United States District Court, N.D. California, San Jose Division
ORDER RE DISCOVERY DISPUTE NO. 3 RE ESI CUSTODIANS
AND SEARCH TERMS RE: DKT. NO. 62
VIRGINIA K. DEMARCHI UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.
Plaintiffs
seek an order requiring defendants HCL America, Inc. and HCL
Technologies Ltd. (collectively, “HCL”) to
identify relevant custodians and conduct searches for
responsive electronically stored information
(“ESI”). HCL opposes this request on the ground
that plaintiffs have identified too many custodians and
unreasonably broad search terms. Each side faults the other
for not cooperating in the selection of custodians and search
terms.
As
recounted in their joint discovery dispute submission and
accompanying status report, the parties and the Court have
discussed discovery of ESI custodians on several occasions.
The Court deems the present dispute suitable for resolution
without oral argument. Civ. L.R. 7-1(b).
ESI
Custodians
Plaintiffs
contend that HCL has not identified the individual employees
who are likely to have discoverable information, and as a
result, plaintiffs have been unable to identify all relevant
ESI custodians. Based on the information they have,
plaintiffs have proposed a list of over 30 custodians,
identified by name or by position. Dkt. No. 56-1. HCL
suggests that this list should be limited to seven
custodians.
On
November 25, 2019, pursuant to the parties' stipulation,
the Court ordered HCL to identify individuals who may have
information relevant to this case, as follows:
HCL will produce organizational charts that identify the
senior manager for the Immigration, TAG, WPC, and HR
departments, as well as any other relevant department, those
manager's direct reports, and all executives above the
senior managers in the reporting chain. If organizational
charts are not available, HCL will otherwise identify these
individuals. HCL will produce these materials and/or identify
relevant individuals by December 9, [2019].
Dkt. No. 55 at 3 (emphasis in original).[1] HCL concedes that
it has not fully complied with this order, as it now proposes
to identify the U.S. heads[2] of the Immigration, HR, TAG, WPC, and
HR departments from 2014 forward by January 17,
2020-more than a month after it was required to provide
this information. Dkt. No. 62 at 7. HCL does not explain its
failure to comply with the order. However, it does object
that plaintiffs' list of more 30 potential custodians is
disproportionate to the needs of the case.
The
Court agrees that 30 custodians is an unusually large number
of custodians, but HCL bears significant responsibility for
the length of plaintiffs' custodians list because it
failed to timely provide information that might have
permitted the parties to narrow the list. To resolve this
portion of the parties' dispute, the Court orders as
follows:
1. HCL must identify all the U.S. heads of the Immigration,
HR, TAG, WPC, and HR departments from 2014 forward by
January 9, 2020.
2. Plaintiffs may identify the following custodians whose
records will be searched by HCL for responsive ESI:
a. Any person who was the U.S. head of the Immigration, HR,
TAG, WPC, and HR departments from 2014 forward; and
b. Up to 10 additional individual custodians, identified by
name or position, as to whom plaintiffs have a factual basis
to believe that the custodian has relevant and responsive
information.
3. Absent agreement of the parties, HCL will not be required
to search for responsive ESI in the files of any additional
custodian unless plaintiffs can show specifically that such
additional custodian has relevant ESI and that requiring HCL
to search that custodian's ESI is proportional to the
needs of the case. In evaluating any such further ...