Judge Takes Control of Electronic Discovery

Assigned to a Senior District Judge, and feeling a bit, well, unsure about the Court fully engaging in your electronic discovery issues? Well, cast your fears aside if you are in Judge Dominic J. Squatrito’s (D. Conn.) courtroom. You see, in the Priceline securities class action, the Judge had to deal with some complex electronic discovery issues, including how to handle 223 "backup tapes containing e-mail data from former employees."

In a detailed order that lays out the electronic discovery plan, and throws around terms like "compression" and "production database servers" with ease, Senior Judge Squatrito held that "Defendants shall produce responsive information contained in stored data files to plaintiffs in TIFF or PDF form with Bates numbering and appropriate confidentiality designations, shall produce searchable metadata databases, and shall maintain the original data itself in native format for the duration of the litigation." He also ruled that "cost-shifting shall be applied for in the method set forth in the proposed revisions to Rule 26(b)(2) and the Committee Note attendant thereto."

For an earlier post about another discovery ruling by Judge Squatrito in the Priceline action, click here.

You can read In re Priceline, issued December 8, 2005, here or at 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33636.
Nugget: "The files on this snapshot are in native format and do not need to be restored, but, because the snapshot is a reproduction of the way files are stored on computer hardware by the computer system, the files are arranged in an essentially random configuration."