Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_05-md-01699/USCOURTS-cand-3_05-md-01699-36/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 365
Nature of Suit: Personal Injury - Product Liability
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Product Liability

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PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 10: FORMAT OF PFIZER ENTITIES’ 

DOCUMENT PRODUCTION – M:05-CV-01699-CRB 

 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

IN RE: BEXTRA AND CELEBREX 

MARKETING SALES PRACTICES AND 

PRODUCT LIABILITY LITIGATION 

CASE NO. M:05-CV-01699-CRB 

MDL No. 1699 

This Order Relates to: 

 ALL CASES. 

PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 10: FORMAT OF 

PFIZER ENTITIES’ DOCUMENT 

PRODUCTION 

1. Order Applicable to All Cases in MDL Proceedings. The following 

document production protocol shall apply to the production of documents existing in hard-copy 

form and, as limited by paragraph 14 below, documents existing in electronic form by Defendants 

Pfizer Inc., Pharmacia & Upjohn Co., Monsanto Co., Pharmacia & Upjohn LLC, Pharmacia 

Corporation, and G.D. Searle LLC (formerly known as G.D. Searle & Co.), together with their 

affiliated entities (collectively “the Pfizer Entities”). This Order shall apply to all cases currently 

pending in MDL No. 1699 and to all related actions that have been or will be originally filed in, 

transferred to, or removed to this Court and assigned thereto (collectively, “the MDL 

proceedings”). This Order is binding on all parties and their counsel in all cases currently 

pending or subsequently made a part of these proceedings and shall govern each case in the 

proceedings unless it explicitly states that it relates only to specific cases. 

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Case 3:05-md-01699-CRB Document 201 Filed 03/10/06 Page 1 of 8
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 PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 10: FORMAT OF PFIZER ENTITIES’ 

DOCUMENT PRODUCTION – M:05-CV-01699-CRB 

2. General Format of Production. Except as limited by paragraph 14 below, 

all documents that originally existed in either hard-copy or native electronic form that are 

produced in these proceedings shall be produced in electronic image form in the manner provided 

herein. Each document’s electronic image shall convey the same information and image as the 

original document. Documents that present imaging or formatting problems shall be promptly 

identified and the parties shall meet and confer to attempt to resolve the problems. 

3. Document Image Format. All production document images will be 

provided as single-page “TIFFs” utilizing Group 4 compression. All images generated from hard 

copy documents shall be scanned at industry standard resolution and reflect, without visual 

degradation, the full and complete information contained on the original document. All images 

generated from native electronic documents will reflect how the source document would have 

appeared if printed out to a printer attached to a computer. The Pfizer Entities shall produce a 

“load file” to accompany the images, which load file shall include information about where each 

document begins and ends to facilitate the use of the produced images through a document 

management or litigation support database system. The parties shall meet and confer to the extent 

reasonably necessary to facilitate the import and use of the produced materials with commercially 

available document management or litigation support software such as Summation or 

Concordance. An example of a Summation load file with document break information is: 

; Record 1 

@C ENDDOC# 032748 

@T 032748 

@D @I\CARR005\001\ 

032748.tif 

; Record 2 

@C ENDDOC# 032763 

@T 032749 

@D @I\CARR005\001\ 

0327{49-63}.tif 

4. Document Unitization. Each page of a document shall be scanned or 

electronically saved into an image. If a document is more than one page, the unitization of the 

document and any attachments and/or affixed notes shall be maintained as it existed in the 

original when creating the image file. 

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 PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 10: FORMAT OF PFIZER ENTITIES’ 

DOCUMENT PRODUCTION – M:05-CV-01699-CRB 

5. Color. For documents that contain color, the Pfizer Entities shall honor 

reasonable and specific requests for the production of color image(s) of such documents. 

6. Duplicates. Where a single document custodian has more than one 

identical copy of a document (i.e., the documents are visually the same and contain the same 

electronic text and coding), the Pfizer Entities need only produce a single copy of that document. 

Where multiple document custodians each possess their own copies of an identical document, the 

document shall be produced once for each custodian in possession of the document. Deduplicated originals shall be securely retained and made available for inspection and copying in 

accordance with the provisions of paragraph 13. 

7. Bates Numbering. Each page of a produced document shall have a legible, 

unique page identifier (“Bates Number”) electronically “burned” onto the image at a location that 

does not obliterate, conceal, or interfere with any information from the source document. No 

other legend or stamp will be placed on the document image other than a confidentiality legend 

(where applicable), redactions (consistent with applicable law or Court order), and the Bates 

Number identified above. The confidential legend shall be “burned” onto the document’s image 

at a location that does not obliterate or obscure any information from the source document. 

8. File Naming Conventions. Each page image file shall be named with the 

unique Bates Number of the page of the document in the case of single-page TIFFs, followed by 

the extension “.TIF.” In the event the Bates Number contains a symbol and/or character that 

cannot be included in a file name, the symbol and/or character will be omitted from the file name. 

9. Production Media. The Pfizer Entities shall produce documents on CDROM, DVD, external hard drive (with standard PC compatible interface formatted using NTFS 

with a firewire and/or USB 2.0 interface), or such other readily accessible computer or electronic 

media as the parties may hereafter agree upon (the “Production Media”). Each piece of 

Production Media shall identify a production number corresponding to the production “wave” the 

documents on the Production Media are associated with (e.g., “PfizerMDL001”; 

“PfizerMDL002”), as well as the volume of the material in that production wave (e.g., “-001”; “-

002”). For example, if the first production wave by the Pfizer Entities comprises document 

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 PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 10: FORMAT OF PFIZER ENTITIES’ 

DOCUMENT PRODUCTION – M:05-CV-01699-CRB 

images on three hard drives, the Pfizer Entities shall label each hard drive in the following 

manner: “PfizerMDL001-001”; “PfizerMDL001-002”; “PfizerMDL001-003.” Additional 

information that shall be identified on the physical Production Media shall include: (1) text 

referencing that it was produced in MDL No. 1699, NDCA, (2) the producing party’s name, and 

(3) the production date. The following information shall also accompany the Production Media, 

and where practicable shall also be identified on the physical Production Media itself (but may be 

provided with an accompanying letter where identifying the information on the Production Media 

itself is not practicable): (1) the type of materials on the media (e.g., “Images,” “OCR Text,” 

etc.), and (2) the Bates Number range(s) of the materials contained on the Production Media. The 

Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (“PSC”) shall pay the cost of the Production Media. 

10. Meta-Data and Objective Coding. For images generated from native 

electronic documents, the Pfizer Entities shall provide meta-data corresponding to the fields in 

Exhibit A to this Order, where available. If the Pfizer Entities choose to objectively code certain 

documents for their own use, then with each production of such documents, the Pfizer Entities 

shall produce an ASCII text file, appropriately delimited, setting forth the objective coding for 

each document (the “Objective Coding”). The data file shall include the fields and type of 

content set forth on Exhibit A and shall be provided in a manner suitable for importing the 

information in a commercially available document management or litigation support software 

such as Summation or Concordance. Objective Coding shall be labeled and produced on 

Production Media in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 9. If Plaintiffs have problems 

importing and using the Objective Coding for document management, Plaintiffs and Defendants 

shall meet and confer to attempt to resolve the problems. If the Pfizer Entities choose to 

objectively code certain documents after the production of such documents, the Pfizer Entities 

shall provide the Objective Coding to the PSC as soon as it is available to the Pfizer Entities. 

Nothing in this paragraph shall require the Pfizer Entities to incur any rush charges in completing 

Objective Coding, if any. 

11. OCR/Extracted Text. The Pfizer Entities shall produce corresponding 

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) text files for all hard-copy documents and any electronic 

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 PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 10: FORMAT OF PFIZER ENTITIES’ 

DOCUMENT PRODUCTION – M:05-CV-01699-CRB 

documents that require redaction prior to production. For documents that exist natively in 

electronic format that have not been redacted and that are produced as images, the Pfizer Entities 

shall produce extracted text files reflecting the full text that has been electronically extracted from 

the original, native electronic files. The OCR/extracted text shall be provided in ASCII text 

format and shall be labeled and produced on Production Media in accordance with the provisions 

of paragraph 9. The text files will be associated with the unique Bates Number of the first page 

of the corresponding document followed by the extension “.txt.” The OCR/extracted text files 

shall be provided in a manner suitable for importing the information in a commercially available 

document management or litigation support software such as Summation or Concordance. 

12. Format for Production. The format of document images and objective 

coding described in paragraphs 3 and 10 above, and the OCR/extracted text files described in 

paragraph 11, shall conform with the requirements a commercially available document 

management or litigation support software the requesting party intends to use. The parties shall 

confirm this with each other in advance of the processing. 

13. Original Documents. The Pfizer Entities shall, upon reasonable request, 

make originals of any produced document available for inspection and copying by the requesting 

party, subject to any redactions made pursuant to Pretrial Order No. 3. 

14. Production of Other Electronic Documents. This Order only applies to the 

production of emails (and any associated attachments), word processing documents, spreadsheets, 

presentations, and imaged documents (in any format). The parties shall meet and confer to agree 

on the form of any production of electronic documents other than the foregoing. 

15. Use of Documents. When documents produced in accordance with this 

Order are used in any MDL proceeding herein, including depositions, hearings, or trial, the image 

copy of documents as described in Paragraphs 3 and 7 herein shall be the copy used. OCR or 

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 PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 10: FORMAT OF PFIZER ENTITIES’ 

DOCUMENT PRODUCTION – M:05-CV-01699-CRB 

extracted text shall not be used in any MDL proceeding as a substitute for the image of any 

document. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: March 10, 2006 /s/ 

HONORABLE CHARLES R. BREYER 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 

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 PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 10: FORMAT OF PFIZER ENTITIES’ 

DOCUMENT PRODUCTION – M:05-CV-01699-CRB 

EXHIBIT A

Pursuant to paragraph 10 of this Pretrial Order relating to the format of the Pfizer Entities’ 

document production, if the Pfizer Entities choose to objectively code certain documents for their 

own use, then with each production of such documents, the Pfizer Entities shall produce the 

following Objective Coding in the ASCII text file that accompanies the document production. If 

the Pfizer Entities choose to objectively code certain documents after the production of such 

documents, the Pfizer Entities shall provide the following Objective Coding as soon as it is 

available to the Pfizer Entities. For images generated from native electronic documents, the 

Pfizer Entities shall provide meta-data corresponding to the following fields, where available. 

Coding Field Description

BegBates; EndBates The beginning and ending Bates numbers for the 

document at issue. 

BegAttach; EndAttach The beginning and ending Bates numbers of the 

collection to which the document and any attachments 

thereto are associated (i.e., for an email that is bates 

stamped ABC0001 - ABC0002, with two attachments 

bates stamped ABC0003 - ABC0004 and ABC0005 - 

ABC0008, the BegAttach and EndAttach for all three 

documents would be ABC0001 - ABC0008). 

DocDate The date of the document, formatted as follows: 

MM/DD/YYYY, with leading zeros as appropriate (e.g., 

03/01/2006). For emails, the field will reflect the date 

the email was sent; for other documents, the field will 

reflect the last date on which the document was saved. 

DocType The type of document (e.g., email, Microsoft Word 2000, 

Microsoft Excel, etc.). 

Document Title The title of the document, if any. 

AuthorName The author(s) of a document. 

To The recipient(s) of a document. 

CC The person(s) who received copies of a document. 

BCC The person(s) who received blind copies of a document. 

Custodian The name of the individual whose electronic or hardcopy custodial file contained the document at issue. 

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 PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 10: FORMAT OF PFIZER ENTITIES’ 

DOCUMENT PRODUCTION – M:05-CV-01699-CRB 

Coding Field Description

Importance For Outlook emails, “High,” “Low,” or “Normal.” 

Sensitivity For Outlook emails, “Normal,” “Private,” “Personal,” or 

“Confidential.” 

Marginalia For hard-copy documents, yes or no indication of 

whether the document at issue contains handwritten 

notations, notes, or marginalia. 

Redacted Yes or no indication of whether the document at issue is 

redacted. 

Confidential Yes or no indication of whether the document at issue 

was designated as confidential as of the date of 

production. 

Case 3:05-md-01699-CRB Document 201 Filed 03/10/06 Page 8 of 8