Court Rejects Over-Broad Document Request by Defendant

Why This Alert Is Important

This ruling emphasizes the necessity for defendants to carefully craft document requests with a clear focus on relevance and specificity, which is crucial for legal professionals managing discovery.

Overview

In a recent decision by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Ohio, the court refused to compel a plaintiff to produce "all documents" that matched certain keywords selected unilaterally by the defendant. Plaintiff had sued defendant for infringing on patents relating to crossbow designs.

The discovery dispute revolved around the defendant's broad request for documents based on generic keywords, requesting “all documents, things and [ESI] having any of the following [38] keywords, including any misspellings” relating to parts of crossbows, plaintiff’s intellectual property, and other inventors in the technology space. The plaintiff argued that the request was too expansive, lacking focus on the issues pertinent to the case. The court agreed, underscoring the need for narrowly tailored keyword searches that directly relate to the case's core issues. 
 

Ruling Summary

• Over-broad Requests: The court determined that the defendant’s sweeping request for ""all documents"" containing certain keywords was excessively broad and burdensome. This type of request could potentially lead to the retrieval of a vast amount of irrelevant information, creating unnecessary work for the opposing party and the court. Overly broad requests can be identified because they “[seek] irrelevant information, [lack] sufficient limitations, or otherwise [seek] information that is not ‘proportional to the needs of the case.
• Narrow Tailoring Requirement: Citing the Sedona Conference, the ruling noted keyword searches “tendency… to produce results that are both overbroad and underinclusive.” The ruling underscored the critical need for narrowly tailored keyword searches when making discovery requests. This approach helps ensure that the retrieved documents are both relevant to the case and proportionate to the needs of the litigation, thereby maintaining efficiency and reducing undue burden on involved parties.
• Cooperation Critical for Good Keyword Searches: The ruling found that cooperation between the plaintiff and defendant was “non-existent” in this case, despite the fact that the most effective keyword  searches “are the product of a cooperative effort between counsel” who “carefully craft the appropriate keywords, with input from the ESI’s custodians [and] quality-control tested to assure accuracy in retrieval and elimination of false positives.” Defendant also produced no testing to show that the keywords would be effective search terms. 

Case Law Tip

Remember that FRCP Rule 34 requires both e-discovery motions and objections to be specific. Generic boilerplate templates might not get you the information you want—and might not be acceptable to the courts. Get up to speed on the FRCP with Exterro’s Layman’s Guide to the FRCP.