Every week, the Array team reviews the latest news and analysis about the evolving field of eDiscovery to bring you the topics and trends you need to know. This week’s post covers the period of May 11-17. Here’s what’s happening.
On the EDRM Blog, Michael Berman writes about Skeans v. Atlantic Marine Corps Communities, LLC, a suit in which plaintiffs make several claims about the defendants’ operation of a military housing community. During discovery, the parties entered into a protocol that was limited to the production of electronically stored information (ESI) and “does not apply to the parties’ written responses or withholding of non-ESI materials.”
This explicit distinction, that the ESI Protocol only applies to ESI, would prove beneficial to the plaintiffs. They alleged the defendants gave only generalized privilege objections in response to discovery for all materials and asserted that the failure to provide a timely and specific privilege log waived the defendants’ privilege. In response, the defendants asserted that the ESI Protocol gave them 60 days after final production to submit a privilege log for all materials. However, the plaintiffs replied that the ESI Protocol only applies to ESI. The court agreed, and ordered the defendant to “produce a corresponding privilege log for any materials that are not governed by the Parties’ ESI Protocol” within 21 days.
In retrospect, parties should be mindful of both the specifications of an ESI protocol including the format of data search and production as well as the types of data that the Protocol covers (and the types it excludes) when planning case strategy and timelines.
Other recent eDiscovery news and headlines:
