Electronic Discovery and Digital Evidence in a Nutshell (Nutshells) by Shira Scheindlin & SEDONA CONFERENCE

Author:Shira Scheindlin & SEDONA CONFERENCE [Scheindlin, Shira]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, pdf
ISBN: 9781634604307
Publisher: West Academic
Published: 2016-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

D. PRODUCTION OF DATABASES

Another type of ESI for which metadata production may be essential for the data to be “reasonably useable” is databases. Aguilar v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 255 F.R.D. 350 (S.D.N.Y. 2008), was a civil rights action alleging a practice by the government of conducting unlawful home searches. Plaintiffs requested production of ICE databases, and ICE responded by offering text-searchable PDF documents. The court started its analysis by observing, “As a general rule of thumb, the more interactive the application, the more important the metadata is to understanding the application’s output. Thus, while metadata may add little to one’s comprehension of a word processing document, it is often critical to understanding a database application.”

The Sedona Conference has developed a detailed commentary on the discovery of databases, organized around six “Database Principles.”

1. Scope of Discovery: Absent a specific showing of need, a requesting party is entitled only to database fields that contain relevant information, and give context to such information, and not to the entire database in which the information resides or the underlying database application or database engine.

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2. Accessibility and Proportionality: Due to differences in the way that information is stored or programmed into a database, not all information in a database may be equally accessible, and parties should therefore apply proportionality to each component of a database to determine the marginal value of the information to the litigation and the marginal cost of collecting and producing it.

3. Use of Test Queries and Pilots: Parties should use objective information, such as that generated from test queries, pilot projects, and interviews with persons with relevant knowledge to ascertain the burden and benefits to collect and produce information stored in databases and to reach consensus on the scope of discovery.

4. Validation: A responding party should use reasonable measures to validate that its collection from the database is both reasonably complete and did not inadvertently modify the ESI.

5. Data Authenticity and Admissibility: The proper validation of collection from a database does not automatically make the substantive information stored in the database authentic, admissible or true. These are separate issues that need to be analyzed by the appropriate decision makers.

6. Form of Production: The way in which a requesting party intends to use database 224

information is an important factor in determining an appropriate format of production.5

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