Court broadly allows a prevailing party to recover its ediscovery costs under 28 U.S.C. §1920

CBT Flint Partners, LLC v. Return Path, Inc., 2009 WL 5159761 (N.D.Ga. Dec. 30, 2009)

After prevailing on a patent infringement claim, the defendant sought the recovery of its attorney’s fees and expenses. One of the items of expense claimed was $243,453.02 paid to an ediscovery vendor that collected, searched, identified and helped to produce electronic documents from the defendant’s network files and hard drives in response to the plaintiff’s discovery requests. The district court in CBT Flint Partners allowed the taxation of those costs in full against the plaintiff.

In several prior blog posts, we noted the wide divergence in the opinions addressing the taxation of ediscovery costs under 28 U.S.C. §1920. In some instances, the outcome turned on the particular subdivision of §1920 that the recovery was sought under, in others the prevailing party failed to demonstrate to the court’s satisfaction that the costs were “necessarily incurred” for use in the case, and in others, the prevailing party failed to adequately support or explain why the ediscovery costs were recoverable under any subdivision of §1920. We also highlighted a split in the circuits over the meaning of “exemplification” as the term is used in §1920(4). However, several of the decisions are difficult to reconcile and perhaps are best explained by how receptive a particular court is to the recovery of these types of costs in post-judgment proceedings. The Supreme Court, in Crawford Fitting Co. v. J. T. Gibbons, Inc., 42 U.S. 437, 441-42 (1987), explained that a district court may not award costs falling outside of §1920’s statutory categories and may decline to award costs even when they fall within those categories. Under that standard, a district court has ample discretion to deny the taxation of ediscovery costs on the losing party.

In CBT Flint Partners, the court noted that the parties agreed that their respective document productions would be made in an electronic format. Thus, it appears those costs were “necessarily incurred” for use in the case. However, the court did not address whether the challenged ediscovery vendor costs fit within any of §1920’s recoverable categories. Rather, the decision appears to be heavily influenced by policy considerations. The district court in CBT Flint Partners concluded “taxation of these costs will encourage litigants to exercise restraint in burdening the opposing party with the huge cost of unlimited demands for electronic discovery.”

The district court did note the division of opinion as to whether these types of costs are recoverable under §1920. It observed that the defendant “asserted – without contradiction – that production in paper form of the 1.4 million documents plus six versions of source code would have cost far more than the fees sought for the e-discovery consultant.” After carefully reviewing the invoices that were submitted to it, the district court ultimately ruled that the services provided were “highly technical in nature,” and “not the type of services that attorneys or paralegals are trained for or are capable of providing.” Thus, the court allowed the taxation of the ediscovery vendor’s costs in full.

Perhaps the lesson to be learned from CBT Flint Partners, is to be careful what you ask for in discovery. The cost of ediscovery in many instances can be staggering and the possible recovery of those costs by a prevailing party is a factor that cannot be ignored when developing and implementing your discovery and litigation strategies. While district court decisions are not precedential, the policy view expressed by the district court in CBT Flint Partners may resonate with other district court judges and will likely raise the price of poker in federal litigation.

Identifying inaccessible sources of ESI just got a little easier

Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(2)(B) explains that a party need not produce electronically stored information (“ESI”) from sources that are not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost. Parties are expected to produce relevant, non-privileged information from sources that are “reasonably accessible” subject to Rule 26(b)(2)(C)’s limitations that apply to all discovery under the federal rules. This “two-tier” approach to ediscovery is easy to recite but can be very difficult to apply in practice. At what point does a source of ESI cross the threshold from reasonable accessibility to inaccessibility under the Rule? Are there sources of information that parties can readily agree are not reasonably accessible? Alas, neither Rule 26(b)(2)(B) nor its accompanying committee note provide any helpful insight. Indeed, the 2006 Advisory Committee Note states “[i]t is not possible to define in a rule the different types of technological features that may affect the burdens and costs of accessing electronically stored information.”

The Report of the Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure (“Standing Committee Report”) which predated the enactment of the 2006 ediscovery amendments to the federal rules provided some insight. The Standing Committee Report did note that the features of an information system that make it burdensome or costly to access ESI can vary from system to system and will change over time. However, it provided several examples of “current technology” that do not generally fit under the rubric of reasonable accessibility. Those examples included “deleted information, information kept on some backup-tape systems for disaster recovery purposes, and legacy data remaining from systems no longer in use.” See THE NEW E-DISCOVERY RULES, Dahlstrom Legal Publishing, Inc. (2006) at p. 15. Unfortunately, that guidance was not carried over into the 2006 Advisory Committee Note to Rule 26(b)(2)(B).

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Rule 26(b)(2)(c)’s proportionality standard triggers protective order

High Voltage Beverages LLC v. The Coca-Cola Company, 2009 WL 2915026 (W.D.N.C. Sept. 8, 2009) [Link to decision via Google Scholar]

Several of our prior blog posts [e.g., here and here] have addressed how Rule 26’s proportionality principles can be used to control a party’s ediscovery costs. As we explained in one of those posts, because Rule 26(b)(2)(c) applies to all discovery requests, its proportionality standard potentially can be applied even to sources of electronic information that are reasonably accessible, so long as the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit. And with the ABA reporting “Electronic discovery should be proportionate to [the] controversy,” we thought today would be a good time to post about a decision that applied Rule 26’s proportionality standard to a source of electronic information that was “reasonably accessible.” Addressing what it characterized as “a novel question,” the court in High Voltage Beverages granted the defendant’s request for a protective order under Rule to 26(b)(2)(c).

After the defendant produced 1.7 million pages of documents, plaintiff demanded that it search for alternative sources of documents relating to defendant’s investigation and selection of its VAULT mark. In response, defendant identified an additional 17 gigabytes (1.5 million pages) of documents from a senior executive which had been retained under litigation holds issued in unrelated lawsuits. Defendant did not object to producing that data, but because defendant believed it produced every document related to the clearance of its VAULT mark, defendant objected to incurring the cost of reviewing the documents. Defendant offered plaintiff the opportunity to key-word search the documents and plaintiff refused. In its request for a protective order, defendant explained that a de novo review of the 17 gigabytes of data would not result in the discovery of any documents that have not already been produced.

The court in High Voltage Beverages accepted the defendant’s representation that it had produced all documents in its possession concerning the VAULT mark and concluded the time and expense of reviewing the documents would be extraordinary. Thus, the court concluded that the burden and expense of the requested discovery outweighed its likely benefit and held the defendant did not have to review the data before producing it to the plaintiff. Therefore, the court denied plaintiff’s motion to compel and granted defendant’s motion for a Rule 26 protective order. It did require that defendant to again extend the opportunity to key-word search the documents prior to their production.

So the moral of the story is do not overlook Rule 26(b)(2)(c) cost-shifting arguments where appropriate. With the growing chorus that ediscovery costs are harming our civil justice system, courts are more likely to favorably consider Rule 26 cost-shifting arguments. Rule 26(b)(2)(c)’s proportionality standard can provide an effective tool to control your ediscovery costs.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Capt Kodak via this Creative Commons license.

Seventh Circuit’s Electronic Discovery Pilot Program

Recently, the Seventh Circuit announced its Electronic Discovery Pilot Program. The program was developed in response to continuing comments by the business community and practicing attorneys about the need to reform the civil pretrial discovery process. It is an attempt to reduce the cost and burden of ediscovery in litigation. What makes the Seventh Circuit’s pilot program unique is that its results will be reviewed and analyzed during the program’s phases.

A series of Principles Relating to the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information (“ESI”) were developed and codified in a standing order. These principles are intended to serve as supplemental procedural ediscovery guidelines for the parties in selected cases. Individual district court, magistrate, and bankruptcy judges in the Seventh Circuit have agreed to adopt the principles and implement them in selected cases during Phase I of the program, which runs through May 1, 2010.

Kenneth J. Winters, the Managing Director of the Sedona Conference®, and former Colorado Supreme Court Judge Rebecca Kourlis, the Executive Director of the Institute for Advancement of the American Legal System (“IAALS”) at the University of Denver, assisted in the development and review of these principles.

IAALS is developing questionnaires to assess the efficacy of the principles. The questionnaires will be completed by the judges and lawyers participating in Phase I of the program. The results of the IAALS’ questionnaires will be presented to the Seventh Circuit at its annual meeting in May, 2010. At that time, the program’s ediscovery principles will be reviewed and refined as needed. Phase II of the program is scheduled to proceed from June, 2010 through May, 2011. It is contemplated that in May, 2011, Phase II findings will be presented and the Seventh Circuit’s final ediscovery principles announced.

Among other things, the principles require in the event of a dispute during the meet and confer process, the appointment of an ediscovery liaison who should be prepared to participate in ediscovery dispute resolution. These principles also recognize that that Rule 26(b)(2)(C)’s proportionality principles should be applied when formulating a discovery plan; provide that sanctions can be imposed for the failure to cooperate and participate in good faith in the meet and confer process; identify categories of ESI, which are generally not discoverable in most cases; and provides that if a party intends to request the preservation or production of these categories of ESI, that such a request be discussed at the parties’ initial meet and confer session or as soon thereafter as practicable.

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Electronic discovery costs recoverable by a prevailing party under 28 U.S.C. §1920

Kellogg Brown & Root, Intern., Inc. v. Altanmia Commercial Mktg. Co. W.L.L., 2009 WL 1457632 (S.D. Tex. May 26, 2009)

In one of our prior posts, we discussed the types of ediscovery costs that a prevailing party can recover under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54. The Kellogg Brown & Root (“KBR”) decision addresses that issue. Much of the ediscovery costs which the prevailing party in KBR sought to recover were incurred either before the opposing party issued its discovery requests or after the court entered summary judgment for the prevailing party. Thus, Kellogg Brown, as the prevailing party, could not demonstrate that those ediscovery costs were “necessarily obtained for use in the case.”

The KBR decision was written by the highly respected Judge Lee Rosenthal, who chairs the Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure. In KBR, Judge Rosenthal comprehensively reviews the relevant decisions which have addressed the recovery of ediscovery costs under 28 U.S.C. §1920, and identifies a “circuit split” on one point directly relevant to the types of costs that may be recovered under §1920(4). Accordingly, KBR is a decision well worth your time to review when addressing the issue of recoverable ediscovery costs.

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Undue burden argument prompts court to shift the cost of reviewing documents to the requesting party subject to a non-waiver order

In re Motor Fuel Temperature Sales Practices Litig., 2009 WL 959493 (D. Kan. April 3, 2009)

In this multi-district litigation, plaintiffs brought claims against the defendants asserting various state law theories because the defendants sold motor fuel at a specific price per gallon without adjusting for temperature expansion. In discovery, plaintiffs sought information concerning the defendants’ activities dating back to 1970. They noted that in 1974, the National Conference on Weights & Measures began considering the issue of temperature adjustments in the retail sale of motor fuel. During this time, the defendants allegedly contributed to industry studies on average fuel temperatures, and lobbied against temperature adjustments. Plaintiffs also claimed that during this time frame, the defendants created documents which acknowledged that when temperatures rise above 60 degrees Fahrenheit, selling motor fuel which has not been temperature adjusted unjustly enriches the seller. Additionally, in the 1990’s, the Canadian government passed legislation permitting the installation of automatic temperature compensation (“ATC”) equipment in retail gas stations.

Defendants initially objected to the plaintiff’s discovery requests about their activities prior to January 1, 2001 on the ground that it was unduly burdensome. The defendants subsequently agreed to provide plaintiffs with responsive, non-privileged pre-2001 documents found in their active files, but resisted searching for pre-2001 data or documents in their archived files.

While the defendants’ undue burden arguments did not convince the court that that the pre-2001 information did not have to be produced, it nonetheless fashioned a remedy attempting to balance the cost of that discovery, given the parties competing interests. While the court never mentioned Rule 26(b)(2)(b) or Fed. R. Evid. 502 in its decision, it essentially allowed the plaintiffs to have a “quick peek” of the requested information subject to a nonwaiver order. The decision provides a good example of the type of factual information that a party needs to provide when making an undue burden argument under Rule 26.

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Fed. R. Civ. P. 1 used to limit Rule 30(b)(6) depositions addressing a party’s email policies and search for responsive emails

Newman v. Borders, Inc., 2009 WL 931545 (D.D.C. April 6, 2009)

In Newman v. Borders, Judge John Fasciola relied upon Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to limit a party’s request for an additional 30(b)(6) deposition sought by the plaintiff in a motion to compel. Newman involved a racial discrimination claim where the discovery costs dwarfed the potential recovery. Thus, in order to bring the discovery dispute to “a just and inexpensive conclusion,” rather than allowing another costly 30(b)(6) deposition requested by the plaintiff, Judge Fasciola ordered the defendant to submit an affidavit from a knowledgeable company representative answering a series of nine questions which he outlined, addressing the issues that were the subject of the motion to compel.

In light of the costs of electronic discovery, given Rule 1’s mandate that the Federal Rules should be interpreted to secure the “inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding,” it should be part of any party’s playbook to control ediscovery costs. Frequently however, it seems that court and counsel lose sight of Rule 1’s approach. Perhaps Newman, and other likeminded decisions will signal the way to control the costs of discovery.

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Costs partially shifted to requesting party that delayed providing keywords

Surplus Source Group, LLC v. Mid America Engine, Inc., No. 08-049, 2009 WL 961207 (E.D. Tex. April 8, 2009)

Defendant Mid America Engine ran a keyword search on its electronically stored information and produced responsive documents to plaintiff Surplus Source Group. After Surplus Source complained about shortcomings in the production, Mid America asked for information from Surplus Source that would help Mid America conduct a second search. Six weeks later, Surplus Source’s lawyer responded by email, outlining the purported deficiencies. Mid America’s in house counsel replied that same day, asking for particular keywords with which to search. More than two weeks after that, Surplus Source provided those keywords. By that time, however, Mid America had already conducted the second search.

Surplus Source moved to compel Mid America to run a third keyword search using the terms Surplus Search had proposed. The court found that the additional discovery was warranted, but ordered Surplus Source to pay for the third search, up to the amount that the second search cost. Mid America would be responsible for the rest.

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What types of electronic discovery costs can a prevailing party recover under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d)?

Fells v. Virginia Dept. of Transp., 2009 WL 866178 (E.D.Va. March 25, 2009)

One of the latest ediscovery issues that courts have begun to struggle over is the nature and extent to which electronic discovery costs are recoverable by a prevailing party under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d). Because the costs of ediscovery in some instances can be staggering, the possible recovery of at least some of these costs has significantly raised the stakes of Rule 54(d) practice for both the prevailing and losing parties in federal court litigation.

In Fells, the district court refused to award costs associated with the initial processing of electronic records, including the expense of metadata extraction and data file conversion. While the district court’s stated rationale for denying these costs can be questioned, it probably reached the right conclusion. The ediscovery costs which the prevailing party sought to recover in Fells related to the first steps taken to create a database that would facilitate discovery. However, the defendant abandoned the database after the plaintiff refused to limit the scope of the data involved. Thus, it is doubtful that the defendant could establish that those costs were “necessarily obtained for use in the case,” which is a prerequisite to recovery. As outlined below, various courts have approved the recovery of certain types of ediscovery costs, but their rulings have only begun to scratch the surface of the relevant issues.

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OCR cost shifting rejected

Proctor & Gamble Co. v. S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 2009 WL 440543 (E.D. Tex., Feb. 19, 2009)

Given today’s economic climate, shifting the costs of electronic discovery is a strategy that should be considered whenever possible. In Proctor & Gamble, the district court rejected the defendant’s attempt to shift the costs of applying optical character recognition (“OCR”) to documents it had agreed to produce in a tagged image file format (“TIFF”). The application of OCR to the TIFF images would make the imaged documents electronically searchable.

While the district court recognized that the application of OCR to the imaged documents was “not absolutely necessary to [the] litigation,” it rejected the defendant’s attempt to shift the cost of OCR processing because the defendant failed to provide any support for its cost estimate, and no valid legal argument to support its claim that the cost burden should be shifted. The defendant advised the court that it did not intend to use the OCR process, and argued that it should not be forced to bear the added OCR expense solely for the plaintiff’s convenience. That argument failed to carry the day in Proctor & Gamble.

Any cost-shifting strategy requires careful advanced planning, and a thorough knowledge of the client’s information systems. While the district court’s ruling in Proctor & Gamble appears relatively straightforward, there are a number of issues that are relevant to any cost-shifting strategy that must be carefully analyzed before a party should even begin to evaluate cost-shifting factors outlined in Zubulake, which was the focus of the district court’s opinion in Proctor & Gamble.

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