Category Archives: Case Law

June 15, 2022 · 12:33 PM

Industry Experts: Proportionality Principles Apply to ESI Preservation and Collection

By John Patzakis

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), parties may discover any non-privileged material that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case. Lawyers that take full advantage of the proportionality rule can greatly reduce cost, time and risk associated with otherwise overbroad eDiscovery production. In a recent webinar, eDiscovery attorney Martin Tully of Redgrave LLP, addressed how to use processes and best practices to operationally attain this goal, particularly in the context of preservation and collection. In addition to being a partner at the Redgrave firm, Tully is currently the chair of the Steering Committee of the Sedona Conference Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production (WG1), providing additional import to his comments on the subject.

During the webinar, Tully noted that the “duty to preserve is directly aligned with what is within the scope of discovery….so if something is not within the scope of discovery – that is its either not relevant or its not proportional to the needs of the case — then there should not be an obligation to preserve it in the first place.” Tully discussed at length the recent case of Raine Grp. v. Reign Capital, (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 22, 2022), which holds that under FRC 26(a), parties “have an affirmative obligation to search for documents which they may use to support their claims or defenses.” In meeting these obligations, the court provided that a producing party may utilize search methodologies, specifically mentioning search terms. Tully explained that the court—in addressing the concept of reasonable, proportional discovery under the Rules – provides that producing parties are obligated to search custodians and locations it identifies on its own as sources for relevant information as part of its obligations under Rule 26, but that such identification and collection efforts should be proportional.

Further to these points, Tully weighed in on overbroad practice of full-disk imaging, noting that it should not be the default practice for eDiscovery collection: “Too often there is a knee jerk approach of ‘let’s just take a forensic image of everything – just because.’” According to Tully, alternative and more targeted search and collection methods were more appropriate for eDiscovery and can better effectuate proportional efforts: “Indexing in-place is key because it doesn’t just preserve in-place and reduce costs, but it can give you insight (into the data) to further justify your decision not to collect it in the first place, or if you need to, you are in much better shape to go back and collect the data in a tailored and focused way.”

Co-presenter Mandi Ross, CEO of Insight Optix also provided keen insight, outlining her typical workflow applying the aforementioned proportionality concepts through custodian and data source ranking and keyword searching performed in an iterative manner to identify key custodians, data sources, and the potentially relevant data itself. To effectuate this, Mandi noted that the enterprise eDiscovery collection and early data assessment process should enable a targeted, remote, and automated search capability, with immediate pre-collection visibility into custodial data.

In fact, both Tully and Ross emphasized in their comments that none of the cost-saving, targeted collection efforts permitted under the Federal Rules can be realized without an operational capability to effectuate them. Ideally, the producing party can employ a defensible, targeted, and iterative search and collection process in-place, prior to collection to effectuate the proportional discovery process approved by the court in this decision. However, without such a capability, the alternative is an expensive, over-collection effort, where the data is searched post collection. Enabling the search iteration and targeted collection upstream brings dramatic cost savings, risk reduction, and other process efficiencies.

A recording of the webinar on proportionality can be accessed here.

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April 13, 2022 · 11:32 AM

Case Law Update: Federal Court Endorses Targeted Search Term Based ESI Collection

By John Patzakis

A recent decision from the Southern District of New York provides that the parties’ have obligations to conduct reasonable searches during discovery, but such searches may be targeted. The court invoked the proportionality concepts within the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which govern the production of Electronically Stored Information (“ESI”). In Raine Grp. v. Reign Capital, (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 22, 2022), the plaintiff, “a merchant bank with over 100 employees,” sued defendant “Reign Capital LLC, a two-person real estate development and management firm, for trademark infringement and unfair competition based on Defendant’s” name. After unsuccessful meet and confer efforts to negotiate an ESI protocol, the Court ruled on two key issues in dispute—the scope of the plaintiff’s search and collection obligations and the formulation of certain search terms.

The court, in its written decision, first articulated a party’s general obligations under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, noting that Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26 and 34 “require parties to conduct a reasonable search for documents that are relevant to the claims and defenses.” The court further noted that under Rule 26(a), “Parties have an affirmative obligation to search for documents which they may use to support their claims or defenses.” In meeting these obligations, the court provided that a producing party may utilize search methodologies, specifically mentioning search terms. The court observed that, “in this instance, the producing party must include and utilize search terms it believes are needed to fulfill its obligations under Rule 26 in addition to considering additional search terms requested by the requesting party.” The court—in addressing the concept of reasonable, proportional discovery under the Rules—continued: “In other words, the producing party must search custodians and locations it identifies on its own as sources for relevant information as part of its obligations under Rules 26 and 34.” Importantly, the court noted that “an ESI protocol and search terms work in tandem with the parties’ obligations under the Federal Rules…”

Additionally, the court advised the plaintiff to search not only the relevant custodians’ direct data sources, but also “other sources of data such as shared drives that are not particular to a specific custodian that should be searched as part of Plaintiffs’ obligations under Rule 26. Plaintiff is expected to conduct a reasonable search of such non-custodian sources likely to have relevant information.” The court here is making an important point about shared network drives, and that the parties have a duty to search them for relevant information. We have previously blogged about the importance of network file shares and how to effectively conduct eDiscovery on those critical data sources.

In regard to the formation of search terms, the court, explained that “[s]earch terms, while helpful, must be carefully crafted. Poorly crafted terms may return thousands of irrelevant documents and increase, rather than minimize the burden of locating relevant and responsive ESI. They also can miss documents containing a word that has the same meaning or that is misspelled.” The court further correctly advised that overly broad search terms “are typically not sufficiently targeted to find relevant documents. Modifiers are often needed to hone in on truly relevant documents.” This decision is very important as the court endorses the concept of utilizing highly targeted search terms and other parameters to defensibly collect and preserve potentially relevant ESI.

Additionally, this decision illustrates the necessity of an iterative, in-place search and collection process. None of the cost-saving, targeted collection efforts outlined by the court can be realized without an operational capability to effectuate them. Ideally, the producing party can employ a defensible, targeted, and iterative search and collection process in place, prior to collection to effectuate the proportional discovery process approved by the court in this decision. However, without such a capability, the alternative is an expensive, over-collection effort, where the data is searched post collection. Enabling the search iteration and targeted collection upstream brings dramatic cost savings, risk reduction, and other process efficiencies.

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February 15, 2022 · 11:13 AM

How X1 Social Discovery Uniquely Meets the Challenge of Social Media Evidence Collection

By John Patzakis

Social media and other web-based data is relevant to nearly every legal case and investigation. The high volume of relevant social media evidence means that lawyers are under an ethical duty of competence to address and account for it in their litigation and compliance matters. For this reason, there has been a strong demand for social media evidence collection software and services. However, Facebook, the most widely used social media platform, rolled out a completely new interface and data format last year for all of their 2.4 billion users. This broke every social media evidence tool on the market, causing a major disruption of eDiscovery and compliance workflows. In response to this major technical disruption, all other social media evidence collection tools either exited the market, changed their model to services, or provided flat file screen shots as their output…except for X1 Social Discovery.

X1 put in the work and R&D investment, so that its users would have post-level collection and parsing to ensure accuracy, key metadata collection, court authentication, and evidentiary completeness of the collected data. Nothing short of those capabilities are acceptable.

Flat file screen shots of social media are of limited value, as what they generally entail is a screenshot image file without metadata, other than what is visible on the image itself. This is problematic as there are many important but hidden metadata fields associated with social media posts that need to be parsed and populated into the appropriate fields associated with the post. Also, flat images do not enable effective text extraction, and it is impossible to cull, process, display, and apply analytics to flat file outputs in attorney review platforms such as Relativity. Associated comments to a post are not collected, or at best are truncated and not displayed in line.

Conversely, post-level native collection of social media is ideal, because it enables the collection of the social media post as a parent item with all associated metadata and comments preserved and displayed inline. This will enable the automated generation of robust load files that include date stamps and other key metadata, extracted text for searching, family post identification and associated comments. Additionally, post-level hash values can be readily generated at the point of collection for evidentiary authentication. All this enables a very fluid and scalable workflow that dramatically reduces downstream processing and review platform upload costs.

The importance of this distinction was clearly underscored by the court’s decision in Edwards v. Junior State of America Foundation, No. 4:19-CV-140-SDJ, (US Dist. CT, E.D. Texas April 23, 2021), which applied the best evidence rule to social media evidence. The plaintiffs’ had sought to offer screenshots as evidence of the Facebook communications instead of the deleted native files. The court ruled that the metadata and full context of the native files were essential to satisfy the Best Evidence Rule. The court held that screenshots were not an output that accurately reflected the substance and context of the native file, since they could not show that the messages were authentic, nor could they “be used to prove that (the Plaintiff) sent the Facebook Messages contained in the screenshots.” Failure to produce the native files prejudiced the Defendants “of the ability to substantiate or refute the authenticity of the alleged Messages.” In a key passage the court states:

Here, the screenshots will not suffice as an “original” because the screenshots are not an “output” that “accurately” reflect the information. Only native files can ensure authenticity. Additionally, although the Best Evidence Rule allows for an original “photograph” to prove the contents of the photograph, this does not mean that the screenshot here can be used to prove that Harper sent the Facebook Messages contained in the screenshots.

Edwards demonstrates that the collection and preservation of full native social media posts is vital to both that evidence’s authentication and obtaining the full context and substance of the posts under the Best Evidence Rule. The court found that screenshots, which truncate social media posts and omit key metadata, do not suffice. As a result, attorneys should be aware that courts are unlikely to find that screenshots alone are sufficient to authenticate a social media post and will likely insist on the native files.

X1 Social Discovery is the only eDiscovery solution to provide post-level parsing for Facebook timeline posts in the new Facebook format, as well as for Twitter feeds. To learn more about this important functionality, please contact us for more information.

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November 30, 2021 · 10:47 AM

Case Law Update: Social Media Screenshots Held Inadmissible Under the Best Evidence Rule

By John Patzakis

The most important case of 2021 so far concerning social media evidence is arguably Edwards v. Junior State of America Foundation, No. 4:19-CV-140-SDJ, (US Dist. CT, E.D. Texas April 23, 2021). We blogged about this case earlier this year, with a focus on the spoliation issues and important positive mention of X1 Social Discovery in the court opinion, but the unique application of the best evidence rule to social media evidence is also a critical component of the ruling, and should be highlighted further as it is a very important development.

Edwards is a civil litigation matter involving the intentional destruction (spoliation) of social media evidence. The plaintiff had deleted his Facebook account resulting in lost evidence critical to the case. The court cited an affidavit submitted by an eDiscovery expert witness who noted that when X1 Social Discovery was used to collect from the Plaintiff’s Facebook account, key evidence that existed prior to the litigation was missing because it had been deleted by the Plaintiff prior to the X1 Social Discovery collection.

As a result of the spoliation established in large part by the X1 Social Discovery examination, the Court imposed severe evidentiary sanctions on the plaintiff, including the exclusion of evidence and claims related to the destroyed Facebook data, and adverse jury instructions. 

The plaintiffs’ had sought to offer screenshots as evidence of the Facebook communications instead of the deleted native files. The court ruled that the metadata and full context of the native files were essential to satisfy the Best Evidence Rule. The court held that screenshots were not an output that accurately reflected the substance and context of the native file, since they could not show that the messages were authentic, nor could they “be used to prove that Harper sent the Facebook Messages contained in the screenshots.” Failure to produce the native files prejudiced JSA, in part, because it deprived Defendants “of the ability to substantiate or refute the authenticity of the alleged Messages.” In a key passage the court states:

Here, the screenshots will not suffice as an “original” because the screenshots are not an “output” that “accurately” reflect the information. Only native files can ensure authenticity. Additionally, although the Best Evidence Rule allows for an original “photograph” to prove the contents of the photograph, this does not mean that the screenshot here can be used to prove that Harper sent the Facebook Messages contained in the screenshots.

Edwards demonstrates that the collection and preservation of full native social media posts is vital to both that evidence’s authentication and obtaining the full context and substance of the posts under the Best Evidence Rule. The court found that screenshots, which truncate social media posts and omit key metadata, do not suffice. As a result, attorneys should be aware that courts are unlikely to find that screenshots alone are sufficient to authenticate a social media post and will likely insist on the native files. To ensure this data is collected defensibly, attorneys should work with best practices software and methods to preserve and collect social media evidence and underlying metadata so that they can be properly authenticated and admitted in court.

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July 14, 2021 · 12:54 PM

Pre-Collection Keyword Searches: Where Angels May Fear to Tread but Not Attorneys with the Right eDiscovery Software

By John Patzakis

One of the key cases involving the principles of proportionality under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), is McMaster v. Kohl’s Dep’t Stores, Inc., (E.D. Mich. July 24, (2020).  McMaster generally supports the application of a process that effectively applies proportionality on an operational basis through an iterative exercise to identify relevant custodians, their data sources, applicable date ranges, file types and agreed upon keywords. Such a targeted, automated and proportional collection process can be applied to collect only the data that is responsive to this specific criteria.

However, the main ESI dispute in McMaster was that the attorneys could not agree on a list of search terms and sought a ruling of the courts to decide on which search terms should be used. As noted by the Magistrate Judge in McMaster, “Here is another case in which the Court is called upon to decide whose competing list of search terms is better suited for the search of large amounts of electronically stored information”, citing United States v. O’Keefe, 537 F. Supp. 2d 14, 23–24 (D.D.C. 2008), which stated: “for lawyers and judges to dare opine that a certain search term or terms would be more likely to produce information than the terms that were used is truly to go where angels fear to tread.”  Judge Whalen stated: “I, for one, have no interest in going where angels fear to tread. Therefore, if the parties cannot agree on appropriately limited search terms, they will share the cost of retaining an expert to assist them. If they still cannot agree, then Plaintiff may renew his motion regarding the search terms and will provide the Court with an expert report substantiating his position.”

The parties had been engaged in a Rule 26(f) exercise, which requires the parties’ counsel to “meet and confer” in advance of the pre-trial scheduling conference on key discovery matters, including the preservation, disclosure and exchange of potentially relevant electronically stored information (ESI). A very good authority on the Rule 26(f) eDiscovery conference is the “Suggested Protocol for Discovery of Electronically Stored Information,” provided by then Magistrate Judge Paul W. Grimm and his joint bar-court committee. Under Section 8 of the Model Protocol, the topics to be discussed at the Rule 26(f) conference include: “Search methodologies for retrieving or reviewing ESI such as identification of the systems to be searched;” “the use of key word searches, with an agreement on the words or terms to be searched;” “limitations on the time frame of ESI to be searched;” and “limitations on the fields or document types to be searched.”

Kelly Twigger, one of the best and brightest eDiscovery attorneys in the field in my opinion, commented in a recent webinar that eDiscovery collection capabilities that enable an iterative search and collection process in place would allow her to make more much informed decisions on keyword strategies. Twigger noted that software that provides keyword hits and other analytics on custodian laptops, fileservers and other network and cloud sources prior to collection, would enable her “to be able to define and agree upon the right search terms” with the requesting party. Twigger pointed out that while attorneys and judges rightfully avoid “where angels fear to tread” — agreeing on keywords without any visibility into the data — that concern can be alleviated when the right processes and technology are used.  

And such technology is important, because optimizing the process of developing keyword searches is no easy task. The typical approach of blindly brainstorming a list of terms that may be relevant and running the search on a dataset to be reviewed results in a wide range of inefficiencies. Negotiations over proper usage of search terms may become onerous and contentious. Judges are often tasked with making determinations regarding the aptness of the methodology, and, as we see in McMaster, are very reluctant to do so. Thus, the use of outside expertise and leveraging indexing in place technology is beneficial in building an effective and comprehensive pre-collection search term strategy and enabling you to tread where angels fear to.

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