Straightening Out the Form of Production

Magistrate Judge Stanley Boone had to straighten out a form of production dispute in a consumer protection case over curling irons. As the parties in this case learned, sometimes the form of production needs a detangler.

iStock_CurlingHairThe Plaintiffs requested ESI to be produced in native file format or TIFF with associated metadata. The Defendant produced ESI as PDFs. Wilson v. Conair Corp., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57654, 4-5 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 30, 2015).

Judge Boone began his analysis with a summary of the form of production rules under Rule 34:

(E) Producing the Documents or Electronically Stored Information. Unless otherwise stipulated or ordered by the court, these procedures apply to producing documents or electronically stored information:

(i) A party must produce documents as they are kept in the usual course of business or must organize and label them to correspond to the categories in the request;

(ii) If a request does not specify a form for producing electronically stored information, a party must produce it in a form or forms in which it is ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably usable form or forms; and

(iii) A party need not produce the same electronically stored information in more than one form.

Wilson, at *6-7.

The Plaintiff’s request for ESI to be produced in native format was very standard. However, the data requested was produced from a proprietary third-party “STARS” database. Wilson, at *8. The Plaintiffs would not be able to access or review this data as it is ordinarily maintained because of its proprietary nature.

The Defendants produced the proprietary ESI as PDFs. The Plaintiff challenged this static image form of production in favor of TIFFs with metadata. Wilson, at *9. However, the Defendants were willing to produce future ESI as TIFFs. Id.

Excel files were also produced as PDF’s in order to redact information. Id. The Plaintiffs sought the Excel files to be produced in native file format. Id.

The Plaintiffs argued in favor of a TIFF production over PDF because the “format is more efficient, cost effective, and better suited for use inside a database application and it will require additional work to get the data produced in PDF format into a usable state.” Wilson, at *9-10.

The Plaintiffs further demanded the ESI from the STARS database be produced in Excel format. The Defendants ultimately agreed to this production format, but did not explain how the issue of redaction would be addressed in the opinion. Wilson, at *10.

The Court stated, the “Rules do not require a party to produce ESI in the form most helpful to the opposing party.” Wilson, at *10, citing U.S. ex rel. Carter v. Bridgepoint Educ., Inc.,     F.R.D.    , 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26424, 2015 WL 818032, at *15 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 20, 2015). As such, the Court ultimately held that 1) the STARS data could not be produced in its native format; 2) the Defendant would produced additional discovery in TIFF format; and 3) the Defendant would produce associated metadata for its prior production if it had not already done so. Wilson, at *11.

Bow Tie Thoughts

As any good hair stylist can tell you, a good product can help detangle knotted up hair. The same can be said for virtually any of the review applications on the market today. Most pride themselves on being able to review native file format, near-native, and static images such as TIFF and PDF.

I think it is odd to have a fight over which static image to produce. Both TIFF and PDF work well in today’s modern review applications. This was not always the case, as PDFs can be both a native file and static image in older review applications. It has been awhile since I have seen this be an issue in document review. That being said, if a requesting party asks for a specific static image format, I recommend honoring the request.

There are horror stories where producing parties have produced batches of native files as massive PDF’s that are several hundred, or thousand, of pages. In those situations, the requesting party has a very strong argument that the production was not in a reasonably useable form.