HELMERT V. BUTTERBALL, LLC
2010 WL 2179180 (E.D. Ark. 2010)
NATURE OF THE CASE: Helmert (Ps) have filed a motion to compel pursuant to Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 37(a) in that Butterball's (D) response to their first set of requests
for production of documents is inadequate because the defendant has refused to conduct a
meaningful search of its electronically stored information.
FACTS: Ps sued D alleging violations of the FLSA and Arkansas law. Ps alleged that they
were not fully compensated for time spent donning, doffing, and sanitizing protective gear
and equipment. Ps filed a motion for collective action under the FLSA and for class
certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The Court granted Ps' motion for
collective action and denied their motion for class certification. Ps served their first set
of requests for production of documents. D produced 800 documents. In addition, it conducted
a search for the phrase 'donning and doffing' in the active and archived email boxes of 22
Butterball custodians--every custodian who had received a litigation hold notice in May
2007. D produced 87 emails. D maintains that 'it has produced all e-mail communications
relevant to the subject matter of these [sic] lawsuit.' Ps note that, on March 9, 2010, they
received three additional email communications relevant to their case that should have been
retrieved in the initial search. P requested that D conduct another ESI search with an
expanded list of eleven additional custodians and 52 additional search terms. D refused and
claimed that the requests were unduly burdensome and 'would not lead to the discovery of any
additional admissible evidence.' D conducted the proposed search on the emails of Gary
Lenaghan, the individual D believed was 'most likely to have additional discoverable
emails.' The search terms returned a total of 11,713 emails from Lenaghan's active and
archived folders. 'It took 2.5 hours simply to retrieve the emails, al-most none of which
related to donning and doffing. Those that did relate to donning and doffing have already
been produced.' Ps made another request for additional e-discovery. D conditioned its
cooperation on Ps narrowing the list of additional custodians and search terms' under two
conditions: the plaintiffs allow Butterball two months to conduct the search, and the
plaintiffs refuse to ask for any further electronic discovery. Numerous meetings occurred
with various solutions proposed but no agreements were reached on these matters of
discovery. Ps filed a motion to compel discovery of information resulting from a search of
70 separate terms from all possible sources of ESI belonging to 43 Butterball custodians
dating back to 2000. D argues that a search of ESI beyond that which the defendant proposes
will be unreasonably duplicative of the information that has already been provided and will
impose a significant burden and expense upon D. D contends that some of the ESI that the
plaintiffs want searched is not reasonably accessible and that the plaintiffs have failed to
meet their burden of showing good cause for conducting a search of that information.
ISSUE:
RULE OF LAW:
HOLDING AND DECISION:
LEGAL ANALYSIS:
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