Magistrate Judge Declines to Compel Plaintiff to Categorically Organize Documents that were Produced as Kept in the Usual Course of Business

Valeo Elec. Sys., Inc. v. Cleveland Die & Mfg. Co., 2009 WL 1803216 (E.D. Mich. June 17, 2009)

In response to defendant’s requests for production, plaintiff produced over 270,000 pages of emails and other electronically stored information (“ESI”) as they were kept in the usual course of business. Plaintiff also produced two indices which identified the custodian for each bates range, the location the file was stored, document titles and “re:” lines of emails, and additional information regarding the creation and storage of the information produced. Defendant argued that despite the information provided, it nonetheless had to open and review each file individually and alleged that plaintiff named the files “innocuously” in order to frustrate its review. Discussing the relevant burden to a party producing its files as maintained in the usual course of business, the court found plaintiff had satisfied its burden under Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 and the parties’ agreement and denied defendant’s motion to compel plaintiff to organize the data into 28 specific categories.

In its analysis of the issue, the magistrate first established a party’s ability to produce documents as maintained in the usual course of business under Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(E)(i) and then turned to the burden of that party to establish its compliance with the rule:

A party demonstrates that it has produced documents in the usual course by revealing information about where the documents were maintained, who maintained them, and whether the documents came from one single source or file or from multiple sources or files. See Nolan, LLC v. TDC Int'l Corp., No. 06-CV-14907-DT, 2007 WL 3408584, at *2 (E.D.Mich.2007) (Majzoub, Magistrate Judge). A party produces emails in the usual course when it arranges the responsive emails by custodian, in chronological order and with attachments, if any. MGP Ingredients, Inc. v. Mars, Inc., No. 06-2318-JWL-DJW, 2007 WL 3010343, at *2 (D.Kan.2007). For non-email ESI, a party must produce the files by custodian and by the file's location on the hard drive--directory, subdirectory, and file name. Id.

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Source: ediscoverylaw.com