Case Blurb: Parkdale; Court examines production of Lotus Notes documents for undue burden

According to the Plaintiffs’ briefs, the disputed emails are presently in LotusNotes format, rather than in a less accessible backup media. Although the Plaintiffs did not offer during the hearing a specific cost projection for converting and searching the subject emails, they contended in their briefs that the cost of producing Mr. Smeak’s emails was no more than $20,000, a fraction of the expense at issue in Zubulake, 217 F.R.D. at 316, where the cost of producing 5 sample disks alone was $19,000. Taking into account the factors listed in Fed. R. Civ. 26(b)(2)(C)(iii), including the amount in controversy ($3 million policy limit less $280,319.00 previously paid to reimburse Plaintiffs for a portion of their costs of defense), the parties’ apparent resources, and the importance of the proposed discovery in resolving critical factual issues, the Plaintiffs have not articulated a sufficient basis to relieve them of the obligation to produce these emails. Accordingly, the Plaintiffs’ objections to producing these documents, as expressed in their briefs and renewed in a modified fashion during the hearing, are overruled.

Parkdale America, LLC v. Travelers Cas. & Surety Co. of Am., 2007 WL 4165247 (W.D.N.C. Nov. 19, 2007)

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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)