## Facts

- Two related employers sponsored and administered ERISA-governed employee medical benefit plans.
- The plans hired a third-party administrator to process medical claims and determine eligibility.
- Medical providers submitted paper claim forms that were later scanned; original paper forms were destroyed after a retention period.
- Plaintiffs sought production of medical-claim files to support allegations of claims mishandling and resulting damages.
- The court granted a motion to compel production of claims files.
- The administrator asserted that full retrieval would require extensive labor and expense, and plaintiffs narrowed the request to a smaller subset of claim forms.
- The administrator moved for reconsideration, arguing the electronically stored claims data was “not reasonably accessible” due to undue burden or cost under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(2)(B).

## Issues

1. Whether the administrator showed that the requested electronically stored claims data was “not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost” under Rule 26(b)(2)(B).
2. If the data was not reasonably accessible, whether plaintiffs established good cause to order production anyway.
3. Whether the court should shift some or all production costs to plaintiffs.

## Decision

- The court denied the motion for reconsideration and reaffirmed the prior order compelling production.
- The court held the administrator failed to establish that the claims ESI was not reasonably accessible within Rule 26(b)(2)(B).
- The court concluded that, even considering the asserted burden, the claims files were central to the case and not reasonably obtainable elsewhere, supporting compelled production.
- The court declined to shift costs and required the administrator to bear the costs of producing the requested claims data.
- The court found no basis for reconsideration because the administrator did not show new evidence, an intervening change in law, or clear error/manifest injustice.

## Legal Principles

- Under Rule 26(b)(2)(B), a producing party resisting ESI discovery must show the ESI is “not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost.”
- Expense and time to retrieve ESI do not, by themselves, establish “not reasonably accessible” when the data is maintained as part of ordinary business systems and remains technically retrievable.
- Even where ESI is difficult to access, a court may order production upon a showing of good cause, considering the importance of the information and the ability to obtain it from other sources.
- The default rule is that the producing party bears its own discovery costs; cost shifting is generally reserved for limited situations, such as truly inaccessible sources, and depends on proportionality and the circumstances.

## Conclusion

The court enforced discovery of electronically stored medical claims records because the administrator did not meet its burden to show the data was not reasonably accessible, and the records were essential to proving alleged ERISA plan misadministration; production was ordered without cost shifting.


W.E. Aubuchon Co. v. BeneFirst, LLC, 245 F.R.D. 38 (D. Mass. 2007)