TX Case Blurb: Honza; Court addresses objection to ‘overly broad’ discovery requests, court order

[Producing Party members] seek a writ of mandamus compelling Respondent, the Honorable Greg Wilhelm, Judge of the County Court at Law No. 1 of Ellis County, to set aside a discovery order requiring the Honzas to permit a forensic expert to create a mirror image of each of the computer hard drives in the Honzas’ office in an effort to locate two particular documents or iterations of those documents…

The Honzas contend that Respondent abused his discretion because: (1) the discovery order is overbroad and authorizes an improper “fishing expedition”;…

The present discovery dispute originated with [Requesting Party's] motion to gain access to the Honzas’ computers, which was filed about one month before trial. By this motion, [Requesting Party] sought “[i]nformation (the ‘Metadata’) contained on the actual computers of the Defendants, such as any time stamps on the Relevant Documents, versions of the Relevant Documents, if any, as well as the deletion of various versions, if any.” [Requesting Party] explained that, although the Honzas responded to a prior request for production of relevant documents in their electronic version, “the Metadata was neither produced nor made available.”

[Ed. Testimony indicated the existence of relevant documents with respect to a another transaction apparently not addressed by earlier discovery requests]

[] [Requesting Party] sought discovery of relevant documents pertaining to the [newly revealed] transaction, and the [Producing Party] complied by providing pertinent written discovery.

[Requesting Party] seeks the metadata from the [Producing Party's] hard drives because it wants to identify the points in time when the partial assignment draft was modified in relation to the diary entry. This goes to the issue of whether [the Producing Party] altered the partial assignment after the parties concluded their agreement but before the document was presented for execution.

[Ed. The opinion then went on to list various Federal and State sources for persuasive authority in discovery law, especially with respect to ESI]

Overbroad Discovery

The [Producing Party] first contend that the discovery order is overbroad and authorizes an improper “fishing expedition.” In this regard, they argue that Respondent improperly “gave blanket approval for [the Requesting Party] to gain total access to [their] computers and all information stored on them, whether or not it has anything to do with this lawsuit.”

Although it is true that Respondent’s order gives A & W’s forensic expert [FN8]complete access to all data stored on the Honzas’ computers, the order provides that the expert is to index all forensic images acquired from the imaging process “for the limited purpose of searching (the ‘Examination Process’) for two documents, previously Bates-labeled as HONZA 00019 and HONZA 00017, which are drafts of “Assignment of Contract” and any iterations (the ‘Relevant Documents’).” The expert must then compile any documents or information which the expert believes responsive and deliver them to the Honzas to determine for themselves which are responsive to A & W’s discovery request and which they choose to withhold, providing a privilege log instead.

In addition to limiting the expert’s search to two specific documents, the order provides that no waiver of privilege or confidentiality occurs if any otherwise privileged or confidential information is observed by A & W’s counsel or representatives during the imaging process, and they are prohibited from using such information other than in compliance with the terms of the order. The forensic expert is likewise prohibited from disclosing any information observed during the imaging process. And finally, the order requires the expert and all party representatives or counsel participating in the imaging process to sign an acknowledgment agreeing that they are subject to contempt of court for any violation of the order.

Any order requiring the imaging of a computer hard drive necessarily grants the expert who is conducting the imaging process access to all data on that hard drive. Here, Respondent specifically limited the expert’s search to two documents; gave the [Producing Party] a “right of first refusal” with regard to determining which documents or information are relevant to those two documents and responsive to [Requesting Party's] discovery request; imposed stringent limitations on inadvertent disclosures to prevent any unintended waiver of confidentiality or privilege; and placed all participants in the imaging process under a carefully drawn protective order.

Therefore, we do not agree with the Honzas’ contention that the discovery order is overbroad.

[Ed. Note that a dissenting opinion is also entered by one of the Judges hearing the case. See the order itself for the full text of that dissent, or of the opinion itself.]

In re Honza, 2007 WL 4591917 (Tex. App. Dec. 28, 2007)

Case Blurb: Ryan; Metadata may be especially relevant in case on backdating

[M]etadata may be especially relevant in a case such as this where the integrity of dates entered facially on documents authorizing the award of stock options is at the heart of the dispute. This relevance is further illustrated by the fact that Maxim’s special committee, as well as Deloitte & Touche, undoubtedly reviewed metadata as part of their investigation into the backdating problems at Maxim. This latter fact also undermines the asserted burdensomeness of producing documents in native file format. Maxim need not produce metadata separately, but the Court does order the production of documents identified in plaintiffs’ July 3rd motion to compel in a format that will permit review of metadata, as plaintiffs have clearly shown a particularized need for the native format of electronic documents with original metadata.

Ryan v. Gifford, 2007 WL 4259557 (Del. Ch. Nov. 30, 2007)(emphasis added)

Case Blurb; Cumis Ins. Co., Inc.; Production of Metadata from Various Systems

[Producing Party's Representative] states that [Producing Party] Cumis stores information in three electronic formats: APEX files, Lotus Notes (email), and Microsoft Office files. She affirmatively states that APEX was “custom created” for use by CUMIS for policy and claims management, and does not generate metadata. Thus, with regard to APEX files, the issue is moot: Defendant cannot produce what does not exist.

With regard to Lotus Notes email messages, [Producing Party's Rep] states that they “contain only a small amount of metadata. This includes the date and time of the creation of the message file, as well as a long string of characters that serves as a unique identifier for each message.” She further states that she has reviewed the screen-shots of the email message produced for Plaintiff, and that “[a]ll metadata pertaining to the individual messages, except for the unique identifier referred to in the above paragraph is visible on these printouts.” Hence, except for an “identifier” that would have no evidentiary value, the relevant metadata (such as date and time of creation) appears in the PDF copy. Were this not the case, there would be value in producing the metadata. However, since the PDF copies contain all the relevant information that Plaintiff would otherwise glean from the metadata, I agree with Defendant that producing the metadata for the emails would be unduly burdensome.

[Producing Party Rep] states that in the ordinary course of business, documents generated by Microsoft Office are kept in paper form. (This is the form which Defendant has produced to Plaintiff). She states further that producing the metadata for these documents would consume substantial resources. The substantive information contained in Microsoft Office documents speaks for itself, and is reflected in the discovery that has already been provided to Plaintiff. Given the admonitions of Williams v. Sprint, Wyeth, and Kentucky Speedway, supra, regarding the relative lack of worth of metadata, and the lack of any showing by Plaintiff that the metadata underlying Microsoft Office documents would be likely to lead to the discovery of relevant evidence, I agree with Defendant that the production of this metadata would be overly burdensome with no corresponding evidentiary value.

Mich. First Credit Union v. Cumis Ins. Society, Inc., 2007 WL 4098213 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 16, 2007)

Case Blurb: Cumis Ins. Society, Inc; Rule 34 and metadata

Although Rule 34 speaks of “data compilations,” it does not explicitly reference or require the production of metadata. The Rule does indicate that a request for electronic discovery may specify the form of production, and that if a particular form is not specified, information must be produced “either in a form or forms in which it is ordinarily maintained, or in a form or forms that are reasonably usable.” Rule 34(b)(ii).

Mich. First Credit Union v. Cumis Ins. Society, Inc., 2007 WL 4098213 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 16, 2007).

Case Blurb: Levi Strauss; Court discusses ‘duty’ to electronically re-produce paper production

Plaintiffs contend that it is “black-letter law” that LS & Co. is obliged to now re-produce its entire [paper] document production in electronic form. However, the cases they cite merely acknowledge the principle that electronically stored information falls within the definition of “document” under Fed.R.Civ.P. 34. See, e.g., Crown Life Ins. Co. v. Craig, 995 F.2d 1376, 1382-83 (7th Cir.1993) (“[T]he Advisory Committee notes to the 1970 amendment of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 make clear that computer data is included in Rule 34’s description of documents.”); Rowe Entertainment, Inc. v. The William Morris Agency, Inc., 205 F.R.D. 421, 428 (S.D.N.Y.2002) (“Electronic documents are no less subject to disclosure than paper records.”); Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Welles, 60 F.Supp.2d 1050, 1053 (S.D.Cal.1999) (“The Court finds that by requesting ‘documents’ under Fed.R.Civ.P. 34, Plaintiff also effectively requested production of information stored in electronic form.”).

LS & Co. has cited some authority (albeit, one case is unpublished) indicating that, under the former version of Fed.R.Civ.P. 34, it was not obliged to produce its documents in electronic and hard copy form. See India Brewing, Inc. v. Miller Brewing Co., 237 F.R.D. 190, 194 (E.D.Wis.2006) (“A party may request information in a specific electronic format, but if it instead simply asks for ‘documents,’ adopting the definition in Rule 34(a), production in electronic format is not required.”); Northern Crossarm Co., Inc. v. Chemical Specialties, Inc., No. 03-C-415-C, 2004 WL 635606 *1 (W.D.Wis., Mar.3, 2004) (“If a party produces its electronic information in a hard copy format that mimics the manner in which that information is stored electronically, then that party has not disobeyed Rule 34.”).

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34, as amended, now allows a party to “specify the form or forms in which electronically stored information is to be produced.”FED.R.CIV.P. 34(b). However, plaintiffs do not seem to contend that those amendments apply here. At any rate, the amended Fed.R.Civ.P. 34 provides that where, as here, “a request does not specify the form or forms for producing electronically stored information,” then “a responding party must produce the information in a form or forms in which it is ordinarily maintained or in a form or forms that are reasonably usable.”FED.R.CIV.P. 34(b)(ii) (emphasis added). Further, unless the parties agree or the court otherwise orders, “a party need not produce the same electronically stored information in more than one form.”FED.R.CIV.P. 34(b)(iii).

Schmidt v. Levi Strauss & Co., 2007 WL 2688467 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 10, 2007) (Do not cite).

Case Blurb: Seroquel; Reason to encourage parties to exchange Evidence in digital form

The goal is to maximize these potential advantages [of digital evidence, such as searchability] while minimizing the potential problems of incompatibility among various computer systems, programs, and data, and minimizing problems with intrusiveness, data integrity, and information overload.
(emphasis in the original)

In re SEROQUEL PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION, 2007 WL 2412946 (M.D. Fla. July 3, 2007).

Craig Ball: ESI does not equal Native Data

Craig Ball writes that electronically stored information is not necessarily native data.

Reviewing the correspondence between the counsel, I spotted the problem. The e-mail was there, but in rich text format. Like many lawyers new to e-discovery, defense counsel regarded electronically stored information and native data as one and the same. They’re not.

The IT department had dutifully located responsive e-mail on the mail server and furnished the messages as RTF, a generic format offering easy access and electronic searchability. Any computer can read RTF, so it’s a reasonable choice. But it’s not the native format.

He goes on to explain that e-mail’s native file is the container file in which the message is stored. At the enterprise level, that might be and MS exchange database (extension = .edb) or a lotus notes database (extension = .nsf). On workstations, the container file will likely be an outlook database (.pst). By the way, an outlook database is merely a modified MS Access database. The messages are just entries in database fields, so the “native format” of a message is something of an exercise in creative deduction.

And because of that, Mr. Ball states:

How, then, do we realize the considerable benefits of native production for e-mail? The answer lies in distinguishing between production of the native container file and production of responsive, non-privileged e-mail in electronically searchable formats that preserve the essential function of the native source, sometimes called quasi-native formats.

I’ve not heard the term “quasi-native,” but it seems a reasonably serviceable name for the concept. The rest of his article discusses the way in which a quasi-native production would work.

Case Summary: Benton v. Dlorah, Inc., 2007 WL 2225946 (D. Kan. Aug. 1, 2007); Court denies motion to compel production of hard drive

In this employment discrimination case, Magistrate Judge Gerald Rushfelt denied defendant’s request to compel the plaintiff to “produce the hard drive of her personal computer for inspection and copying.” In response to defendants’ discovery requests, some of which sought correspondence between plaintiff and defendant National American University or her students at the university, plaintiff produced one e-mail. After defendant informed plaintiff that it believed her responses to the discovery requests were deficient, and after agreeing to supplement those responses, Ms. Benton declared that all e-mails from her students had been deleted, and therefore could not produced. She also resisted producing her hard drive, as requested by defendants.

Defendants argued that Ms. Benton failed to “produce[] any e-mail communications that took place after February 2007,” and that they believe she had been deleting those emails relating to her employment since that date. Defendants contended that because Ms. Benton had admitted to deleting some emails, and because she had only produced one e-mail dated after February 2007, she must have destroyed other relevant documents.

The court disagreed. Defendants were speculating as to the whether plaintiff complied with their discovery requests, and have not met their burden to support their contentions of spoliation. The court refused to assume the plaintiff’s failure to comply. Therefore, the court denied the motion, and any calls for sanctions, without prejudice to any future motion should further discovery show that plaintiff did, in fact, fail to produce responsive documents or had spoliated relevant evidence.

Benton v. Dlorah, Inc., 2007 WL 2225946 (D. Kan. Aug. 1, 2007)

K&L Gates has the full text of the opinion here, as well as their own summary here.

E-Discovery Pitfalls: The tale of the missing attachments

Today Post Process introduces a new series of posts, called “E-Discovery Pitfalls,” that will describe cases in which the e-discovery process went wrong. Today’s installment discusses a case of missing attachments, and the matter is PSEG Power New York, Inc. v. Alberici Constructors, Inc., Slip Copy 1:05-cv-00657-DNH-RFT (N.D.N.Y., Sept. 7, 2007) [pdf file]. A summary can be viewed here.

Law.com has an article which can quickly bring us to the crux:

PSEG Power New York Inc., turned over more than 3,000 e-mails and 211,000 pages of documents to a legal adversary, but a magistrate judge has found that the company still failed to comply with a discovery request.

Magistrate Judge Randolph F. Treece directed PSEG to try again to produce the materials in a coherent form as requested by Alberici Constructors Inc., its adversary in a suit in the Northern District of New York. PSEG must do so at its own expense, despite a plea from the energy company to shift some of the e-discovery costs to Alberici.

The opinion in this large construction-based action opens with the magistrate expressing his understanding of the difficulties posed in this case by electronic discovery:

For nearly six months, the parties and the Court have been grappling with an electronic discovery monstrosity with the hope that it could be corralled and definitively resolved, thereby obviating the need for motion practice. Alas, attempts to resolve the issue in lieu of briefs fell woefully beyond the parties’ grasp and, as the last straw, they have set the matter at our feet for appropriate resolution.

PSEG responded to Alberici’s first document request by producing, over a period of six months, 211,000 pages of hard copy, which Alberici then converted to electronic format (TIF images), and loaded into a litigation database at its own expense. PSEG also produced a disc of e-mails. Alberici had also produced a large amount of document to PSEG. At this point, all is straightforward. PSEG and Alberici each produced their own documents, at their own expense. Each paid for post-production conversion of the other party’s documents as well. Here’s where the tale goes astray. Judge Treece describes the problem:

In January 2007, it became evident to Alberici that PSEG had produced emails without the attachments which were referenced as being a part of the emails. Apparently a technical glitch occurred whereby numerous emails were “divorced” from their attachments caused by limitations in the downloading software. Dkt. No. 51 at p. 1, Ex. F, Pl.’s Lt., dated Feb. 20, 2007. The separation of the emails from the attachments happened at the interface between the different software used by PSEG and the vendor when reducing the documents in a form that could be reviewed by counsel. Id. It appears that the “vendor’s software was not compatible with the HTML format in which PSEG had provided its documents and that this incompatibility had resulted in the parent child link between the emails and attachments being broken.”

We’ve lost the connection between our e-mail messages and their attachments. This means that in responding to discovery requests by Alberici, PSEG failed to produce relevant material. The good news is that the required data exists, and this isn’t a case of evidence destruction. The bad news is that quite a bit of technical expertise will now have to be put to use in order to either 1) re-process the e-mails in a manner that preserves the connection to attachments; or 2) use the existing evidence to (in the court’s words) “re-marry” the two.

Judge Treece tells us what the parties did upon discovering the problem:

Throughout this ordeal, the raw data was not lost. All 750 gigabytes of unfiltered data remained intact in its original format. Dkt. Nos. 54, n.5; 57 at p. 4. Realizing that the underlying data still existed, the next proposal included PSEG sharing with Alberici’s vendor a sample of the metadata for analysis. However, the dearth of metadata related to the emails and attachments rendered this proposal fruitless. Id. In the interim, the parties’ vendors explored other ways to reverse engineer the available data and “re-marry” the attachments to their emails. This exploration was for naught inasmuch as the data necessary to complete this task was destroyed during PSEG’s collection and formatting of the emails. Id.

So, although the “raw data” is still intact, the data resulting from downstream processing is in such a state so as to render the re-connecting of parent email to child attachment impossible. At this stage, I’d like to point out something very important. Changes to data have occurred in the EDD processing (or loading, or ingestion, or whatever you want to call it) phase, rendering that data unuseable for the task at hand. However, there is a reservoir of “raw data” available because of (what one supposes is) correctly collected data. This illustrates the vital importance of a defensible collection process. The opinion here gives no description of how data was collected, because the collection isn’t being challenged. Nevertheless, without that defensible process in place, there would be no acceptable “raw data” reservoir as backup, and the issue might not be late production of attachments in an appropriate form, but destruction of data, a much more serious affair.

After the parties’ attempts to collaborate on solving the problem of the missing attachments failed to produce an accord, the magistrate got involved:

[T]he issues are several-fold: (1) is Alberici entitled to receive the emails with the related attachments together as opposed to their current state of separation, lacking coordinated identification with each other; (2) although PSEG has provided these emails and attachments in hard copy albeit not “married,” is PSEG obligated to provide these documents in their original format; and (3) if re-production is required, which party bears the cost of this production?

Alberici felt as if the e-mails and attachments should be connected in some easily identifiable way. PSEG argued that Alberici “is impermissibly seeking a “perfect” or “ideal” production, regardless of expense or benefit.” Furthermore, “[s]uch a re-do effort would be duplicative and entirely unnecessary in its view.”

PSEG offered its own alternative to solving the problem:

PSEG wants Alberici to identify a concise group of attachments that are important and necessary to Alberici and then it would consider producing said attachments, however, reserving its right to assert that it may be irrelevant or non-responsive or privileged. Dkt. No. 54 at p. 4. Or, if Alberici insists on a re-production, PSEG is willing to provide them but at Alberici’s expense. Id.

So…we’ve already produced the stuff, although not in an optimum state. If you want it produced yet again, you pay for it. How did that go over with his honor? He started off by mentioning the changes to FRCP 34(b):

(ii) if a request does not specify the form or forms for producing electronically stored information, a responding party must produce the information in a form or forms in which it is ordinarily maintained or in a form or forms that are reasonably usable; and (iii) a party need not produce the same electronically stored information in more than one form.

Obviously, the commonsensical purpose of this mandate has always been to prevent massive dumping of documents, without form or direction, thereby
alleviating an incalculable burden upon the requesting party of searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. In this respect, notwithstanding Rule 34(b)’s amendments, (ii) and (iii), PSEG would still have to produce business records as kept in the regular course of business or in such a manner that Alberici could readily find a necessary document or two. It has also been a seminal rule that the responding party would not have to satisfy the requesting party’s whim to have the documents produced in various forms.

The Judge then cuts to the chase:

Clearly these 3000 emails and related attachments were not produced in accordance with this mandate, and, as we now know have caused considerable consternation and agony for both parties, which the revised statute was attempting to avoid. Normally, one would expect that an email and its attachment would have been kept together in the regular course of business, and the production of said documents would have followed suit. Here, the difficulty has been that there was not sufficient identifying information to match attachments with their respective email. We accept Alberici’s proffer that it has spent considerable time employing different methodologies to unearth attachments to correspond with the emails it has found to be pertinent. Attempting to reunite these documents has been nothing short of a donnybrook for Alberici. It has been frustrated if not completely hamstrung in locating these documents. Compounding Alberici’s angst is the disadvantage it has been placed in preparing for depositions. In essence, the first production of emails and attachments has been ineffectual.

The judge then takes a shot at PSEG’s vendor:

We acknowledge that discovery production is rarely perfect or ideal, yet this discovery quagmire created by PSEG’s vendor falls woefully short of comporting with the spirit of Rule 34.

Ultimately the Judge decided that PSEG must take responsibility for the consequences of its own vendor’s misadventures, by denying the request for cost-shifting, and granting Alberici’s motion to compel.

In one project in which I worked, we noticed missing attachments for some e-mails, but not for others. This is different than what happened with PSEG, in that the attachments that the e-mail message indicating should be present didn’t exist. After quite a bit of investigation, we discovered an error in collection, which had been executed by the client’s own IT staff. Remote users (with laptops) would receive e-mails logged in over the web, but woudn’t actually download the attachments unless they requested the document (by clicking on it). So if they never viewed the attachment, it didn’t exist on their system, despite the e-mail’s indication that the attachment should be present. As a result, the data had to be collected yet again. Additionally, some rather extensive data manipulation had to be done to get the originally processed data and the re-collected data to match. Never was very pretty, but at least the issue was discovered before production.

Case Blurb: Lorraine; Authenticating ESI under FRE 901(b)(4) by examining metadata

One way in which electronic evidence may be authenticated under Rule 901(b)(4) is by examining the metadata for the evidence.

DEFINITION: Metadata, commonly described as “data about data,” is defined as “information describing the history, tracking, or management of an electronic document.”

DEFINITION: Appendix F to The Sedona Guidelines: Best Practice Guidelines & Commentary for Managing Information & Records in the Electronic Age defines metadata as “information about a particular data set which describes how, when and by whom it was collected, created, accessed, or modified and how it is formatted (including data demographics such as size, location, storage requirements and media information).”

DEFINITION: Technical Appendix E to the Sedona Guidelines provides an extended description of metadata. It further defines metadata to include “all of the contextual, processing, and use information needed to identify and certify the scope, authenticity, and integrity of active or archival electronic information or records.”

Some examples of metadata for electronic documents include: a file’s name, a file’s location (e.g., directory structure or pathname), file format or file type, file size, file dates (e.g., creation date, date of last data modification, date of last data access, and date of last metadata modification), and file permissions (e.g., who can read the data, who can write to it, who can run it). Some metadata, such as file dates and sizes, can easily be seen by users; other metadata can be hidden or embedded and unavailable to computer users who are not technically adept.

Recently revised Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 permits a party to discover electronically stored information and to identify the form or forms in which it is to be produced.

• A party therefore can request production of electronically stored information in its “native format”, which includes the metadata for the electronic document.
• Because metadata shows the date, time and identity of the creator of an electronic record, as well as all changes made to it, metadata is a distinctive characteristic of all electronic evidence that can be used to authenticate it under Rule 901(b)(4).
• Although specific source code markers that constitute metadata can provide a useful method of authenticating electronically stored evidence, this method is not foolproof because, [a]n unauthorized person may be able to obtain access to an unattended computer.
• Moreover, a document or database located on a networked-computer system can be viewed by persons on the network who may modify it.
• In addition, many network computer systems usually provide for a selected network administrators to override an individual password identification number to gain access when necessary.
• Despite its lack of conclusiveness, however, metadata certainly is a useful tool for authenticating electronic records by use of distinctive characteristics.

Lorraine v. Markel Amer. Ins. Co., 241 F.R.D. 534 (D. Md. 2007).