LLC v. Buffalo Armory, Michigan Chief District Judge Gerald E. Rosen, agreeing with the defendant that the plaintiff’s motion was untimely, and that Plaintiff “unreasonably declined” several options proposed by the defendant for accessing the data that was produced to it by the defendant, denied the plaintiff’s motion to compel access to operational data.

Defendant’s Wife Ordered to Turn Over iPhone for Examination: In Brown Jordan International, Inc. et. al. v. Carmicle et. al., Kentucky District Judge Greg N. Stivers granted the plaintiffs’ expedited motion to compel the defendant’s wife to produce her iPhone for a forensic examination for information related to the case.

Defendant Compelled to Restore and Produce Emails from Backup Tapes: In United States ex rel Guardiola v. Renown Health, Nevada Magistrate Judge Valerie P. Cooke concluded that emails contained on backup tapes held by the defendants was not reasonably inaccessible due to undue cost and, even if the emails were reasonably inaccessible due to undue burden or undue cost, “good cause supports their discoverability”. Also, after an analysis of cost-shifting factors found only one factor favored cost-shifting of the production of emails to the relator, Judge Cooke ordered the defendant to bear the cost of restoration and production.

Court Resolves Dispute Over Scope of Databases and Searches to be Performed: In Willett, et al. v. Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc., New Mexico District Judge Lourdes A. Martinez ordered the defendants to produce a spreadsheet referred of file folders, with information for the files on their virtual server(s), the plaintiffs to provide the defendant with a reasonable list of search terms, limited to the relevant time frame, parties, and issues of this case and for the defendants to perform the searches specified by the plaintiffs within ten days of receiving the searches.

Court Rules that Automatically Generated Read Receipt is Not Hearsay: In Fox v. Leland Volunteer Fire/Rescue Dep’t Inc., North Carolina District Judge Louise W. Flanagan ruled that a Read Receipt automatically sent from the defendant’s email address to the plaintiff (when the defendant opened an email sent by the plaintiff) was not hearsay.

Court Has a “Beef” with Plaintiff’s Proportionality Argument: In Cargill Meat Solutions Corp. v. Premium Beef Feeders, LLC, Kansas Magistrate Judge Teresa J. James granted the defendants’ motion to compel production of documents, overruling the plaintiffs’ objections to the discovery request in finding that “Plaintiff has not satisfied its burden to show that producing the requested documents would be unduly burdensome”.

Plaintiff Ordered to Image its Sources of ESI, Respond to Disputed Discovery Requests: In Electrified Discounters, Inc. v. MI Technologies, Inc. et al., Connecticut Magistrate Judge Donna F. Martinez granted the defendant’s motion to compel the plaintiff ‘s responses to discovery and ordered the plaintiff to “image its sources of electronically stored information (‘ESI’), including its hard drives and QuickBook files”.

APPLE V. SAMSUNG

We may be done with the past, but the past is not done with us.  We couldn’t help but take a couple of looks back at Apple v. Samsung to see where the dispute stood (look at 2014, part 3 for more decisions related to this case).  And, by the way, I’ve lost count how many times Samsung has been ordered, then received a stay, to pay the judgment amount.

Believe it or Not, Apple v. Samsung is Still Going Strong: eDiscovery Case Law: It appears that Samsung may, just may, finally have to pay some damages to Apple for patent infringement.

Samsung Doesn’t Have to Write a Check After All…Yet: Earlier, we revisited the Apple v. Samsung case, which we covered so much last year, it had its own category in our annual case law review. On September 18, U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple’s motion for partial final judgment in the case that Apple lodged against Samsung in 2011, seemingly clearing the way for Apple to collect $548 million in damages from Samsung. But, on Friday, Samsung received an emergency stay on that order.

PRODUCTION FORMAT DISPUTES

It seems that there are more disputes regarding the form of production than ever.  Here are the ten cases involving production format disputes:

Defendant Ordered to Produce Unredacted Versions of Agreements and Shipment Data: In Mervyn v. Atlas Van Lines, Inc. et. al., Illinois Magistrate Judge Susan E. Cox granted the plaintiff’s motion to compel the defendants to produce unredacted owner-operator agreements and shipment data, rejecting the defendants’ argument that producing both would be an undue burden.

Appellate Court Upholds Ruling to Require Production in Native Format: In the case In re State Farm Lloyds, the Texas Court of Appeals, finding that the relator failed to meet its burden to support its objection that it could not produce the discovery through reasonable efforts, denied the petition for writ of mandamus filed by the relator in which it contended that the trial court abused its discretion by ordering the production of discovery in native or near-native formats rather than the “reasonably usable” formats it proposed.

Court Denies Defendant’s Motion to Require Plaintiff to Re-Produce Data in a More Usable Format: In United States v. Meredith, Kentucky Senior District Judge Charles R. Simpson, III denied the defendant’s motion to compel production of electronically stored information (ESI) by the plaintiff in a usable format, agreeing that the plaintiff had fulfilled its discovery production obligation pertaining to the manner and format of the ESI.

Court Finds No Discovery Abuses by Defendant that Produced MSG Instead of TIFF Files: In Feist v. Paxfire, Inc., New York Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis denied the plaintiff’s request for reimbursement of costs and expenses related to document production, finding that the plaintiff had made no showing of significant discovery abuses by the defendant, and had not demonstrated that the defendant engaged in intentionally burdensome production.

Court Orders Defendant to Produce Metadata for Previously Produced Emails: In Prezio Health, Inc. v. Schenk, et. al., after “a careful in camera review” of emails responsive to eighteen keyword search terms, Connecticut Magistrate Judge Joan Glazer Margolis ordered the defendant to produce metadata for eight specific emails which had already been produced to the plaintiff.

Plaintiff Ordered to Re-Produce Files in Native Format Because it Failed to Meet and Confer with Defendant: In Themis Bar Review, LLC v. Kaplan, Inc., California Magistrate Judge Barbara L. Major ordered the plaintiff pay for the cost to produce files in native format after the plaintiff originally produced unsearchable PDF images without metadata and failed to properly meet and confer with the defendant regarding production format as stipulated in the parties’ Joint Discovery Plan.

Defendant Compelled to Produce Employees’ Personal Data in EEOC Dispute: In EEOC v. DolgenCorp LLC d/b/a Dollar General, Illinois District Judge Andrea R. Wood granted the plaintiff’s motion to compel the defendant to produce electronically-stored information (“ESI”) containing personal information of the defendant’s conditional hires and complete versions of documents that the defendant previously produced with portions redacted due to purported lack of relevance. She also ordered the plaintiff to produce documents previously withheld due to privilege for an in camera review.

Oh, Thank Heaven! Court Orders 7-Eleven to Produce Metadata: In Younes, et al. v. 7-Eleven, Inc., New Jersey Magistrate Judge Joel Schneider granted the plaintiffs’ motions to compel the production of metadata for selected groups of documents, denying the defendant’s cross-motions to bar the production of metadata.

You Don’t Get a Second Chance to Make a First Document Production Request: In Allison v. Clos-ette Too, LLC, New York Magistrate Judge James C. Francis, among other motions considered, denied the plaintiff’s motion to compel the defendants’ production of electronically stored information (ESI) in native format after the plaintiff had previously requested (and received) ESI from the defendants without specifying the desired document format.

Court Untangles Form of Production Dispute with Curling Iron Manufacturer: In Wilson v. Conair Corp., California Magistrate Judge Stanley A. Boone granted in part the plaintiff’s motion to compel production, by requiring the defendant to produce further ESI in native format if feasible or TIFF format with the associated metadata, as well as to produce associated metadata for its prior production if it had not already done so.  The court later continued to intervene in discovery disputes between the two parties here.

We’re just getting started!  Tomorrow, we will cover cases related to disputes about discovery, eDiscovery cost reimbursement and issues related to privilege and confidentiality assertions.  Stay tuned!

Want to take a look at cases we covered the previous four years?  Here they are:

So, what do you think?  Did you miss any of these?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Samsung Doesn’t Have to Write a Check After All…Yet: eDiscovery Case Law

A couple of weeks ago, we revisited the Apple v. Samsung case, which we covered so much last year, it had its own category in our four part annual case law review.  On September 18, U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple’s motion for partial final judgment in the case that Apple lodged against Samsung in 2011, seemingly clearing the way for Apple to collect $548 million in damages from Samsung.  But, on Friday, Samsung received an emergency stay on that order.

According to Law 360 (subscription required), on Friday, the Federal Circuit on Friday granted a temporary stay of the judgment’s enforcement, after Samsung argued Sept. 21 in a notice of appeal that the appeals court’s mandate did not require immediate payment.

Samsung also moved for approval of a supersedeas bond in the amount of $600 million to secure payment of the judgment and asked for a temporary, 10-day stay of execution of the judgment to ensure that there is time to implement any changes to the bond the judge may require.  Samsung had argued in its emergency motion that the judgment shouldn’t have been entered, or that the appeals court should approve the supersedeas bond it put up in district court, according to filings in the case.

In a response brief that at times got a bit spicy, Apple retorted that the Federal Circuit’s May ruling affirming the $548 million judgment “made plain” that Samsung doesn’t deserve further delay, and urged the court to ignore Samsung’s efforts to “block the court from performing the most ministerial of tasks,” according to its filing.  “Apple does not file this motion lightly, but Samsung’s appeal truly is beyond the pale,” Apple argued in its response. “It should be brought to a swift end, rather than serve Samsung’s goals of imposing greater cost and delay on the court and Apple.”

Apple has won several battles with Samsung, including ultimately being awarded over $1 billion in verdicts (ultimately reduced to the current $548 million), as well as a $2 million sanction for the inadvertent disclosure of its outside counsel firm (Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP) commonly known as “patentgate”, but ultimately may have lost the war when the court refused to ban Samsung from selling products that were found to have infringed on Apple products (that is still being disputed in the courts, too).  This case has also had disputes over eDiscovery cost reimbursement and an adverse inference sanction for Samsung for failing to turn off “auto-delete” of emails after the case began.  And, clearly, there is more yet to come.

So, what do you think?  Have you been following Apple v. Samsung?    Will it ever end?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Defendant Compelled to Restore and Produce Emails from Backup Tapes: eDiscovery Case Law

In United States ex rel Guardiola v. Renown Health, No. 3:12-cv-00295-LRH-VPC, (D. Nev. Aug. 25, 2015), Nevada Magistrate Judge Valerie P. Cooke concluded that emails contained on backup tapes held by the defendants was not reasonably inaccessible due to undue cost and, even if the emails were reasonably inaccessible due to undue burden or undue cost, “good cause supports their discoverability”.  Also, after an analysis of cost-shifting factors found only one factor favored cost-shifting of the production of emails to the relator, Judge Cooke ordered the defendant to bear the cost of restoration and production.

Case Background

In this qui tam action under the False Claims Act, the relator filed a motion to compel production of email from the defendant for a “gap period” when the emails were stored on backup tapes, pursuant to the defendants’ email retention policy.  On the belief that the March 2011 tapes held the greatest number and scope of historical emails relevant to this litigation, the defendant had previously restored the March 2011 backup tapes via a third-party vendor and produced emails at a cost of over $100,000 (including attorney review and production).

The defendants objected, alleging that the emails were not reasonably accessible because of undue burden and cost, and stating that its IT department could not restore the gap-period emails in house; therefore, it would have to outsource the restoration work for a cost of $136,000 and a total cost of at least $248,000 after adding data processing and contract attorney review.

Judge’s Ruling

Noting that “[u]nder Rule 26(b)(2)(B), it is Renown’s burden to show that the gap-period emails are not reasonably accessible due to undue burden”, Judge Cooke stated that “As a preliminary matter, the plain language of Rule 26(b)(2)(B) instructs that “undue burden,” rather than the format of the ESI, is to guide the court’s analysis. Technological features of the storage media do enter the analysis, but only as they relate to the undue burden inquiry. Stated differently, undue burden is fact specific and no format is inaccessible per se.”

With that in mind, Judge Cooke concluded that “Renown has failed to show that the gap-period emails are not reasonably accessible because of undue burden. As described above, Renown has produced emails from the restored March 2011 backup tapes. In so doing, Renown has demonstrated that it is technologically feasible to restore and produce the gap-period emails… Accordingly, the court cannot fathom what burden accompanies third-party restoration. Renown has not stated that use of a vendor will nevertheless impose burdens – in terms of staff resources, delay of other critical IT projects, or inadequate attention to existing technology infrastructure.”

As for the defendants’ undue cost argument, Judge Cooke rejected “Renown’s argument that ‘cost’ under Rule 26(b)(2)(B) includes document review and storage”, determining that the “$136,000 figure for restoration is not an undue cost that renders the gap-period emails reasonably inaccessible”.

Next, Judge Cooke turned to the question of whether the relator had established good cause for the emails’ production by applying the seven factor balancing test of the costs and potential benefits of the requested discovery under Rule 26(b)(2)(B).  Determining that “five of the relevant factors favor relator, while two are neutral”, Judge Cooke found that “relator has carried her step-two burden of demonstrating good cause”, so “even were the gap-period emails reasonably inaccessible due to undue burden or undue cost, good cause supports their discoverability.”

Finally, Judge Cooke performed an examination of cost shifting, using the seven factor test used in Zubulake.  Noting that “[t]he weightiest factors, relevance and availability of alternatives, balance powerfully against cost shifting”, Judge Cooke ruled that “the costshifting factors require that Renown bear the cost of restoration.”  Therefore, she granted the relator’s motion to compel and denied the defendant’s motion for cost shifting, ordering the relator and defendant to meet and confer to discuss a schedule for production of the gap-period emails.

So, what do you think?  Should the defendant have been ordered to restore the emails from backup tape?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

If You Ever Have to Compare RFP Vendors, EDRM Has a New Calculator for You: eDiscovery Best Practices

Let’s face it, comparing bids from different eDiscovery vendors on an “apples to apples” basis can be difficult as each vendor seems to have its own unique pricing structure.  However, a new calculator from EDRM can help simplify the comparison process to identify the low cost provider.

The designer of the latest calculator is Casey Flaherty, former in-house counsel for Kia Motors America and founder of Procertas, a company offering training to corporate legal teams on improving efficiency and reducing costs.  This is the sixth budget calculator available from EDRM (we covered the previous five here, here, here, here and here).

Flaherty’s budget calculator is three sets of calculators in one. The Baseline Calculator sheet contains the client’s current pricing model. The Standard Calculator sheets compare vendors against each other and a baseline. The Proposed Calculator sheets – identified by a “(P)” in the sheet name – enable you to track additional savings vendors present that they believe they will be able to achieve. Each spreadsheet provides sample numbers to better understand how the workbook performs calculations, but Flaherty recommends that each user replace those with their own figures.

The current workbook provides several sample sheets, with the Standard Calculator and Proposed Calculator sheets named from #1 to #5 (add a “(P)” in the sheet name of the Proposed Calculator sheets and you get the idea.  Obviously, those sheets could be easily renamed to identify the vendors being considered in the RFP process and sheets can be easily added (and copied) or deleted as needed to reflect the total comparison.

Each sheet contains sections for Collection, Processing, Review and Production, with Assumptions, Pricing and Alternative Pricing sub-sections for each:

  • Collection: includes assumption options for tracking collection at the custodian, share drive, event, days, travel hours and/or GB basis;
  • Processing: includes assumption parameters for tracking initial ingested volume, filter rates for pre-process and ECA, tech/PM hours and tracking hosting for near-line data;
  • Review: is the most comprehensive section and tracks metrics for everything from reviewer and user licenses (not all providers charge those, so shop around) to consultation hours to support for tracking Technology Assisted Review (TAR) and even machine translation and bilingual review(!);
  • Production: includes tracking docs and GBs produced and provides options for tracking both native and TIFF productions.

The workbook is completely customizable, so if you’re good with Excel, you can add or remove categories as needed.  The workbook is not locked, so calculation cells are editable (either by design or accidentally) – again, if you’re good with Excel, you can lock down individual sheets or the entire workbook to lock down editing of calculation cells.  A terrific resource if you need to compare quotes from eDiscovery vendors for your project!

To download this calculator (or any or all of the previous five EDRM calculators), click here.

So, what do you think?  How do you handle evaluating bids from multiple eDiscovery vendors?   Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.

Believe it or Not, Apple v. Samsung is Still Going Strong: eDiscovery Case Law

Remember, the Apple v. Samsung case?  We covered this case so much last year that it had its own category in our four part annual case law review (where we covered 68 unique cases!).  We took a break from covering it this year to focus on other cases where more significant eDiscovery rulings were taking place.  Nonetheless, it appears that Samsung may, just may, finally have to pay some damages to Apple for patent infringement.

According to Law 360 (subscription required), on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple’s motion for partial final judgment in the case that Apple lodged against Samsung in 2011 (almost as long as this blog has been around!).  “The court is bound to follow the Federal Circuit’s decree as the law of the case,” Judge Koh said in granting the motion.

The Federal Circuit last month rejected Samsung’s bid to delay implementation of an order that it pay Apple $548 million in damages while Samsung appeals the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.  In a brief order, a three-judge Federal Circuit panel denied Samsung’s motion asking the court to hold off on issuing its mandate while it petitions the high court for a review.  Samsung’s motion argued that a retrial on damages is likely and a stay would be more efficient, but Apple quickly argued that Samsung hadn’t given any reason why the Supreme Court would even agree to hear the case, let alone overturn the Federal Circuit’s ruling.

Apple won several battles with Samsung, including ultimately being awarded over $1 billion in verdicts (ultimately reduced to the current $548 million), as well as a $2 million sanction for the inadvertent disclosure of its outside counsel firm (Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP) commonly known as “patentgate”, but ultimately may have lost the war when the court refused to ban Samsung from selling products that were found to have infringed on Apple products (that is still being disputed in the courts, too).  This case has also had disputes over eDiscovery cost reimbursement and an adverse inference sanction for Samsung for failing to turn off “auto-delete” of emails after the case began.  In other words, this case is a legal blogger’s dream!  :o)

Samsung indicated in a filing on Friday that if Judge Koh entered partial final judgment, it would appeal the decision to the Federal Circuit and its outside counsel said during the hearing that Samsung retains the right to do so.  Apple’s outside counsel referred to a possible appeal as “frivolous” and Judge Koh remarked during the hearing “If you want to file a frivolous appeal, I guess that’s your right”.

In this case, nothing would be surprising, except for the case ending quickly, which it shows no signs of doing.

So, what do you think?  Have you been following Apple v. Samsung?    Will it ever end?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by CloudNine. eDiscovery Daily is made available by CloudNine solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Daily should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.