EDD Native File Production Matter...

Order to Produce Electronic Spreadsheets as Kept in the Ordinary Course Requires Production with Metadata Intact; Spreadsheet Cells to Remain Unlocked : Electronic Discovery Law

"... The Magistrate examined case law and the Federal Rules of Evidence (both current and proposed) and found insufficient guidance as to whether the production of electronically stored information as ordinarily maintained would require production with the metadata intact. The current version of FRCP 34 provides little guidance on when and how electronic documents should be produced. ...

As primary sources were found insufficient, the Magistrate turned to the Sedona Principles for Electronic Document Production and associated Comments. ...

...

Based on these emerging standards, the Court holds that when a party is ordered to produce electronic documents as they are maintained in the ordinary course of business, the producing party should produce the electronic documents with their metadata intact, unless that party timely objects to production of metadata, the parties agree that the metadata should not be produced, or the producing party requests a protective order.

The Court held as follows:

• Spreadsheet metadata is not irrelevant as claimed by Defendant. It is likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence in connection with the claim that Defendant “reworked” pools of employees in order to pass the adverse impact analysis. This alleged reworking might be evidenced by metadata in association with changes. Besides, Defendant should have objected based on relevance rather than unilaterally scrubbing metadata.

• Since Defendant failed to provide any privilege log in connection with metadata that will allegedly reveal privileged information, the privilege has been waived. ..."


I think first sentence in the quote says allot about the current state of EDD, "insufficient guidance."

This ruling is another example of how all the parties involved in EDD are still trying to figure out how it effects the process, what it means and what is the "right" way to do it.

Now think about those trying to write software for this industry...

At least it's not boring! :)