Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_17-cv-00555/USCOURTS-casd-3_17-cv-00555-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

PACIFIC MARINE PROPELLERS, 

INC.,

Plaintiff,

v.

WARTSILA DEFENSE, INC., BRYAN 

RUTTER, BOBBY HENINGER, 

Defendants.

Case No.: 17cv555 BEN (NLS)

ORDER:

(1)GRANTING IN PART AND

DENYING IN PART JOINT 

MOTION FOR 

DETERMINATION OF 

DISCOVERY DISPUTE 1

(2)GRANTING IN PART AND 

DENYING IN PART JOINT 

MOTION FOR 

DETERMINATION OF 

DISCOVERY DISPUTE 2

[ECF Nos. 23 and 24]

Before the Court are two joint motions for determination of discovery disputes. 

Having reviewed the briefing submitted and for the reasons set forth below, the Joint 

Motion for Determination of Discovery Dispute 1 is GRANTED IN PART and 

DENIED IN PART and the Joint Motion for Determination of Discovery Dispute 2 is

GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.

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I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Pacific Marine Propellers, Inc. (“Plaintiff” or “PMP”) and Defendant 

Wartsila Defense, Inc. (“Wartsila”) both are in the business of repairing marine 

propellers. ECF No. 19 ¶¶ 6, 8. In its amended complaint, Plaintiff presents seven 

claims related to Wartsila’s entry into the San Diego marine propeller repair market and 

its actions in competing for government contracts and subcontracts. 

Specifically, Plaintiff alleges that in April 2014, Wartsila contacted Plaintiff and 

expressed interest in buying all of the assets of Plaintiff, as well as those of its sister 

corporation in common ownership, North Star Propellers, Inc. Id. ¶ 9. To further sales 

discussions, Plaintiff’s and Wartsila’s presidents entered into a confidentiality agreement. 

Id. ¶ 10. Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, Plaintiff shared confidential and 

proprietary information (such as customer lists, production costs, labor rates, etc.) with 

Wartsila so that it could evaluate the prospective purchase of Plaintiff’s assets. Id. ¶¶ 10-

11.

At the same time it entered into the confidentiality agreement with Plaintiff, 

Wartsila began competing with Plaintiff for jobs repairing large marine propellers in San 

Diego. Id. ¶ 23. Plaintiff contends that Wartsila engaged in sham purchase negotiations 

with Plaintiff in order to obtain its competitor’s data, with the ultimate goal of driving 

down the market value of Plaintiff and/or otherwise putting Plaintiff out of business. Id.

¶ 25. In so doing, Plaintiff alleges that Wartsila illegally underbid multiple marine 

propeller repair jobs. Id. ¶¶ 29-43. 

The problem underlying both of the instant discovery disputes is that Plaintiff is a 

small, local company, which lacks the financial resources to expend thousands of dollars 

on the discovery process. ECF No. 23 at 5. Wartsila, on the other hand, is described as a

$5.5 billion dollar, international corporation. Id. 

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II. DISCOVERY DISPUTE 1

Discovery Dispute 1 addresses Plaintiff’s Demand for Production of Documents, 

Set Nos. One and Two. Plaintiff raises four issues with respect to Wartsila’s responses to 

these demands and accompanying document productions. First, Plaintiff objects to 

Wartsila producing documents on a rolling basis without specifying an end date for the 

production. Id. at 3. Second, Plaintiff contends there are three issues with Wartsila’s 

chosen format for producing electronically stored information (“ESI”)—namely, that it is 

unreasonably inaccessible to Plaintiff, unreasonably burdensome, and disorganized. Id.

at 4. Third, Plaintiff argues that Wartsila made improper general objections, which 

should be waived. Id. at 7. Finally, Plaintiff contends that Wartsila should be ordered to 

produce a privilege log. Id.

a. Wartsila’s Rolling Production

Plaintiff asserts that Wartsila has failed to comply with Rule 34 of the Federal 

Rules of Civil Procedure by producing documents on a rolling basis without identifying 

the beginning or end dates of the production. Id. at 3. Rule 34 provides that if the 

responding party intends to produce electronically stored information instead of allowing 

inspection, “[t]he production must then be completed no later than the time for inspection 

specified in the request or another reasonable time specified in the response.” Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(B). The 2015 Advisory Committee Notes following Rule 34 further 

clarify that “[w]hen it is necessary to make the production in stages the response should 

specify the beginning and end dates of the production.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 advisory 

committee notes (2015 Amendment). Here, Wartsila stated in its responses to both sets 

of document demands that it would produce documents on a rolling basis, but did not 

indicate when the production would begin or end. ECF No. 23-3 ¶ 11. During the 

subsequent meet and confer session, which took place on September 1, 2017, Wartsila’s 

counsel advised that the first production would occur by September 8, 2017. ECF No. 

23-2 ¶ 3. The first production of nearly 5,000 pages did, ultimately, occur on that date, 

and was followed by a second production on September 28, 2017. Id. ¶ 4. Thus, the 

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issue of when production will begin is now moot. 

Plaintiff is correct, though, that Wartsila must provide an anticipated end date for 

production so that Plaintiff may plan its discovery accordingly. In its briefing for this 

motion, Wartsila indicated that it anticipated producing a third volume of documents by 

October 13, 2017, “with a goal of having its assessment and review of the remainder of 

the review set substantially completed by Monday, October 23, 2017.” ECF No. 23 at 

10-11. Given that the review set Wartsila has identified consists of over 76,000 records 

and 30 GB of data (Id. at 10), this time frame is reasonable. Wartsila represents that it 

engaged a document review team to expedite the review, and thus is taking steps to 

comply in a prompt manner. In order to ensure that Wartsila complies with its 

obligations, and to provide Plaintiff with a date certain, the Court hereby ORDERS

Wartsila to complete its production of documents in response to Plaintiff’s Demand for 

Production of Documents, Set Nos. One and Two by October 27, 2017. 

b. Format of ESI Production

Plaintiff next takes issue with the format in which Wartsila has chosen to produce 

its documents. Though Plaintiff admits that it did not request in its document demands 

that ESI be produced in a certain format, counsel for Plaintiff submits that she informed 

Wartsila’s counsel during the September 1, 2017 meet and confer that Plaintiff wanted 

documents produced in OCR searchable PDF format. ECF No. 23 at 4-5. Instead, 

Wartsila produced documents in the form of TIFF images (.tif) with Concordance/

Opticon (.dat/.opt) data load files and extracted text (.txt) files, with Excel spreadsheets 

being produced as native files (.xls, .xlsx).1

 Id. at 11. 

While the parties’ briefing focuses on disputing the accessibility, cost, and 

organization of Wartsila’s production format, the Court finds that determination of this 

issue turns on Wartsila’s failure to produce in the format requested by Plaintiff. Rule 34 

 

1 For the ease of discussion, the Court will refer to these production specifications as the “Concordance 

format.”

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provides that the request “may specify the form or forms in which electronically stored 

information is to be produced.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 (b)(1)(C). Where, as here, the 

requesting party does not specify in its request what form should be used, the responding 

party “must state [in its response] the form or forms it intends to use.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 

(b)(2)(D). The purpose of this requirement to state the intended form before actually 

producing documents is to give the parties the opportunity to meet and confer to “seek to 

resolve disputes before the expense and work of the production occurs.” Rule 34 

advisory committee notes (2006 Amendment). 

Here, the parties met and conferred seven days before Wartsila’s first production 

and Plaintiff’s counsel stated at that time that she wanted the documents produced as 

OCR searchable PDF files. Wartsila does not state in its briefing why it did not want to 

produce documents in that format or make any argument as to why it should not be 

required to, other than that it now already has produced documents in the Concordance 

format. However, the fact that Wartsila subsequently offered to re-produce documents in 

PDF format, and that it states doing so would involve only a “marginal” cost, belies any 

argument that doing so would have been unduly burdensome or expensive in the first 

instance. Indeed, while Wartsila argues that its production is appropriate because it 

produced ESI in a readily-usable form, “the option to produce in a reasonably usable 

form does not mean that a responding party is free to convert electronically stored 

information from the form in which it is ordinarily maintained to a different form that 

makes it more difficult or burdensome for the requesting party to use the information 

efficiently in the litigation.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b) advisory committee note (2006 

amendment). While Concordance format may be reasonably usable for some, Plaintiff’s 

counsel makes clear that it is unduly burdensome and expensive for her client. Because 

Wartsila should have produced the documents initially as requested by Plaintiff, the 

Court ORDERS Wartsila to re-produce any documents it has produced to date as OCR 

searchable PDF files and incur the cost of doing so. This re-production shall be 

completed on or before October 27, 2017.

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Plaintiff’s final objection to the form of Wartsila’s production is that it is 

unorganized. ECF No. 23 at 5. Because Plaintiff has been unable to open the TIFF 

images within a document review program that can accommodate load files, Plaintiff is 

unable to determine whether the documents were produced “as they are kept in the usual 

course of business” and, thus, requests that Wartsila be ordered to identify which Bates 

ranges are responsive to each request. Id. at 5-6. The Court finds that Plaintiff cannot 

have it both ways. Over the course of eleven weeks, Plaintiff has served seven sets of 

requests for production on Wartsila, totaling over 90 requests. Id. at 10; ECF No. 24 at 5. 

Searching for responsive documents required Wartsila to collect entire drives of data 

from seven custodians, totaling approximately 1.1 million records and 280 GB of data. 

ECF No. 23 at 10-11. It then employed search terms and date restrictions to narrow that 

collection into a more manageable review set, which still constituted over 76,000 records 

and 30 GB of data. Id. at 11. At that point, Wartsila engaged a review team in order to 

expedite the assessment and review of the review set. Id. at 10. Wartsila was required to 

use e-discovery software to handle this mass of documents and the expense for Wartsila 

of collecting, culling, and reviewing this many documents undoubtedly was substantial.

When a team of reviewers is required to assess that great a quantity of documents, 

it is not reasonable to assume that the production, once collected from each reviewer, will 

remain in the order it was kept in the usual course of business. Thus, Wartsila produced 

the documents in a “reasonably usable form,” as required by Rule 34.2

 If Plaintiff

 

2 With the assistance of an e-discovery review platform, documents in the Concordance format can be 

sorted by custodian or date, filtered using a variety of search terms, or otherwise organized in whatever 

manner Plaintiff wishes. See ECF No. 23 at 12. Review platforms that can accommodate this format 

are readily available. Indeed, Wartsila provides three examples of popular document review programs 

that support the Concordance format (including Clearwell, Relativity, and Axcelerate). Id. at 11-12. 

Further, Plaintiff’s counsel de facto acknowledges that the two e-discovery vendors she contacted could 

access the documents. Id. at 5; ECF No. 23-3 ¶ 14. Counsel for Wartsila also contacted one of the same 

vendors and confirmed that the vendor could utilize Concordance files in their document review 

platform, Relativity, and do so on either a PC or a Mac computer (because it is a web-based platform). 

ECF No. 23-2 ¶ 11. The Court, therefore, finds that the Concordance format is a reasonably usable 

form.

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chooses to serve a substantial number of document requests but not to utilize the 

Concordance format due to expense, that is Plaintiff’s choice, but the Court does not find 

it appropriate to force Wartsila to incur the additional burden and expense of designating 

Bates ranges responsive to each request when the problem is of Plaintiff’s own making. 

c. Wartsila’s General Objections

In every written response, Wartsila set forth a list of identical “General Objections 

and Limitations” to Plaintiff’s requests. ECF No. 23-1 at 2. Because the objections are 

not set forth with specificity as required by Rule 34, Plaintiff argues that the general 

objections should be overruled and that the Court should find that they are waived. ECF 

No. 23 at 7. Wartsila responds that its general objection as to privilege is appropriate and 

that it otherwise simply states that it will conduct a diligent search and a reasonable 

inquiry. Id. at 13-14. 

Under Rule 34, the response to each document demand must “state with specificity 

the grounds for objecting to the request, including the reasons.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 

34(b)(2)(B). Further, any objection “must state whether any responsive materials are 

being withheld on the basis of that objection.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(C). If the 

objection only pertains to part of the request, the responding party “must specify the part 

and permit inspection of the rest.” Id. The Advisory Committee Notes following the rule 

clarify that “[a]n objection that states the limits that have controlled the search for 

responsive and relevant materials qualifies as a statement that the materials have been 

‘withheld.’” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 advisory committee notes (2015 Amendment). 

Plaintiff’s primary concerns are with Wartsila’s general objections as to: (1) 

privilege or work-product protection, (2) protection of confidential, proprietary, or 

sensitive business information before the Court has entered a protective order, and (3) the 

limitation that Wartsila was not making a representation that it had any responsive 

documents in its possession, custody or control, but would “conduct a diligent search and 

a reasonable inquiry” in attempting to locate responsive documents. ECF No. 23-1 at 3-

4. In regard to privilege, Plaintiff asserts that the representation that Wartsila will 

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produce “non-privileged documents” is insufficient without production of a privilege log. 

Id. at 3. As will be discussed more below, Wartsila has stated that it will produce a 

privilege log. ECF No. 23 at 13. 

It appears the objection over confidential information similarly will be resolved 

soon, once a protective order is entered. The parties have discussed the terms of a 

protective order, but were unable to agree on some issues as of the date of the joint 

motion. ECF No. 23-1 at 3. Until such time as a protective order is entered, the parties 

have agreed to treat documents marked “confidential” as if a protective order is in place. 

Id. Further, Wartsila represents that it “has not withheld documents based on this general 

objection.” Id. at 4. 

The Court, therefore, finds it appropriate to set a deadline of November 3, 2017,

by which time the parties either must submit their proposed protective order or file a joint 

motion for determination of the dispute regarding the terms of the protective order. 

Finally, with regard to Wartsila’s limitation on its search efforts, Plaintiff’s 

concern is that it makes it unclear whether Wartsila has, in fact, produced any documents 

in response to each given request. Id. at 4. This, again, relates back to Plaintiff’s 

difficulty in searching through Wartsila’s production in its current Concordance format in 

order to verify whether responsive documents have been produced. Id. The Court’s 

ruling that Wartsila must reproduce documents in OCR searchable PDF format, complete 

its production by October 27, 2017, and provide a privilege log by November 10, 2017

(see below), should resolve Plaintiff’s issues regarding the completeness of Wartsila’s 

production. 

Because Wartsila has agreed to provide a privilege log, and because the parties are 

equally culpable in bringing this motion before agreeing to the terms of a protective 

order, the Court declines to find that Wartsila has waived its objections as to privilege 

and confidentiality. 

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d. Privilege Log

Plaintiff objects to Wartsila’s withholding of privileged and work-product 

documents without providing a privilege log. ECF No. 7-8. Wartsila states that it “does 

not dispute that documents withheld as privileged should be included on a privilege log, 

and will provide a log once its production is completed.” Id. at 13. As the Court already 

has set a date by which Wartsila must complete its document production, the Court now 

ORDERS Wartsila to provide Plaintiff with a completed privilege log on or before 

November 10, 2017.

e. Miscellaneous Objections

In the joint statement, the parties set forth each disputed document demand, 

Wartsila’s response, Plaintiff’s reasons to compel, and Wartsila’s basis for objecting. 

The Court has reviewed all of these and rules as follows:

i. The Court concludes that any issues relating to Demand Nos. 1-3 and 

6-20 should be resolved once production is completed and a privilege 

log is produced, in accordance with the requirements set forth in this 

Order.

ii. Plaintiff’s motion to compel documents in response to Demand No. 

21 is DENIED. Plaintiff requested “all documents concerning any 

policy regarding or related to the price and/or terms [Wartsila] would 

include in any bid to supply marine propeller repair services ...” and 

then clarifies in its briefing that it seeks documents that inform and 

explain the “standard terms and conditions” referenced in Wartsila bid 

documents. ECF No. 23-1 at 17-18. In so doing, Plaintiff attempts to 

re-write a vague request. Plaintiff also solicits conjecture as to what 

policies Wartsila would apply in preparing bids. If Wartsila 

represents that it has no documents evincing written policies regarding 

the prices and/or terms it would (versus has in the past) included in 

bids, the Court does not find cause to order a further response. 

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iii. With regard to Demand Nos. 24-26 and 31, the parties acknowledge 

that they have not met and conferred in an effort to resolve their 

disputes informally. The Court, therefore, will not consider those 

issues at this time.

iv. Wartsila refused to produce documents in response to Demand Nos. 

27-30, which all seek documents related to Wartsila’s successful bids 

for propeller repairs to U.S. Navy vessels at either its Chesapeake, VA 

facility or its Poulsbo, WA facility. ECF No. 23 at 21-24. Wartsila 

asserts that these demands seek information that is not relevant to the 

claims or defenses at issue, which relate to propeller repairs at 

Wartsila’s San Diego facility, and that are not proportional to the 

needs of the case. Id. at 21. Plaintiff’s amended complaint includes 

claims under California Business and Professions Code § 17043, 

which states that “[i]t is unlawful for any person engaged in business 

within this State to sell any article or product at less than the cost 

thereof to such vendor, or to give away any article or product, for the 

purpose of injuring competitors or destroying competition.”3

 Plaintiff 

alleges that Wartsila used personnel from its Chesapeake and Poulsbo 

facilities, billed at the rates set for those facilities, to conduct the work 

in San Diego. Thus, discovery that would allow Plaintiff to calculate 

what Wartsila should have bid for its San Diego jobs and what costs it 

actually incurred is necessary to prove its claims that Wartsila 

underbid the projects in order to injure Plaintiff and either drive it out 

of business or force a sale to Wartsila at a reduced rate. The Court, 

 

3 California Business and Professions Code § 17024 provides that “‘article or product’ includes any 

article, product, commodity, thing of value, service or output of a service trade.”

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therefore, GRANTS Plaintiff’s motion to compel responses to 

Demand Nos. 27-30. Warsila shall serve supplemental responses by 

November 10, 2017. 

III. DISCOVERY DISPUTE 2

The parties’ second discovery dispute addresses Plaintiff’s objections and 

responses to Wartsila’s document demands and to its Interrogatories (Set One), Nos. 1-7. 

ECF No. 24 at 1. Specifically, the following issues are in dispute: (1) Plaintiff’s failure 

to produce metadata, (2) Plaintiff’s objection that the interrogatories contain 

impermissible subparts and are overbroad and burdensome, and (3) Plaintiff’s incomplete 

responses to Wartsila’s interrogatories. Id. at 6-9.

a. Metadata

In conjunction with its document demands, Wartsila specified the form in which it 

wanted ESI produced. Id. at 2. In particular, Wartsila laid out specifically in an exhibit 

the combination of TIFF images, Concordance load files, extracted text, and native files 

discussed above. ECF No. 24-3. Further, Wartsila specified that “at minimum, [ESI 

should be produced] in a form that includes all data and metadata and that states the 

computer hardware and software programs needed to translate the information into 

readable and searchable form.” Id. at 2; ECF No. 24-2 ¶ 4. Plaintiff did not object to this 

format in its responses and Plaintiff’s counsel affirmatively stated during the meet and 

confer session that she would gather all metadata. ECF No. 24 at 2. Despite this, what 

Plaintiff’s counsel actually produced were documents that the client had self-collected (in 

some instances printing emails and their attachments) and sent to Plaintiff’s counsel. Id.

at 3. Plaintiff’s counsel then scanned these hard copy documents and produced them as 

searchable PDFs. Id. 

Under Rule 34, if the requesting party specifies the form in which electronically 

stored information is to be produced, the responding party may object, but then must state 

the form it intends to use instead. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 (b)(2)(D). As previously noted, the 

purpose of this requirement is to facilitate meet and confer efforts and to “seek to resolve 

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disputes before the expense and work of the production occurs.” Rule 34 advisory 

committee notes (2006 Amendment). Here, Plaintiff’s counsel muddled the system by 

not objecting to the requested format in her responses. Given that she ultimately 

produced PDFs that she created by scanning hard copies, the Court is at a loss to 

understand why she ever affirmatively represented that she would produce metadata. 

This leaves the Court in the position of weighing fairness, cost, and 

proportionality. The Court is cognizant of the fact that in response to Discovery Dispute 

1, it ordered Defendant to produce documents in Plaintiff’s requested format, so fairness 

would dictate requiring the same of Plaintiff. But to do so would ignore Plaintiff’s 

inability to pay for an e-discovery vendor to facilitate the production of metadata. Rule 

26 allows the Court to limit discovery if a party shows “that the information is not 

reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(B). 

Upon such a showing, the Court still may order the discovery if the requesting party 

shows good cause, though the Court must remain mindful of the limitations that the 

discovery not be unreasonably cumulative or duplicative or obtainable from a more 

convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive source. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(B)-(C);

see also U.S. ex rel. Carter v. Bridgepoint Educ., Inc., 305 F.R.D. 225, 237 (S.D. Cal. 

2015) (explaining that even where the documents otherwise are discoverable, “in 

determining whether a [particular] discovery request is overly costly or burdensome in 

light of its benefits, ... [a] court ... [must] ... consider the necessity of discovery,” and is

“properly encouraged to weigh the expected benefits and burdens posed by particular 

discovery requests (electronic other otherwise)”) (internal citation omitted). The Court 

also takes into consideration that courts increasingly are encouraged to ensure that 

discovery is “proportional to the needs of the case, considering the importance of the 

issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to 

relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving 

the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its 

likely benefit.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 

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Frequently, cases evaluating the undue burden or cost of producing ESI involve 

either restoring relatively inaccessible backup tapes and/or exorbitantly priced and 

incredibly voluminous discovery. See e.g., Bridgepoint, 305 F.R.D. at 240-43 (involving 

restoration of backup databases at a projected cost of over $2 million); Kilbourne v. 

Coca-Cola Co., No. 14CV984 MMA (BGS), 2015 WL 10943827, at *6 (S.D. Cal. Apr. 

24, 2015) (evaluating production of voluminous data where production was estimated to 

cost $1,866,000 and even a sample size of data would cost $100,000 to produce);

Northrop Grumman Corp. v. Factory Mut. Ins. Co., No. CV058444DDPPLAX, 2012 WL 

12875772, at *4 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 29, 2012) (balancing cause and burden where the 

restoration of classified tapes was projected to take over a year and cost more than $1.4 

million and non-classified tapes could be restored at a cost of $146,000). Neither is the 

case here, which puts this case on somewhat unique footing. Additionally, the facts 

before the Court demonstrating Plaintiff’s limited means and Wartsila’s need for the 

metadata are limited. Plaintiff’s counsel submits that she contacted a vendor and 

received a price list for producing ESI. ECF No. 24-6 at 3. Based upon this information, 

she anticipates the cost will be $4,195.00 initially, with monthly charges of $262.00. Id.

at 3-4. According to the CEO and President of Plaintiff, this would be a financial 

hardship for Plaintiff. Id. at ¶ 7. In light of this showing of inaccessibility due to undue 

cost, the Court turns to Wartsila’s showing that good cause exists to order electronic 

production of the metadata. From the information before the Court, it appears Wartsila’s 

primary concerns are that (1) some emails were not produced together with their 

attachments and (2) at least one email lacks the email recipient and date. ECF No. 24 at 

3. These are legitimate concerns. With regard to the email lacking recipient and date 

information, Plaintiff explains that this email was neither authored by Plaintiff nor 

electronically received by Plaintiff, so no metadata exists for this document. Id. at 11. 

Plaintiff’s counsel states that she has reviewed the documents produced by Plaintiff and 

that “nearly all of the emails that were sent or received by PMP, that were produced in 

discovery state the email address of the sender and recipient(s), including CCs and BCCs 

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(as applicable); the subject line; and the date and time the email was sent.” ECF No. 24-6 

at ¶ 3. Others, such as the one cited above, were obtained only as printouts. Id. 

Plaintiff’s counsel does not specifically respond to Wartsila’s assertion that emails are not 

paired with their attachments. 

On the limited record before it, the Court concludes that Wartsila has not shown 

good cause to require electronic production because it appears the issues can be resolved 

via less expensive means. The Court, therefore, DENIES Wartsila’s motion to compel

electronic production of metadata WITHOUT PREJUDICE. For any emails that 

indicate on their face that they contain an attachment, Plaintiff is ORDERED to provide 

the Bates range of the attachment by November 10, 2017. To the extent other documents 

in the production lack relevant metadata such as dates, the parties are ORDERED to 

meet and confer to attempt to resolve these issues.4

 

b. Interrogatories

Wartsila contends that Plaintiff served incomplete responses to its first seven 

interrogatories. ECF No. 24 at 6-9. In Interrogatory Nos. 1-6, Wartsila asked Plaintiff to 

identify various conversations it had and defined “identify” as meaning “to provide the 

date or approximate date, place, method and content of each such communication, as well 

as the persons present and last known contact information for all such persons.” Id. at 6. 

Plaintiff objected to the term “identify” as “overbroad and burdensome containing an 

unreasonable number of subparts” and “overbroad and burdensome in the amount of 

detail demanded.” Id. at 6-7. 

Rule 33 limits the number of interrogatories a party can serve on another party to 

25, including all discrete subparts. Fed. R. Civ. P. 33 (a)(1). The subparts language was 

included to clarify that “[p]arties cannot evade this presumptive limitation through the 

 

4 It would behoove both sides to consider including their technical experts in this meet and confer 

session to advise as to the most cost-effective and expedient manner of rectifying deficiencies in the 

production(s).

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device of joining as ‘subparts’ questions that seek information about discrete separate 

subjects.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 33 advisory committee notes (1993 Amendment). However, as 

Wartsila points out, the Advisory Committee Notes expressly state that “a question 

asking about communications of a particular type should be treated as a single 

interrogatory even though it requests that the time, place, persons present, and contents be 

stated separately for each such communication.” Id.

Here, Wartsila’s interrogatories directly track the Advisory Committee’s example

of topics that can be considered part of one interrogatory. The additional information 

Wartsila seeks is the method of the communication and the last known contact 

information for the individuals present. The Court does not find these to constitute 

“separate subjects.” A key fact in identifying a communication is whether it was oral or 

written and identifying the individuals present is of limited use to the requesting party if 

they do not know how to contact the individuals. That being said, Rule 33 also was 

revised in conjunction with revisions to the disclosure provisions of Rule 26 in order to 

negate the need for a great number of interrogatories. Id. So, to the extent Plaintiff 

already has disclosed as part of its initial disclosures the last known contact information 

for individuals identified in response to Wartsila’s interrogatories, Plaintiff need not 

restate the contact information in its interrogatory responses.

Having reviewed Plaintiff’s responses to Interrogatory Nos. 1-6, the Court finds 

them lacking as to the information requested by Wartsila. Though Plaintiff argues that 

most of the communications were oral and thus the exact dates are unknown, Plaintiff 

makes no effort to provide approximate dates. In several instances, Plaintiff also left out 

the content of the conversations listed, the method, and the other individuals present for 

the communications. For these reasons, the Court OVERRULES Plaintiff’s subparts 

objection to Wartsila’s definition of “identify” and ORDERS Plaintiff to provide 

supplemental responses to Interrogatory Nos. 1-6 on or before November 10, 2017.

Interrogatory No. 7 asked Plaintiff to “[i]identify all persons having knowledge of 

your claims and the defenses you anticipate to your claims, and the general parameters of 

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each person’s knowledge.” ECF No. 24 at 8 n.7; ECF No. 24-1 at 13. In response, 

Plaintiff stated “[a]ll such persons and the general parameters of their knowledge are 

disclosed elsewhere in our responses to these interrogatories, in our responses to 

Requests for Production of Documents, and/or in our Initial and Supplemental 

Disclosures under Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” ECF No. 24-1 at 13. 

Wartsila objects that the reference to persons disclosed in Plaintiff’s responses to 

document requests is insufficient because the interrogatory response must be complete in 

itself and may not generally refer Wartsila to Plaintiff’s entire document production. 

ECF No. 24 at 9. Additionally, the only individuals identified in Plaintiff’s responses to 

Wartsila’s document requests were James King and Plaintiff’s now-deceased CPA, David 

Park, and the responses do not identify the parameters of their knowledge. Id.

The Federal Rules do allow for reference to business records in responding to an 

interrogatory, but the responding party must identify the records “in sufficient detail to 

enable the interrogating party to locate and identify them as readily as the responding 

party could.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(d)(1). In particular, the “responding party has the duty 

to specify, by category and location, the records from which answers to interrogatories 

can be derived.” Rainbow Pioneer No. 44-18-04A v. Hawaii-Nevada Inv. Corp., 711 

F.2d 902, 906 (9th Cir. 1983) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(c) advisory committee notes

(1980 Amendment)). As Plaintiff already has produced documents, Plaintiff is 

ORDERED to provide a supplemental response to Interrogatory No. 7 by November 10, 

2017, and, to the extent Plaintiff relies on documents in responding, Plaintiff must specify

the Bates ranges of the documents responsive to Interrogatory No. 7.

5

///

///

///

 

5 To the extent Wartsila objects to Plaintiff’s reference to its initial and supplemental disclosures, the 

Court OVERRULES the objection. Plaintiff’s disclosures are readily available to Wartsila.

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IV. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Joint Motion for Determination of Discovery 

Dispute 1 is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART as follows:

1. Wartsila is ordered to complete its production of documents in response to 

Plaintiff’s Demand for Production of Documents, Set Nos. One and Two by 

October 27, 2017.

2. Wartsila is ordered to re-produce any documents it has produced to date in 

response to any of Plaintiff’s document requests as OCR searchable PDF files 

and incur the cost of doing so. This re-production shall be completed on or 

before October 27, 2017.

3. Plaintiff’s requests that Wartsila be ordered to identify which Bates ranges are 

responsive to each request for production is DENIED.

4. On or before November 3, 2017, the parties either must submit their proposed 

protective order or file a joint motion for determination of the dispute regarding 

the terms of the protective order. 

5. Wartsila is ordered to provide Plaintiff with a completed privilege log on or 

before November 10, 2017.

6. Plaintiff’s motion to compel documents in response to Demand No. 21 is 

DENIED. 

7. Plaintiff’s motion to compel responses to Demand Nos. 27-30 is GRANTED. 

Warsila shall serve supplemental responses by November 10, 2017. 

The Joint Motion for Determination of Discovery Dispute 2 is GRANTED IN 

PART and DENIED IN PART as follows:

1. Wartsila’s motion to compel electronic production of metadata is DENIED

WITHOUT PREJUDICE. Plaintiff is ordered to provide supplemental 

responses to Wartsila’s Request for Production of Documents on or before 

November 10, 2017. In responding to any requests that for which the 

responsive documents are emails, if the emails indicate on their face that they 

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contain an attachment, Plaintiff is ordered to provide the Bates range of the 

attachment. To the extent other documents in the production lack metadata 

such as the date, the parties are ORDERED to meet and confer to attempt to 

resolve those issues.

2. Plaintiff’s subparts objection to Wartsila’s definition of “identify” in Wartsila’s 

Interrogatory Nos. 1-6 is OVERRULED and Plaintiff is ordered to provide 

supplemental responses to Interrogatory Nos. 1-6 on or before November 10, 

2017.

3. Plaintiff is ordered to provide a supplemental response to Interrogatory No. 7 by 

November 10, 2017, and, to the extent Plaintiff relies on documents in 

responding, Plaintiff must specify the Bates ranges of the documents responsive 

to Interrogatory No. 7.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: October 20, 2017

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