Facts
- Venture Corporation Ltd. and Venture Design Services, Inc. sued James P. Barrett in federal court over ownership of patents related to an air monitor/gas scrubber component; Barrett counterclaimed, including fraud and punitive damages theories tied to alleged joint-venture promises.
- After entry of a scheduling order, Barrett served Rule 34 requests for production on Venture.
- The parties met and conferred about production format; Barrett requested that documents be organized and labeled by request, while Venture resisted.
- Venture produced roughly 41,000 pages of documents/ESI via flash drive and email, consisting largely of PDFs and native files.
- The production lacked a custodial index, table, or other organizing information identifying how files related to custodians, business files, or specific requests; it consisted of folders of files without meaningful context.
- Barrett moved to compel, arguing the production failed to comply with Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(E).
Issues
- Whether producing a large volume of unorganized ESI without showing it was kept in the usual course of business, and without organizing and labeling it by request, complies with Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(E)(i).
- Whether providing ESI without features needed for practical use (including searchable text and metadata) satisfies Rule 34(b)(2)(E)(ii)’s “reasonably usable” requirement.
- What corrective production the court may order to remedy a noncompliant Rule 34 production.
Decision
- The court granted Barrett’s motion to compel.
- The court held Venture’s production did not comply with Rule 34(b)(2)(E)(i) because it was neither produced as kept in the ordinary course of business (with sufficient organizational context) nor organized and labeled to correspond to the requests.
- The court held Venture’s production did not comply with Rule 34(b)(2)(E)(ii) because it was not produced in a reasonably usable form.
- The court ordered Venture to:
- Either organize and label documents to correspond to Barrett’s specific requests, or provide custodial and other organizational information sufficient to reflect production as kept in the usual course of business; and
- Produce load files containing searchable text and metadata to make the production reasonably usable.
Legal Principles
- Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(E)(i), a producing party must either produce documents as kept in the ordinary course of business (in a manner that meaningfully reflects that organization) or organize and label them to correspond to the categories in the request.
- A mass production of files without custodial or organizational context may be treated as a prohibited “document dump” rather than a Rule 34-compliant production.
- Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(E)(ii), ESI must be produced in the form ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably usable form; usability can require searchable text and preservation/production of metadata through appropriate load files.
- Courts may order specific technical and organizational remedies to cure noncompliant ESI productions and ensure Rule 34’s requirements are met.
Conclusion
The court required re-production because Venture’s large, context-free ESI production failed Rule 34’s organization and usability requirements; the remedy compelled either request-based labeling or business/custodial organization plus load files with searchable text and metadata.