Case Blurb: Benefirst; Good Cause Analysis-Seventh Factor

[Ed.-The court found that medical claim forms, requested by Plaintiff, would not be reasonably accessible. It then launched into an analysis to determine whether plaintiffs proved that “good cause” existed to compel production notwithstanding the accessibility issue. This blurb is from the analysis of seven factors. These are factors four and five: The likelihood of finding relevant, responsive information that cannot be obtained from other, more easily accessed sources; and Predictions as to the importance and usefulness of the further information;]

The parties resources.

While the Defendant has understandably engaged in a lengthy discussion of the cost of production, neither party has provided the court with any information about their resources. BeneFirst does represent that they no longer have a full time staff and that in order to retrieve the images that they would have to hire temporary help. At the same time, as previously noted, the Plaintiffs have significantly narrowed the breadth of their request and therefore, the time and cost for BeneFirst to produce the requested information should be significantly reduced.

Given the lack of information available to the Court, this factor is neutral.

W.E. Aubuchon Co., Inc. v. BeneFirst, LLC, 245 F.R.D. 38 (D. Mass. 2007)

Case Blurb: Zubulake III; Presumptions and Standards for Cost-Shifting Arguments

Although “the presumption is that the responding party must bear the expense of complying with discovery requests,” requests that run afoul of the Rule 26(b)(2) proportionality test may subject the requesting party to protective orders under Rule 26(c), “including orders conditioning discovery on the requesting party’s payment of the costs of discovery.” A court will order such a cost-shifting protective order only upon motion of the responding party to a discovery request, and “for good cause shown.” Thus, the responding party has the burden of proof on a motion for cost-shifting. Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, 216 F.R.D. 280, 283 (S.D.N.Y. 2003).

In Zubulake I, I considered plaintiff’s request for information contained only on backup tapes and determined that cost-shifting might be appropriate. It is worth emphasizing again that cost-shifting is potentially appropriate only when inaccessible data is sought. When a discovery request seeks accessible data-for example, active on-line or near-line data-it is typically inappropriate to consider cost-shifting. Id.

The seven factor test from Zubulake III was posted here.

Editor’s note: Although the Zubulake decisions were foundations for current e-discovery law, and are referred to more than ever, please keep in mind that they were made before the enactments of the new amendments to the FRCP. Although many of the interpretations laid out by Judge Schindlin in the Zubulake decisions were codified in these amendments, there may be some divergence. Further, statutes numbers may have changed (or they may not have). I encourage you to do your own due diligence with respect to any case blurbs posted on our site, but especially those made before the enactment of the amendments to the FRCP. Thanks.)

Case Blurb: Zubulake I, A Hierarchy of Accessibility based on storage media

Many courts have automatically assumed that an undue burden or expense may arise simply because electronic evidence is involved. This makes no sense. Electronic evidence is frequently cheaper and easier to produce than paper evidence because it can be searched automatically, key words can be run for privilege checks, and the production can be made in electronic form obviating the need for mass photocopying. Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, 217 F.R.D. 309, 318 (S.D.N.Y. 2003).

In fact, whether production of documents is unduly burdensome or expensive turns primarily on whether it is kept in an accessible or inaccessible format (a distinction that corresponds closely to the expense of production). In the world of paper documents, for example, a document is accessible if it is readily available in a usable format and reasonably indexed. Examples of inaccessible paper documents could include (a) documents in storage in a difficult to reach place; (b) documents converted to microfiche and not easily readable; or (c) documents kept haphazardly, with no indexing system, in quantities that make page-by-page searches impracticable. But in the world of electronic data, thanks to search engines, any data that is retained in a machine readable format is typically accessible. Id. (citations omitted).

Whether electronic data is accessible or inaccessible turns largely on the media on which it is stored. Five categories of data, listed in order from most accessible to least accessible, are described in the literature on electronic data storage:

1. Active, online data: “On-line storage is generally provided by magnetic disk. It is used in the very active stages of an electronic records [sic] life-when it is being created or received and processed, as well as when the access frequency is high and the required speed of access is very fast, i.e., milliseconds.” Id. (citations omitted).

2. Near-line data: “This typically consists of a robotic storage device (robotic library) that houses removable media, uses robotic arms to access the media, and uses multiple read/write devices to store and retrieve records. Access speeds can range from as low as milliseconds if the media is already in a read device, up to 10-30 seconds for optical disk technology, and between 20-120 seconds for sequentially searched media, such as magnetic tape.” Id. at 319 (citations omitted).

3. Offline storage/archives: “This is removable optical disk or magnetic tape media, which can be labeled and stored in a shelf or rack. Off-line storage of electronic records is traditionally used for making disaster copies of records and also for records considered ‘archival’ in that their likelihood of retrieval is minimal. Accessibility to off-line media involves manual intervention and is much slower than on-line or near-line storage. Access speed may be minutes, hours, or even days, depending on the access-effectiveness of the storage facility.” The principled difference between nearline data and offline data is that offline data lacks “the coordinated control of an intelligent disk subsystem,” and is, in the lingo, JBOD (“Just a Bunch Of Disks”). Id. (citations omitted).

4. Backup tapes: “A device, like a tape recorder, that reads data from and writes it onto a tape. Tape drives have data capacities of anywhere from a few hundred kilobytes to several gigabytes. Their transfer speeds also vary considerably … The disadvantage of tape drives is that they are sequential-access devices, which means that to read any particular block of data, you need to read all the preceding blocks.” As a result, “[t]he data on a backup tape are not organized for retrieval of individual documents or files [because] … the organization of the data mirrors the computer’s structure, not the human records management structure.” Backup tapes also typically employ some sort of data compression, permitting more data to be stored on each tape, but also making restoration more time-consuming and expensive, especially given the lack of uniform standard governing data compression. Id. (citations omitted).

5. Erased, fragmented or damaged data: “When a file is first created and saved, it is laid down on the [storage media] in contiguous clusters … As files are erased, their clusters are made available again as free space. Eventually, some newly created files become larger than the remaining contiguous free space. These files are then broken up and randomly placed throughout the disk.” Such broken-up files are said to be “fragmented,” and along with damaged and erased data can only be accessed after significant processing. Id. (citations omitted).

Case Blurb: Zubulake I; Initial considerations of cost-shifting

Courts must remember that cost-shifting may effectively end discovery, especially when private parties are engaged in litigation with large corporations. As large companies increasingly move to entirely paper-free environments, the frequent use of cost-shifting will have the effect of crippling discovery in discrimination and retaliation cases. This will both undermine the “strong public policy favor[ing] resolving disputes on their merits,” and may ultimately deter the filing of potentially meritorious claims. Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, 217 F.R.D. 309, 317-18 (S.D.N.Y. 2003) (quoting Pecarsky v. Galaxiworld.com, Inc., 249 F.3d 167, 172 (2d Cir.2001)).

Thus, cost-shifting should be considered only when electronic discovery imposes an “undue burden or expense” on the responding party. The burden or expense of discovery is, in turn, “undue” when it “outweighs its likely benefit, taking into account the needs of the case, the amount in controversy, the parties’ resources, the importance of the issues at stake in the litigation, and the importance of the proposed discovery in resolving the issues.” Id. (citations omitted).

ESI Tests: The Seven Factor Zubalake Test for Cost Shifting

Seven Factor Zubulake (Zubulake I, 217 F.R.D. at 322) Test for the cost of producing data from inaccessible sources (an adaptation of the Rowe Test); factors are listed in descending order of importance:

• The extent to which the request is specifically tailored to discover relevant information;
• The availability of such information from other sources;
• The total costs of production compared to the amount in controversy;
• The total costs of production, compared to the resources available to each party;
• The relative ability of each party to control costs and its incentive to do so;
• The importance of the issues at stake in the litigation; and
• The relative benefits to the parties of obtaining the information.

Application of Seven Factor Test:
The initial question is whether it is appropriate to shift the costs of electronic document production. Quinby v. WESTLB AG, 2006 WL 2597900 (S.D.N.Y. 2006).
When combined, the first two factors are known as the “marginal utility test.” Id. (citing Zubulake III, 216 F.R.D. at 284).
The more likely it is that the backup tape contains information that is relevant to a claim or defense, the fairer it is that the [responding party] search at its own expense. The less likely it is, the more unjust it would be to make the [responding party] search at its own expense. The difference is at the margin.

If the information is available from another source, the marginal utility from the e-discovery is low, and would support cost-shifting. Id.

Application of the first Zubulake factor: The extent to which the request is specifically tailored to discover relevant information.

Π argues that because the court engaged in the “pairing down” process, the document request, as modified by the court, was per se specifically tailored to discover relevant information. The court disagreed. A court may limit the scope of discovery in several ways. Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 26(b)(2) permits the court to limit discovery if the burden or expense of production outweighs its potential benefits, and R. 26(c) permits the issueance of protective orders, including by shifting the costs of unduly burdensome or expensive production. Narrowing a document request pursuant to Rule 26(b)(2) does not preclude the Court from also granting a protective order in the form of cost-shifting for those documents that were ordered to be produced. Id. (citing Zubulake III, 216 F.R.D. at 283).
Even where cost-shifting is granted, the Δ must still pay for the majority of the production b/c of the presumption that the responding party pays for its discovery costs. Id. (citing Wiginton v. CB Richard Ellis, Inc., 229 F.R.D. at 577).
In addition, shifting a share that is too costly may chill the rights of litigants to pursue meritorious claims. Id. (citing Zublake III, 216 F.R.D. 289).

Case Blurb: WESTLB AG; Who bears the cost of production?

There is a presumption “the responding party must bear the expense of complying with discovery requests.” Quinby v. WESTLB AG, 2006 WL 2597900 (S.D.N.Y. 2006) (citing Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 358 (1978)).
Under Rule 26(c), a district court may issue an order protecting the responding party from undue burden or expense by “conditioning discovery on the requesting party’s payment of the costs of discovery.” Id.
Such an order may be granted only on the motion of the responding party and “for good cause shown.” Id. (citing Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 26(c)).
The Responding party has the burden of proof on a motion for cost-shifting. Id. (citing Zubulake I, 217 F.R.D. at 318).

Case Blurb: WestLB AG; Back up tapes an inaccessible format; cost shifting a consideration

[D]ata that is accessible is stored in a readily usable format that does [not?] need to be restored or otherwise manipulated to be usable. Conversely, data that is inaccessible is not readily useable and must be restored to an accessible state before the data is usable. Backup tapes are considered an inaccessible format, and, thus, shifting the costs of producing data from backup tapes may be considered. Quinby v. WESTLB AG, 2006 WL 2597900 (S.D.N.Y. 2006) (citing Zubulake I, 217 F.R.D. at 320).