Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_03-cv-03709/USCOURTS-cand-3_03-cv-03709-16/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 850
Nature of Suit: Securities, Commodities, Exchange
Cause of Action: 15:78m(a) Securities Exchange Act

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

In re CV THERAPEUTICS, INC.

SECURITIES LITIGATION

___________________________________/

No. C-03-3709 SI (EMC)

ORDER RE PLAINTIFF’S LETTER OF

JULY 7, 2006, AND DEFENDANTS’

LETTER OF JULY 7, 2006 

(Docket Nos. 338, 339, 348, 358, 370)

On July 7, 2006, Plaintiff filed a letter brief claiming that Defendants had violated Judge

Illston’s order of April 3, 2006. On the same day, Defendants filed a letter brief seeking a protective

order. Judge Illston referred the discovery disputes to the undersigned for resolution.

I. DISCUSSION

Both discovery disputes concern production of documents from the DLT and Exabyte Tapes. 

The DLT Tapes contain backups of CVT’s email exchange server during August and September

2002. See SI Order of 4/3/06, at 11. “The Exabyte tapes appear to contain backups of CVT

employees’ hard drives.” Id. Both the DLT and Exabyte Tapes tapes were belatedly discovered by

Defendants after Plaintiff received information from an undisclosed source about the existence of

the tapes. See id. Judge Illston noted these tapes would have been subject to the terms of the

Backup Tape stipulation had they been earlier discovered and properly handled. Judge Illston

ordered Defendants to “review and prepare full catalogs for all Exabyte and DLT tapes from the

time period covered in the Backup Tape Stipulation.” Id. at 13. Plaintiff would then inform

Defendants which documents Plaintiff wished to have produced. See id. “Defendants shall produce

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all requested documents, except for those protected by a privilege . . . .” Id. Defendants are to “bear

the full cost associated with all this discovery.” Id.

A. DLT Tapes

With respect to the DLT Tapes, there appear to be 5,000 documents at issue. Apparently,

Defendants have not produced these documents to Plaintiff because Plaintiff did not designate these

documents by April 28, 2006, as required by Judge Illston’s order. Defendants do not contest,

however, that Plaintiff’s late designation was due to technical problems which Defendants’

technicians and Plaintiff’s technicians worked together to resolve. Accordingly, the Court DENIES

Defendants’ motion for a protective order with respect to the 5,000 documents from the DLT Tapes.

B. Exabyte Tapes

With respect to the Exabyte Tapes, Plaintiff designated some 423,835 documents for

production, representing documents from the hard drives of 26 employees. Although this is

undisputedly a large number of documents, Plaintiff explains that this was out of his control because

Defendants never made a list of the actual documents available for selection and instead only gave

Plaintiff the employee names and the dates of their hard drives. Defendants claim that it was not

possible to provide a more specific catalog. See Lui-Kwan Decl. ¶ 12 (“Because of the nature of the

various electronic sources, Defendants were able to provide Plaintiff with a document-by-document

list for the S and H drives, eRoom and Documentum. . . . However, the most detailed list Defendants

could create for the DLT and Exabyte tapes identified employees and the date each exchange

mailbox backup (for DLT tapes) or hard drive backup (for Exabyte tapes) was made.”); id. ¶ 21

(indicating that “select[ing] individual documents from the DLT and Exabyte tape catalogs . . . was

technically impossible according to Defendants’ vendor”).

With respect to these 423,835 documents, Defendants then applied their de-duplication

process, which reduced the number of documents to 129,000. Defendants produced 4,000 out of the

129,000 documents, which came from the hard drives of the Individual Defendants. 

Defendants argue that it would be unduly burdensome and expensive to produce the

remaining 125,000 documents. Plaintiff argues that Defendants violated the terms of Judge Illston’s

order by applying the de-duplication process to the 423,835 documents. Plaintiff is amenable to

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reducing the number of documents from the Exabyte Tapes but asserts that he needs information

about the documents (i.e., more specific cataloging) in order to do so. Plaintiff indicates that he is

loathe to reduce the number of documents based on the identity of the employees because “(1) each

person in the core group is on their privilege logs or an assistant to that person; and (2) defendants

allowed everyone to delete their emails after the litigation so there is no assurance any were

produced in the main production.”

The initial universe of documents at issue is 423,835 documents. However, after applying

the de-duplication process, a process permitted by Judge Illston as to “S” and “H” drives,

“Documentation,” and “eRoom” (See Order of Referral, Docket #383, p. 1, and April 3, 2006

discovery order, pp. 7-8), there remains 129,000 documents chosen by Plaintiff, of which 4000

would have been produced. Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate why application of the de-duplication

process as applied to the Exabyte documents is materially different from or causes undue prejudice

not extant for the other categories of documents. As Judge Illston permitted the use of deduplication for those other categories, this Court finds no substantial reason not to permit it here.

As to the remaining 125,000 documents chosen by Plaintiff, the Court permits Defendants to

apply the search terms to Plaintiff’s selections. The Court refuses to require Plaintiff to select only

60,000 of the 125,000 documents because Defendants have provided scant information on which

Plaintiff may base his selection. Defendants have not produced “full catalogs” as contemplated by

Judge Illston’s order of April 3, 2006. Through no fault of Plaintiff, Plaintiff is hamstrung by this

lack of information. 

On the other hand, the Court shall allow the remaining documents to be narrowed by

application of the search terms. Contrary to what Plaintiff argues, there is no indication that Judge

Illston ordered Defendants to produce all documents selected by Plaintiff as “an avenue to test or

assess the scope of the search terms defendants applied to the universe of extant electronic records in

this case.” Rather, Judge Illston gave Plaintiff an avenue to test or assess the scope of the search

terms by ordering Defendants to produce to Plaintiff the search terms Defendants used. 

To the extent Plaintiff contests the adequacy of the search terms, it has not set forth an

alternative search methodology; moreover, no specific challenge to the search terms has been

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brought and briefed before the Court. Employment of search terms is a reasonable means of

narrowing the production in this instance. Although Defendants complain that the resulting

production and need for review of privileged matters is too burdensome, the permitted employment

of de-duplication and search terms strikes a reasonable balance between Plaintiff’s needs and

Defendants’ burden. Moreover, Plaintiff offered to permit all designated documents to be produced

while preserving Defendants’ right to claim privilege; this could lessen Defendants’ costs of review. 

Plaintiff contends that he also offered to narrow the documents to those within the relevant time

period ordered by the Court, to which no response allegedly was made. See Pl.’s letter of 7/21/06, at

1 (located at Docket No. 370).

The Court therefore GRANTS in part and DENIES in part Defendants’ motion for a

protective order regarding the Exabyte Tapes.

C. “Personal” Documents from Various Drives, Tapes, Etc.

Finally, Defendants ask for permission to withhold from various drives, tapes, etc. “[a]

relatively small number of documents designated by Plaintiff that are personal in nature.” Plaintiff

does not discuss this issue expressly. The Court concludes that Defendants may withhold the

documents, contingent on their producing a log akin to a privilege log that provides information as

to why each document is being withheld. The Lui-Kwan declaration does not provide any

information as to any of the categories, simply stating that documents of a personal nature are being

withheld. See Lui-Kwan Decl. ¶ 69.

Accordingly, Defendants’ motion for a protective order is GRANTED contingent on the

provision of a log as discussed above. Such declaration should be served on Plaintiff within 10 days

of this order.

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II. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court grants in part and denies in part Defendants’ motion for

a protective order. Plaintiff’s request for full briefing on Defendants’ motion is moot in light of the

parties’ agreement that the motion could be resolved based on the papers. The hearing on

September 15, 2006, is hereby VACATED.

This order disposes of Docket Nos. 338, 339, 347, 358, and 370.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: August 22, 2006

_________________________ EDWARD M. CHEN

United States Magistrate Judge

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