eDiscovery Daily Blog

• October 12, 2018

In Digital Ally, Inc. v. Taser Int’l, Inc., No. 16-cv-2032-CM-TJJ (D. Kan. Sept. 11, 2018), Kansas Magistrate Judge Teresa J. James granted in part and denied in part the defendant’s Motion to Compel ESI Discovery, sustaining in part the plaintiff’s overbreadth and relevance objections to specific defendant ESI Requests by providing a compromised scope between the defendant’s proposed searches (deemed to be overbroad) and the plaintiff’s proposed searches (most of which were deemed to be too narrow).

Case Background

In this patent infringement case, the parties agreed to limit each party’s email production requests to five custodians and to a total of five search terms per custodian per party.  The parties could not come to an agreement on the scope for four of the five search term Requests in Defendant’s Second Set of Requests for E-Mail Production for the plaintiff’s Chief Financial Officer.  The parties subsequently conferred and exchanged proposed revisions to the defendant’s ESI requests. Unable to reach an agreement, the defendant filed the instant motion, to which the plaintiff objected, citing that the terms proposed by the defendant were overbroad.

Judge’s Ruling

In each of the four disputed ESI requests, Judge James sustained the plaintiff’s overbreadth objection, but also rejected or modified the plaintiff suggested term in most cases as too narrow.  Here are the rulings on the four requests:

Request 2:

Defendant proposed:

“Compet!” and (“vievu” or “Safariland” or “watchguard” or “(watch /2 guard)” or “WG” or “ICOP” or “20!” or “vault” or “ivault” or “wireless” or “(wc /2 1000)” or “(wc /2 2000)” or “WMIC” or “MIC” or “extreme” or “TACOM” or “(signal! /2 device)” or “SPPM” or “flex” or “fleet” or “DVM” or “FirstVu” or “microvu” or “vulink” or “FleetVu” or “trigger” or “(auto /2 activat!)” or “strateg!” or “evidenc!” or “hardware” or “software” or “cloud” or “system” or “(law /2 enforcement)” or “military” or “advantage!” or “success!” or “fail!” or “win!” or “los!” or “bid” or “rfp” or “bundl!”)

Plaintiff proposed:

“Compet!” and (“vievu” or “Safariland” or “watchguard” or “(watch /2 guard)” or “WG”)

Judge James ruled: “Defendant’s ESI Request 2 shall be limited insofar as Plaintiff shall not be required to search CFO Heckman’s ESI for the term “Compet!” combined with any of the following other commonly used words: “extreme,” “trigger,” “strateg!,” “evidenc!,” “hardware,” “software” or “cloud” or “system” or “advantage!” or “success!” or “fail!” or “win!” or “los!” or “bid” or “rfp” or “bundl!””

Request 3:

Defendant proposed:

“Invest!” or “shareholder!” or “stock!” or “Roth” or “Gibson” or “Truelock” or “Searle” or “Fortress” or “FIG” or “Palmer” or “Shtein” or “Eriksmith” or “Aegis” or “Lubitz” or “Rockowitz” or “Fidelity”) AND (“acqui!” or “financ!” or “secur!” or “monet!” or “loan!” or “offer!” or “merg!” or “buy” or “sell” or “valuation!” or “patent!” or “licens!”)

Plaintiff proposed:

(“Invest!” or “shareholder!” or “stock!” or “Roth” or “Gibson” or “Truelock” or “Searle” or “Fortress” or “FIG” or “Palmer” or “Shtein” or “Eriksmith” or “Aegis” or “Lubitz” or “Rockowitz” or “Fidelity”) AND (“vulink” or “DVM” or “FirstVu” or “microvu” or “FleetVu”)

Judge James ruled: “The Court finds Plaintiff’s counterproposal is too restrictive of the terms following the “AND” in Request 3. Instead the Court will limit Request 3 to the following search-term combinations:

(“Roth” or “Gibson” or “Truelock” or “Searle” or “Fortress” or “FIG” or “Palmer” or “Shtein” or “Eriksmith” or “Aegis” or “Lubitz” or “Rockowitz” or “Fidelity”) AND (“acqui!” or “financ!” or “secur!” or “monet!” or “loan!” or “offer!” or “merg!” or “buy” or “sell” or “valuation!” or “patent!” or “licens!”).”

Request 4:

Defendant proposed:

(“cam!” or “!cam” or “product” or “vault” or “ivault” or “DVM” or “FirstVu” or “microvu” or “vulink” or “FleetVu” or “trigger” or “(auto /2 activat!)” or “bundl!”) AND (“financ!” or “net” or “revenue!” or “cost!” or “profit!” or “margin!” or “sale!” or “sell!” or “sold” or “royalt!” or “licens!” or “unit!” or “period” or “quarter” or “annual” or “monet!” or “balance” or “income” or “cash!”)

Plaintiff proposed:

“DVM” or “FirstVu” or “microvu” or “vulink” or “FleetVu” or “VuVault” AND (“financ!” or “net” or “revenue!” or “cost!” or “profit!” or “margin!” or “sale!” or “sell!” or “sold” or “unit!” or “period” or “quarter” or “annual” or “monet!” or “balance” or “income” or “cash!”)

Judge James ruled: “The Court sustains Plaintiff’s overbreadth objections to Defendant’s ESI Request 4 for the terms “product” and “bundl!” combined with generic and commonly used finance and business search terms after the “AND.” The Court finds these search-term combinations are overly broad and Plaintiff shall not be required to search its CFO’s ESI using these search-term combinations. The Court rejects Plaintiff’s counterproposal, but modifies Defendant’s ESI Request 4 so that Plaintiff shall not be required to search Heckman’s ESI for the terms “product” or “bundl!” combined with any terms after the “AND.””

Request 5:

Defendant proposed:

“Patent!” AND (“Cam!” or “!Cam” or “(auto /2 activat!)” or “compet!” or “strateg!” or “(auto /2 activat!)” or “auto-activat!” or “automatic-activat!” or “automatically-activat!” or “auto! activat!” or “9,253,452” or “9253452” or “452” or “vulink”)

Plaintiff: Objected to the proposed connector terms “cam!,” “compet!,” and “strategy”, arguing that the “cam!” term would capture any patent about camera, which was far broader than the subject matter of this case and argued the terms “compet!” and “strategy” would return any email mentioning patents and competition or strategy of any type.

Sustaining the plaintiff’s objections that the defendant’s request was overbroad, Judge James ruled: “Defendant’s Request 5 shall be limited to the following search-term combinations:

“Patent!” AND (“(auto /2 activat!)” or “(auto /2 activat!)” or “auto-activat!” or “automatic-activat!” or “automatically-activat!” or “auto! activat!” or “9,253,452” or “9253452” or “452” or “vulink”)”

So, what do you think?  When should courts step in and rule on search term disputes between parties?  Please let us know if any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Case opinion link courtesy of eDiscovery Assistant.

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