Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-03257/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-03257-5/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Fed. Question: Tort Action

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

HEE NAM YOU and KYUNG SOON

KIM, for themselves and on behalf of all

others similarly situated

Plaintiffs,

 v.

JAPAN, HIROHITO, AKIHITO

NOBUSKE KISHI, SHINZO ABE, NYK

LINE (NORTH AMERICA), NIPPON

YUSEN KABUSHIKI KAISHA, NISSAN

MOTOR CO., LTD., NISSAN NORTH

AMERICA, INC., TOYOTA MOTOR

CORPORATION, TOYOTA MOTOR

SALES, U.S.A., INC., HITACHI, LTD.,

HITACHI AMERICA, LTD., NIPPON

STEEL & SUMITOMO METAL U.S.A.,

INC., NIPPON STEEL & SUMIMOTO

METAL CORPORATION, MITSUBISHI

CORPORATION (AMERICA),

MITSUBISHI GROUP, MITSUI & CO.

(U.S.A.), INC., MITSUI GROUP,

OKAMOTO INDUSTRIES, INC.,

SANKEI SHIMBUN, CO. LTD., and

DOES 1-1000, inclusive,

Defendants. /

No. C 15-03257 WHA

ORDER RE DEFENDANT

SANKEI SHIMBUN CO., LTD.’S

MOTION FOR ALTERNATIVE

DOCUMENT PRESERVATION

PROCEDURES

INTRODUCTION

In this putative personal injury class action involving claims against numerous

defendants for alleged sexual violence during World War II, one defendant, a newspaper

business, seeks permission to preserve documents by alternative means to the Court’s required

procedures. For the reasons stated below, defendant’s motion is GRANTED.

Case 3:15-cv-03257-WHA Document 31 Filed 09/16/15 Page 1 of 3
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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STATEMENT

Plaintiffs Hee Nam You and Kyung Soon Kim bring claims against numerous politicians

and vehicle manufacturers for their conduct during World War II that allegedly contributed to

sexual violence against them when they were kept as “comfort women” for members of the

Japanese military. Plaintiffs have also named Sankei Shimbun, Co., Ltd., which publishes a

daily newspaper, as a defendant. Sankei is accused of conspiring with one other defendant

Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, in order to make defamatory statements by publishing

articles that posit that plaintiffs were “voluntary prostitutes” (Amd. Compl. ¶¶ 133–157).

Paragraph 4 of this Court’s Supplemental Order to Order Setting Initial Case

Management Conference in Civil Cases provides (Dkt. No. 26):

As soon as a party has notice of this order, however, the party shall

take such affirmative steps as are necessary to preserve evidence

related to the issues presented by the action, including, without

limitation, interdiction of any document-destruction programs and

any ongoing erasures of e-mails, voice mails, and other

electronically-recorded material.

Counsel for Sankei has taken steps to comply with Paragraph 4, and it already retains an

electronic, searchable database of all of its articles back to 1992. One step that it has taken

includes retaining the versions of articles that are placed in a proprietary application used for

laying out each edition of the newspaper. Although that application currently retains a back

catalog of 90 days, retention for longer than that could slow down the system or cause it to crash. 

Sankei notes that it could install a new storage system, but that such installation would cost $18

million and could take up to eight months (Ando Decl. ¶ 27–33)

Sankei has filed an administrative motion for miscellaneous relief pursuant to Civil L.R.

7-11, and seeks permission to employ an alternative method of preserving the documents as used

in the proprietary application, namely by preserving articles only if they contain one of several

relevant search terms. Plaintiffs oppose this request. 

ANALYSIS

Sankei believes that it could preserve all potentially-discoverable documents by

searching the proprietary application, twice a month, for all articles including the term “comfort

women (ian-fu),” and preserving them in a searchable environment not subject to auto-delete. 

Case 3:15-cv-03257-WHA Document 31 Filed 09/16/15 Page 2 of 3
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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Nevertheless, it proposes broadening its process to preserve all articles containing any of the

following terms: “comfort women (ian-fu),” “sex slavery (sei-dorei),” “coercive recruitment

(kyosei renkou),” or “prostitute (baishun-fu).” Sankei has already run several searches using

these terms and found they yielded duplicative results, but it will use the broader search terms

out of an abundance of caution (Ando Decl. ¶ 42). Because this alternative mechanism would

not cease “all ongoing erasures of electronically-recorded material,” but rather only the set of

materials containing the proposed search terms, Sankei seeks court approval of this alternative

document-preservation method.

Plaintiffs argue that Sankei’s proposed solution could lead to the destruction of evidence

of its state of mind in selecting and editing its articles, since the version of articles in the

proprietary application are the only versions that reflect a particular intermediary stage of

bringing those articles to publication. Plaintiffs argue that Sankei’s state of mind could be

relevant to their claims of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. 

Plaintiffs contend that the proposed search terms are insufficient because Sankei has also

used the term “voluntary corps (teishintai)” in articles about comfort women. Plaintiffs do not,

however, argue that articles with that term would not have otherwise been preserved under the

proposed search terms, nor have they identified any other search terms that should be included.

This order finds that Sankei’s proposal, if amended to include the term “voluntary corps

(teishintai),” is sufficiently broad to preserve the versions of articles in the proprietary

application that may be related to the issues in this case.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, Sankei’s proposal, as modified above, is GRANTED.

IT IS SO ORDERED

Dated: September 16, 2015. WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Case 3:15-cv-03257-WHA Document 31 Filed 09/16/15 Page 3 of 3