Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-00697/USCOURTS-cand-3_15-cv-00697-3/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Susan Bannon
Plaintiff
Dominic Cobarruviaz
Plaintiff
Arlin Golden
Plaintiff
Instacart
Defendant
Maplebear, Inc.
Defendant
John Reilly
Plaintiff
Christopher Russell
Plaintiff
Batya Weber
Plaintiff
Derek Williams
Plaintiff

Document Text:

-1-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Robert S. Arns (# 65071)

rsa@arnslaw.com

Jonathan E. Davis (# 191346)

jed@arnslaw.com 

Kevin M. Osborne (# 261367)_

kmo@arnslaw.com

Julie C. Erickson (# 293111)

jce@arnslaw.com

THE ARNS LAW FIRM

A Professional Corporation

515 Folsom Street, 3rd Floor

San Francisco, California 94105

Tel: (415) 495-7800 / Fax: (415) 495-7888

Jahan C. Sagafi, State Bar No. 224887 

jsagafi@outtengolden.com

OUTTEN & GOLDEN LLP

One Embarcadero Center, 38th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94111

Tel: (415) 638-8800 / Fax: (415) 638-8810

Michael J. Scimone (pro hac vice)

mscimone@outtengolden.com

3 Park Avenue, 29th Floor

New York, New York 10016

Tel: (212) 245-1000 - Fax: (646) 509-2060 

Attorneys for Plaintiffs

KEKER & VAN NEST LLP

RACHAEL E. MENY - #178514

rmeny@kvn.com

BENJAMIN BERKOWITZ - #244441

bberkowitz@kvn.com

RYAN K. WONG - #267189

rwong@kvn.com

REESE NGUYEN - # 284581

rnguyen@kvn.com

633 Battery Street

San Francisco, CA 94111-1809

Telephone: 415-391-5400 

Facsimile: 415-397-7188

Attorneys for Defendant 

MAPLEBEAR, INC. dba INSTACART

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

DOMINIC COBARRUVIAZ, ARLIN GOLDEN, 

JOHN REILLY, CHRISTOPHER RUSSELL, 

SUSAN BANNON, BATYA WEBER, AND 

DEREK WILLIAMS, INDIVIDUALLY AND 

ON BEHALF OF ALL OTHER SIMILARLY 

SITUATED EMPLOYEES; 

Plaintiffs,

vs.

MAPLEBEAR, INC. dba INSTACART; AND 

DOES 1 through 100, inclusive

Defendants.

________________________________________

No. C 15-cv-00697 EMC

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER

REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR 

PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 

AND ELECTRONICALLY STORED 

INFORMATION 

Judge: Hon. Edward M. Chen 

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 1 of 12
-2-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Having met and conferred on issues concerning the format of and conditions under 

which documents and electronically stored information (“ESI”) are to be produced in this case, 

the parties, through their respective counsel, hereby enter into the following Stipulation:

GENERAL PROVISIONS

1. The provisions set forth herein apply to the production of all documents, 

regardless of which party is seeking or producing the documents.

2. Nothing in this Stipulation shall be interpreted to require disclosure of 

information protected by the attorney-client privilege, work-product doctrine, or any other 

applicable privilege or immunity. The parties do not waive any objections as to the production, 

discoverability, admissibility, or confidentiality of documents. All productions will be subject 

to any protective order that will be entered by the Court in this Action.

3. Notwithstanding this Stipulation, the parties may separately agree to deviate 

from the protocols set forth herein as to specific documents or categories of documents 

provided that such agreement is memorialized in writing.

4. The parties shall make good faith efforts to comply with and resolve 

any differences concerning compliance with this Stipulation. If a producing party, 

notwithstanding their good faith efforts, cannot comply with any material aspect of this 

Stipulation or if compliance with such material aspect would be unreasonable, then within a 

reasonable time before the date of production, such producing party shall inform the 

requesting party in writing as to why compliance with the Stipulation is impossible or 

unreasonable. No party may seek relief from the Court concerning compliance with this 

Stipulation unless it has conferred with other affected parties.

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 2 of 12
-3-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

5. Nothing in the ESI Protocol shall affect, in any way, a producing party’s right 

to seek reimbursement for costs associated with collection, review, and/or production of 

documents.

DEFINITIONS

For the purpose of this Stipulation, the following definitions apply, unless a contrary 

use or limitation on a defined term is specified:

6. “Metadata” means: (i) information embedded in a Native File that is not 

ordinarily viewable or printable from the application that generated, edited, or modified such 

Native File; and (ii) information generated automatically by the operation of a computer or 

other information technology system when a Native File is created, modified, transmitted, 

deleted, or otherwise manipulated by the user of such system. “Metadata” is a subset of ESI.

7. “Native File(s)” means ESI in the electronic format of the application in which 

such ESI is normally created, viewed, and/or modified. “Native Files” are a subset of ESI.

8. “Image File(s)” mean a representation of ESI produced by (i) converting a 

Native File into a standard image format capable of being viewed and printed on standard 

computer systems; or (ii) scanning a hard copy file into a standard image file capable of being 

viewed and printed on standard computer systems. 

9. “PDF” refers to Portable Document Formal file type.

10. “TIFF” refers to Tagged Image File Format file type.

11. “Group IV TIFF” refers to a TIFF file type using Group IV compression format.

12. “OCR” means Optical Character Recognition, and is the machine recognition of 

printed characters from Image Files or other non-searchable text contained in a document into 

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 3 of 12
-4-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

machine-encoded text so that the text can be indexed and searched for specific characters, 

words or phrases.

13. “Relativity” means Relativity document management software produced by 

kCura. 

14. “Concordance” means Concordance document management software, version 8 

or higher, tailored to legal applications and distributed by LexisNexis.

15. “Extracted Text” means the electronic extraction of a Native File’s content that 

can be indexed and searched without OCR.

16. A “load file” is a file containing commands or information necessary to import 

coded, captured or Extracted data from ESI processing into a document management database, 

such as Relativity, and that defines the links between multiple records or document images.

PRODUCTION OF HARD-COPY DOCUMENTS IN ELECTRONIC FORMAT

17. Production Format. If a document exists only in paper form, then a party may 

produce that document in either paper or electronic form. If elected to be produced in 

electronic form, the Production of hard copy documents shall comply with the following 

requirements, with the exception that a party need not generate or provide OCR text for paper 

documents elected to be produced in electronic form.

a. IMAGE FORMAT. Documents that exist in hard copy format shall be 

scanned and produced as single-page black and white Group IV TIFFs, with a resolution of at 

least 300 dots per inch (dpi). Each TIFF should be named as the corresponding Bates number

associated with that page. Original document orientation should be maintained (i.e., portrait to 

portrait and landscape to landscape). Bates numbers, confidentiality designations, and 

redactions should be branded onto the TIFF images so that they appear when the document is 

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 4 of 12
-5-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

printed without obscuring any original content on the document. TIFF images should be 

provided in a self-identified “Images” folder.

b. Database Load Files. Documents should be provided with 

Relativity/Concordance-compatible image and data load files (i.e. .OPT and .DAT files) using

the standard delimiters. Relativity/Concordance-compatible image and data load files should 

be provided in a self-identified “Data” folder. Each .DAT file should include links to (“text 

path”) multi-page (document level) text files in the .DAT file. The total number of documents 

referenced in a production’s data load file (.DAT) should match the total number of designated 

document breaks in the Image Load File(s) (.OPT) in the production. Additionally, the .OPT 

file should provide the beginning and ending Bates number of each document and the number 

of pages the document comprises. The .OPT file should include links (relative paths) to each 

image file within the .OPT file (document production). Attached as Exhibit A is a document 

containing additional information regarding the production specifications.

c. Metadata and Coding Fields. Absent special circumstances, hard copy 

documents should be produced with at least the following searchable information in 

accompanying delimited data files: (1) BEGDOC; (2) ENDDOC; (3) BEGATTACH 

(4) ENDATTACH (5) CUSTODIAN NAME. Custodians should be identified using the 

convention “last name, first name.” The Custodian NAME should remain the same for each 

unique custodian across each production. A full list of relevant fields is included in Exhibit A.

d. Bates Numbering. Each TIFF image should be assigned a Bates number 

that: (1) is unique across the entire document production; (2) maintains a constant length across 

the entire production (i.e., “padded” with leading zeroes to the same number of characters); (3) 

contains no special characters or embedded spaces; and (4) is sequential within a given 

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 5 of 12
-6-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

document. If a Bates number or set of Bates numbers is skipped in a production, the producing 

party will so note in a cover letter or production log accompanying the production.

PRODUCTION OF ESI 

18. Email. The parties will work together to reduce the cost and size of email 

production with the goal of reducing the relative burden on the parties. While the parties have 

not yet reached an agreement on reasonable limits on custodians and search terms, the parties 

are aware of the importance the Court places on cooperation and commit to cooperate in good 

faith throughout the matter consistent with this Court’s Guidelines for the Discovery of ESI. 

Should Instacart’s motion to compel arbitration be denied, the parties intend to continue 

meeting and conferring on the proportionality of the discovery process and to attempt to agree 

upon reasonable limits on numbers of search terms and custodians. 

19. PRODUCTION FORMAT:

a. IMAGE FORMAT. Documents that exist electronically shall be 

produced in single-page black and white Group IV TIFFs, created with a resolution of at least 

300 dots per inch (dpi). Each TIFF image should be named as the corresponding Bates number

associated with that page. Original document orientation should be maintained (i.e., portrait to 

portrait and landscape to landscape). Bates numbers, confidentiality designations, and 

redactions should be branded onto the TIFF images so that they appear when the document is 

printed. TIFF files should be provided in a self-identified “Images” folder.

b. Metadata Fields and Processing. Absent special circumstances, 

each of the metadata and coding fields set forth in Exhibit A that can be extracted from a 

document shall be produced for that document, to the extent already in existence and 

reasonably accessible. To the extent that metadata does not exist, is not reasonably 

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 6 of 12
-7-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

accessible or available, or would be unduly burdensome to collect, nothing in this ESI 

Protocol shall require any party to extract, capture, collect or produce such data. The 

parties are not obligated to populate manually any of the fields in Exhibit A if such fields 

cannot be extracted from a document, with the exception of the following: (1) BEGDOC; 

(2) ENDDOC; (3) BEGATTACH (4) ENDATTACH (5) CUSTODIAN NAME, (6) 

NATIVEPATH, AND (7) TEXTPATH fields (which may be populated by the party or the 

party’s vendor). A full list of relevant fields is included in Exhibit A.

c. Extracted Text Files. For each document, a multi-page (document 

level) text file should be provided along with its corresponding TIFF images and metadata. 

The file name of each extracted text file should be identical to that of the first image of its 

corresponding document, followed by .txt. File names should not contain any special 

characters or embedded spaces. The text of native files should be extracted directly from 

the native file, where it exists. However, if a document has been redacted, OCR of the 

redacted document will suffice in lieu of extracted text.

d. Database Load Files. Database Load Files shall be provided in 

Relativity/Concordance-compatible image and load files. (i.e. .OPT and .DAT files) using 

standard delimiters. Relativity/Concordance-compatible image and data load files should be 

provided in a self-identified “Data” folder. Each .DAT file should include links to (“text path”) 

multi-page (document level) text files in the .DAT file. A “NativePath” entry for each such 

native file should be included in the .DAT load file indicating the relative file path to 

each native file on the production media. The total number of documents referenced in a 

production’s data load file (.DAT) should match the total number of designated document 

breaks in the Image Load File(s) (.OPT) in the production. Additionally, the OPT file should 

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 7 of 12
-8-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

provide the beginning and ending bates number of each document and the number of pages the 

document comprises. The .OPT file should include links (relative paths) to each image file 

within the .OPT file (document production). Attached as Exhibit A is a document containing 

additional information regarding the production specifications. 

e. Native Files. ESI need not be produced in its native file format, unless 

(1) a requesting party can show a need for specific ESI in its native format and it would not be 

unreasonable, unduly burdensome, or expensive for the producing party to provide the ESI in 

this manner; (2) the ESI is in a multimedia form (e.g., sound, graphics, animation, or video); or 

(3) both parties agree otherwise in writing. Nothing shall prevent a Party from producing other 

materials in native format if the Party reasonably believes that production of such materials in 

native format would save time or expense, or that production in TIFF format would 

compromise the document’s utility (e.g., large spreadsheets).

i. Multimedia Files. Multimedia files (e.g. .MOV files, .MPG files), and 

Spreadsheet files (e.g. Excel .XLS and .XLSX files, and Apple Numbers .NUMBERS files)

shall be produced in native format except where produced in redacted form. Each such Native 

File should be produced with a corresponding single-page TIFF placeholder image, which 

will contain language indicating that the document is being produced as a Native File as 

well as any confidentiality designation being claimed by the producing party. Native 

Files should be named with the Bates number that is assigned to that specific record in the 

production. A “NativePath” entry for each such multimedia file should be included in the 

.DAT load file indicating the relative file path to each native file on the production media.

ii. Presentation Files. Presentation files (e.g. .PPT, .PPTX, and .KEY 

files) may be produced in TIFF image format provided the image files contain the speaker 

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 8 of 12
-9-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

presentation notes, or the speaker presentation notes are produced as part of the file’s 

metadata included in the production. 

iii. Requests for Other Native Files. Other than as specifically set forth 

above, a producing party need not produce documents in native format. If good cause 

exists for the receiving party to request production of certain documents in native format, 

the receiving party may request production in native format by providing (1) a list of the 

Bates numbers of documents it requests to be produced in native format; and (2) an 

explanation of the need for reviewing such documents in native format. The producing 

party shall not unreasonably deny such requests, and shall produce the requested native 

files within 5 business days. Each document produced in response to such requests shall be 

produced with a “NativePath” entry in the .DAT load file indicating the relative file path to 

each Native File on the production media.

20. Structured Data. The parties will work together to reduce the cost and size of 

the production of structured data with the goal of reducing the relative burden on the parties. 

As a general matter, reports generated from a database, whether maintained internally by the 

party or through a third party provider, shall be produced as reports in Microsoft Excel, 

Microsoft Access or ASCII delimited text format.

21. Color. The receiving party may request production of specific documents in 

color by (1) providing a list of the Bates numbers of documents it requests to be produced in 

color format, and (2) an explanation of the need for reviewing such documents in color. The 

producing party shall not unreasonably deny such requests, and shall produce the requested 

native files within 5 business days, but need not make such production until the parties reach 

agreement regarding the additional costs associated with the production of documents in color. 

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 9 of 12
-10-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Where such agreement is reached and documents are produced in color, they shall be provided 

in single page JPG format, created with a resolution of at least 300 dots per inch (dpi). Each 

JPG image should be named as the corresponding Bates number associated with that page. 

Original document orientation should be maintained (i.e., portrait to portrait and landscape to 

landscape). Bates numbers, confidentiality designations, and redactions should be branded 

onto the JPG images so that they appear when the document is printed. JPG files should be 

provided in a self-identified “Images” folder

22. Parent-Child Relationships. Parent-child relationships (the association between 

e-mails and attachments) will be preserved through the production of a ProdBegAttach field 

contained in the .DAT load file. E-mail attachments will be consecutively produced with the 

parent email record.

23. Duplicates. Each party shall de-duplicate ESI on a global level (across all 

custodians) prior to production. The basis for such de-duplication shall be the MD5 or SHA1 

Hash values, or some other later agreed to de-duplication method such as full text deduplication. For generating either the MD5 or SHA1 hash values for emails, the parties shall 

instruct their ESI processing vendors to take attachments into account for such hash value 

generation; an email shall only be considered a duplicate if the attachments are also the exact 

same as another email and its attachments. The identity of other custodians of de-duplicated 

items must be listed in the “Custodian” field (or otherwise provided in the delimited .DAT text 

file) of the copy of the record that is produced or in a “Dupe Custodians” field identifying each 

custodian to the email. If productions are made on a rolling basis, an overlay file shall be 

produced updating the “Dupe Custodians” field for prior produced documents.

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 10 of 12
-11-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

24. Non-Degradation. Documents shall not be converted from one form to another 

such that it becomes more difficult or burdensome to use the document or that removes or 

degrades the ability to search by electronic means documents that were originally searchable. 

25. Documents That Cannot Be Imaged. To the extent that a document cannot be 

imaged for technical reasons, a place-holder image will be produced which identifies the file by 

file name and file extension. The Metadata for these documents will be produced as otherwise 

required by this Stipulation. Examples of such files include, but are not limited to, corrupted 

files, container files or databases (e.g., .pst, .zip, .mdb, etc.), or proprietary software associated 

with a file.

26. Inaccessible ESI. Absent a showing of good cause, no party need restore any 

form of media upon which backup data is maintained, including but not limited to, backup 

tapes, disks, SAN, disaster recovery systems, and other forms of media, to comply with its 

discovery obligations in the present case. Additionally, absent a showing of good cause, 

voicemails, and unlogged instant messages are deemed not reasonably accessible and need not 

be collected and preserved. 

27. Privilege Logs. If any ESI is withheld pursuant to a claim of privilege, the 

responding party shall produce a log of privileged documents as required by FRCP 26(b)(5)(A).

28. Encryption. To maximize the security of information in transit, any media on 

which documents are produced may be encrypted by the producing party. In such cases, the 

producing party shall transmit the encryption key or password to the requesting party, under 

separate cover, contemporaneously with sending the encrypted media.

29. Processing Third-Party Documents. A party that issues a non-party subpoena 

(“Issuing Party”) shall include a copy of this ESI Protocol with the subpoena and request that 

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 11 of 12
-12-

[PROPOSED] STIPULATED ORDER REGARDING PROTOCOL FOR PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

955665.01

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

the non-party produce documents in accordance with the specifications set forth herein. The 

Issuing Party is responsible for producing to all other parties any documents obtained pursuant 

to a subpoena to any non-party. To the extent practical given the data volume, productions by a 

non-party should be produced by the Issuing Party to all other parties within seven (7) days of 

the non-party’s production to the Issuing Party.

So Stipulated:

DATED: June 12, 2015 THE ARNS LAW FIRM

By: ________/S/ Robert S. Arns_________________

Robert S. Arns

Jonathan Davis

Attorneys for Plaintiffs and Proposed 

FLSA and Rule 23 Class Members

DATED: June 12, 2015 KEKER & VAN NEST LLP 

By: ________/S/ Rachael Meny__________________

Rachael Meny

Benjamin Berkowitz

Ryan Wong

Attorneys for Defendant

IT IS ORDERED that the forgoing Agreement is approved. 

Dated:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

June 15, 2015

U

NITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

IT IS SO ORDERED

Judge Edward M. Chen

Case 3:15-cv-00697-EMC Document 45 Filed 06/15/15 Page 12 of 12