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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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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