1

P. Sue Engledow CSR/RPR - 972.978.2368 - p.sue@att.net

1

2 TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

1 Speakers:

2 MATTHEW CAIRNS, Gallagher, Callahan & 

Gartrell

3 3 DONALD H. SLAVIK, Robinson Calcagnie Robinson Sharpiro Davis, Inc. 4 In the Matter of: ) 

PUBLIC HEARING ON PROPOSED ) 5 AMENDMENTS TO THE FEDERAL )

RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE ) 6 JUDICIAL CONFERENCE ADVISORY ) 

COMMITTEE ON CIVIL RULES ) 7

8

9

10

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Pages: 1 through

18

Place: Dallas, Texas 19

Date: February 7, 2014

4 RALPH DEWSNUP, Utah Association for Justice MAJA C. EATON, Sidley Austin LLP

5 BECKY KOURLIS, Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System 6 MICHAEL O'KEEFE COWLES, Equal Justice Center 7 JOHN W. GRIFFIN, Marek, Griffin & Knaupp MARY NOLD LARIMORE, Ice Miller LLP

8 WILLIAM B. CURTIS, Curtis Law Group J. MICHAEL WESTON, Lederer Weston Craig PLC

9 SUJA A. THOMAS, University of Illinois, College of Law. 10 MARK P. CHALOS, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein 11 BRADFORD A. BERENSON, GE

MICHAEL J. HARRINGTON, Eli Lilly and

12 Company WILLIAM T. HANGLEY, Hangley Aronchick Segal

13 Pudlin & Schiller GREGORY C. COOK, Balch & Bingham LLP

14 MICHAEL C. SMITH, Texas Trial Lawyers Association 15 THOMAS R. KELLY, Pfizer, Inc. JOHN H. MARTIN, Thompson & Knight LLP

16 LEIGH ANN SCHELL, Kuchler Polk Schell

Weiner & Richeson, LLC. 17 DAVID WERNER, Shell Oil Company MICHAEL L. SLACK, Slack & Davis, LLP

18 STEVEN M. PUISZIS, Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP 

MEGAN JONES, Hausfeld LLP (on behalf of

19 COSAL)

WILLIAM H.J. HUBBARD, University of

20 20

P. Sue Engledow CSR/RPR

Chicago, the Law School

LEE A. MICKUS, Snell & Wilmer 21 Court Reporter P.O. Box 2741

22 Red Oak, Texas 75154

972.978.2368

23 p.sue@att.net

24

25

21 DONALD J. LOUGH, Ford Motor Company GILBERT S. KETELTAS, Baker Hostetler 22 DAVID A. ROSEN, Rose, Klein & Marias LLP 

STUART A. OLLANIK, Ollanik Law LLC

23 J. BERNARD ALEXANDER, III, Alexander Krakow & Glick

24 CONOR R. CROWLEY, Sedona Conference Working Group 25 NEVA LUSK, Spilman Thomas & Battle, LLP 

KARL R. MOOR, Southern Company

1 BEFORE THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF THE U.S. COURTS 1

2 In the Matter of: ) 2

) 3 PUBLIC HEARING ON PROPOSED ) 3

AMENDMENTS TO THE FEDERAL ) 4 RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE ) 4

JUDICIAL CONFERENCE ADVISORY )

5 COMMITTEE ON CIVIL RULES ) 5

6 Friday, 6

February 7, 2014

7 7

8 The parties met, pursuant to notice, at 8

9 9:00 a.m. 9

10 BEFORE: HONORABLE DAVID G. CAMPBELL, CHAIR 10

11 APPEARANCES: 11

12 Committee Members and Reporters: 12

13 HON. PAUL S. DIAMOND 13

DEAN ROBERT H. KLONOFF

14 HON. ARTHUR I. HARRIS 14

HON. GENE E.K. PRATTER

15 PETER D. KEISLER, Esquire 15

HON. JOHN G. KOELTL

16 HON. JEFFREY S. SUTTON 16

PROF. EDWARD H. COOPER

17 PROF. RICHARD L. MARCUS 17

HON. PAUL H. GRIMM

18 HON. SCOTT M. MATHESON, JR. 18

HON. STUART F. DELEREY

19 ELIZABETH CABRASER, Esquire 19

HON. SOLOMON OLIVER, JR. 20 HON. DAVID E. NAHMIAS 20

HON. ROBERT MICHAEL DOW, JR. 21 JOHN M. BARKETT, Esquire 21

PARKER C. FOLSE, Esquire

22 22

23 23

24 24

25 25

Speakers: (Cont'd.)

SUSAN M. ROTKIS, Consumer Litigation Associates, PC

DAN REGARD, iDiscovery Solutions JOHN D. MARTIN, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP

ASHISH S. PRASAD, Discovery Services LLC

Ariana TADLER, Milberg LLP JENNIFER

HENRY, Thompson & Knight DAVID

KESSLER, Norton Rose Fulbright

JOHN F. SULLIVAN III, K&L Gates LLP 

DANYA SHOCAIR REDA, New York University

BRIAN P. SANFORD, Sanford Bethune
P. Sue Engledow CSR/RPR - 972.978.2368 - p.sue@att.net

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1 P R O C E E D I N G S.

2 (9:00 a.m.)

1 thing as you begin.

2 Mr. Cairns, if you could, when you begin tell

3 HON. CAMPBELL: Good morning, everybody.

4 Welcome to sunny Dallas. I was telling folks we picked

5 this city because of its good weather in February.

6 We're glad you're all here. We know that we

7 have lost at least one speaker who can't make it because

8 of the -- couldn't make it yesterday because of the

9 weather, and we hope we haven't lost others.

10 Welcome to all of the members of the committee.

11 It's good to have all of you here as well.

12 Judge Sutton, I know, couldn't get a flight

13 until this morning after his was canceled, but he should

14 be here in an hour or so.

15 We very much appreciate those of you who come

16 to address the committee today. We greatly value the

17 comments that you will be making, and the input that you

18 have provided.

19 We are in the process of reviewing all of the

20 written comments. As of yesterday we had 532 and

21 counting. It's a challenging job to stay abreast of

22 those with our day jobs, but we are going to review them

23 all. There is a lot of thought reflected in those

24 comments, as well as we know in the comments that are

25 made today.

3 us if there is an affiliation that is relevant to the

4 comments, if you are a member of a group that you

5 canvassed. We would be interested as well in your area

6 of practice if you are a practicing lawyer, or your

7 focus, if you're a professor.

8 All right. Please, Mr. Cairns.

9 MR. CAIRNS: Thank you, your Honor.

10 My name is Matthew Cairns. I'm with the

11 Concord, New Hampshire law firm of Gallagher, Callahan &

12 Gartrell.

13 For 27 years it's been my privilege and honor

14 to be representing and defending the interests of

15 individuals, corporations and municipalities in civil

16 litigation.

17 This is my second time before the committee.

18 In 2009 I was here as the first vice president of DRI,

19 the voice of the defense bar.

20 I'm now a past president of DRI, and despite my

21 youth I am referred to as a senior advisor. It's

22 disconcerting.

23 Later today you will be hearing from two DRI

24 officers, President Mike Weston; and

25 secretary/treasurer, Steve Puiszis.

1 As you know, we have got 40 -- well, actually

2 now 39 folks who are going to be addressing us today, so

3 it's important that we stay on schedule. We have five

4 minutes allotted for you to make your comments, and then

5 five minutes for committee questions.

6 If you run over your five minutes a few

7 minutes, that's fine, but we will try to end every

8 speaker's time at the lectern by about ten minutes so

9 that we get everybody through in a reasonable amount of

10 time today, and we have a chance to hear from all of

11 you.

12 We have some lights on the lectern up there.

13 You will get a yellow light when there is one minute

14 left -- two minutes left, and a red light when five

15 minutes have arrived.

16 But as I said, if you go over that by a few

17 minutes, that's fine, we will just shorten our questions

18 to make sure we get you on and off in about ten minutes.

19 So with those introductory comments we are

20 going to start with Matthew Cairns.

21 MR. CAIRNS: Cairns.

22 HON. CAMPBELL: Cairns. Welcome Mr.

23 Cairns.

24 MR. CAIRNS: Thank you very much.

25 HON. CAMPBELL: Let me mention one other

1 I, however, am here today to speak to you as a

2 lawyer who has to explain discovery issues to

3 individuals: small businesses, municipalities, school

4 districts in New Hampshire.

5 First, because I'm batting the league off, let

6 me thank you all on behalf of those who have come before

7 me, and those who will be here later this afternoon.

8 The committee is tackling important issues that

9 have in many ways undermined a level playing field that

10 our individual and corporate citizens expect of our

11 court system.

12 Discovery disputes consume time and resources

13 that should be spent by plaintiffs and defendants in

14 litigation, not in discovery fights.

15 More often than not in my cases a litigant

16 cannot even afford discovery disputes, and in the case

17 of municipalities the intrusion into their individual

18 volunteers' lives that discovery disputes create.

19 One of my towns, which is above the notch in

20 New Hampshire, that's the northern counties of the

21 state, has only one computer in the entire town hall. I

22 had a case with them which has required me to put a hold

23 on ten volunteers' personal computers. Those are

24 computers that their wives and children use on a daily

25 basis.
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1 Needless to say, the intrusion into privacy is

2 great, and needless to say, the push for having me

3 resolve a meritless case simply to protect those

4 volunteers' privacy is very strong.

5 I read with interest the comments from the

6 earlier hearing, and some of the written submissions on

7 both sides of the debate. To my reading, nothing has

8 changed, nothing that has been proposed should cause

9 this committee to change course.

10 The LCJ and others, including Professor

11 Hubbard, who will be speaking here later today, will be

12 providing empirical verifiable evidence of what is wrong

13 with the current state of discovery practice under the

14 rules. They have also explained how the changes you

15 propose will solve those problems.

16 Those opposing change seem to rely on hyperbole

17 and hypothetical, the claim that without unfettered

18 discovery they will be unable to adduce the evidence to

19 support their claims, notwithstanding the requirements

20 of Rule 11 out the outset of their case.

21 They also fear unethical conduct by the Court,

22 responding parties that will hide important evidence or

23 try to bury people with unnecessary production.

24 What the opponents to change did not explain,

25 perhaps because they cannot, is how the proposal

1 conference call with him, and he then applies the rules

2 of proportionality and other things to the Court.

3 The things that you're asking, and we're here

4 emphasizing, he takes that responsibility very

5 seriously, and uses it as part of his case management

6 docket.

7 Similarly, if he puts a limit on depositions,

8 and you're getting ready to go over that limit, you call

9 him up, he gets involved in the case. He gets an

10 understanding of what's happening, and helps creates

11 opportunities for judicial touches on the file rather

12 than a structuring conference, an adversarial motion and

13 then a trial.

14 Your proposed changes are not so radical, and

15 do not spell the end of discovery, in my opinion. The

16 changes strengthen what is already there, and what

17 changes may do is spell the end of abusive and

18 ineffective discovery as is often conducted today. And

19 in doing so, it will create the dawn of an age of

20 discovery as it should be conducted. I think we should

21 all welcome that sunrise.

22 I'm 11 seconds over. Thank you.

23 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Mr. Cairns.

24 Are there questions from any members of the

25 committee?

1 provisions will so radically change discovery that the

2 changes should be rejected.

3 The committee's revisions to Rule 26 emphasize

4 proportionality, and in doing so promote discovery

5 tailored to the case, discovery that will advance the

6 ball.

7 The proportionality approach will basically

8 share the burden on litigants. Both the requester and

9 the responder will have to assess, and perhaps

10 demonstration of motion be required, whether the Court

11 can -- excuse me -- whether the cost and/or breadth of

12 discovery sought is truly relevant to the claim or

13 defense. This is a two-way street. It's not uniquely a

14 plaintiff or defendant. It's an effort.

15 To that point, let me speak briefly to Rule

16 16(b)(3). That's the -- as you know, that's the section

17 where you give the judge the opportunity to include in

18 his discovery order a requirement that folks first reach

19 out to him before -- or her -- before they file a

20 discovery motion.

21 Chief Judge Leplante in the New Hampshire

22 district court has that rule. His colleagues do not,

23 and I'm not sure why they do not, because every time I

24 have had a discovery dispute with Judge Leplante we have

25 had to call him up on the phone, both sides get on a

1 Solomon.

2 HON. OLIVER: Good morning.

3 MR. CAIRNS: Good morning.

4 HON. OLIVER: Do you think the rules

5 change the obligations of the parties or alter them with

6 regard to the proportionality -- in regard to

7 proportionality?

8 MR. CAIRNS: I think the proposed change,

9 your Honor, does not change the proportionality

10 requirements that exist.

11 What it does is it emphasizes what most people

12 forget is already there. By moving them up into

13 26(b)(1) it gives proportionality the emphasis that I

14 believe it should have rather than have them be buried

15 in a small Roman numeral phrase several lines below.

16 HON. CAMPBELL: Parker.

17 MR. FOLSE: As a result of that change

18 would you anticipate using lack of proportionality in

19 your practice to a greater extent as a basis for

20 objecting to discovery requests than you do now with the

21 current placement language?

22 MR. CAIRNS: I believe -- I believe I

23 would.

24 I will confess that in my practice in

25 New Hampshire we're not seeing a lot of the old breadth
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1 of discovery abuse that a lot of other people are

2 seeing.

3 But with regard to municipalities and other

4 things, I would be able to point to it. I think the

5 judges would be more aware of it. Not that they are not

6 aware of it now, but it would be highlighted for them,

7 and I would highlight it earlier in the process.

8 So, yes, I would probably use it more.

9 HON. CAMPBELL: Other questions?

10 PROF. MARCUS: You mentioned not only the

11 town computer, but something like ten personal computers

12 were subject to a hold.

13 MR. CAIRNS: Yes.

14 PROF. MARCUS: How would these rule

15 changes change that?

16 MR. CAIRNS: The reason why the personal

17 computers were all put on hold were because the

18 plaintiff elected to sue the volunteer members of the

19 board in their individual capacities. And the meritless

20 part of that claim nevertheless was so far down the road

21 for me to be able to address that, that we had to lock

22 down these computers early on.

23 It would have been nice if we had had an

24 opportunity to address the proportionality of those

25 claims before the litigation hold was put on, if that

1 committee for the Toyota Unwanted Acceleration MDL venue

2 in federal court in southern California.

3 I'm admitted to the bars of four states, and

4 over a dozen federal district and circuit courts, and I

5 am a licensed professional engineer.

6 I have filed comments on behalf of the American

7 Association for Justice Products Liability Section, a

8 group I have chaired in the past.

9 In my comments I filed last month I addressed

10 four areas of witnesses for which we need depositions.

11 I want to address the limitations -- proposed

12 limitations regarding the presumption of limits on

13 depositions, interrogatory and request for admissions.

14 I addressed four areas in my comments that

15 dealt with fact witnesses, manufacturers, employees,

16 experts and damages. One I forgot, after going back and

17 looking at my most recent trial, was an area that is

18 very important in our area of products liability

19 litigation. That's other similar incidents, we call

20 them OSIs, and the witnesses necessary to generate the

21 evidence we need to get to trial in those areas.

22 In products liability cases one of the most

23 important questions in the minds of jurors is whether or

24 not other consumers have been affected by the alleged

25 defective condition of the product. Has it happened to

1 makes some sense, but I think that in the end what it

2 did is it -- the point of the example was a rogue

3 settlement to protect privacy as opposed to the merits

4 of the case.

5 That's the same way -- if it's a million dollar

6 discovery fee for a corporation, this was a -- virtually

7 no cost, but so invasive to the personal privacy of the

8 people that the breadth of whole cause of the problem

9 that caused my client to put pressure on the insurance

10 company to resolve the case.

11 HON. CAMPBELL: Jeff?

12 HON. SUTTON: I had a similar question.

13 HON. CAMPBELL: Other questions?

14 (No response.)

15 HON. CAMPBELL: Donald Slavic.

16 MR. SLAVIC: Good morning, your Honor.

17 My name is Don Slavic. I'm an attorney from

18 Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I am a senior counsel for

19 a firm in southern California.

20 I have practiced for 33 years, almost

21 exclusively representing injured consumers in products

22 liability, aviation and utility negligence cases.

23 I have handled cases in more than 30 states in

24 both federal and state courts, and I spent much of the

25 2010 to 2012 period as a member of plaintiffs' steering

1 anybody else, is what they want to know.

2 Therefore, it's important for us to obtain

3 information from the defendant about other similar

4 incidents, and to lay the predicate foundation for the

5 introduction at trial.

6 This usually requires discovery in especially

7 depositions. Depositions can be taken of the persons

8 who have experienced the alleged problem, and sometimes

9 independent witnesses to their events.

10 In my experience one or two are not enough, and

11 often five or more OSIs need to be proven up with a

12 corresponding number of depositions.

13 Request for admissions and interrogatories are

14 also used to obtain information to prepare admissible

15 foundation for these OSIs.

16 This is not a theoretical issue, but a real

17 practical one that I and members of the AAJ Product

18 Section found in most of their cases.

19 Setting a presumptive limit of five depositions

20 in a case or 25 requests for admissions or 15

21 interrogatories only cause us to seek permission from

22 the Court in most cases for waiver of such limits,

23 higher limits, resulting in more motion practice,

24 additional expense on the part of both parties and

25 delays in adjudication of the claim.
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1 Of course, this does not comport with the

2 provisional Rule 1 that the rule should be construed and

3 administered to secure that justice be the inexpensive

4 determination of every action proceeding. With regard

5 to those limitations, I ask that no changes be made to

6 the current rules.

7 The other area I wish to address is the

8 proposed change to Rule 26(b)(1) regarding the scope of

9 discovery.

10 After many decades we have a well understood

11 scope, any nonprivileged matter relevant to the action,

12 and not necessarily admissible, will be part of

13 discovery.

14 Dropping this and substituting some kind of

15 proportionality test here, as opposed to the later

16 rules, will only be to years and years of litigation

17 over the five factors in the proposed amendments.

18 What's the definition of a known controversy in

19 a contested products liability case, or in economic and

20 non-economic damages?

21 How does one judge the importance of the issues

22 at stake?

23 It's discovery of the resources the parties

24 need before further discovery is done, which is take

25 more depositions.

1 because they had been sanctioned in a prior case for

2 producing that same material in an unsearchable format,

3 making it so difficult that no one in a prior case that

4 the party plaintiffs could not even ascertain this

5 information.

6 However, my most productive discovery was the

7 identification of the defendant of other similar

8 incidents and claims, which led me to other attorneys

9 with other similar claims in other prior cases which

10 made it much more expedient and efficient for me to

11 pursue the case.

12 I see the light is on. I just want to wrap up

13 by saying, over 30 plus years I have seen a decline in

14 jury trials, and I know why.

15 It's because of the motion practice and the

16 expense. We have put in Daubert, as well as a whole

17 other layer of expense and time. We added Twombly and

18 Iqbal, another layer of expense and time.

19 Please don't add another layer of expense and

20 time by putting in these rules which will lead to

21 further litigation and motion practice.

22 Thank you.

23 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you.

24 John.

25 HON. KOELTL: Let me ask.

1 How can parties ever agree on the importance of

2 discovery to resolve the issues, and what factors affect

3 the expense versus benefit analysis?

4 The previous speaker talked about, quote,

5 "meritless claims." How does one judge whether

6 something is meritless in the beginning?

7 I certainly am -- given Rule 11 don't want to

8 file meritless claims.

9 The proposed amendment only creates tremendous

10 ambiguity and ancillary litigation. Again, increasing

11 the time and expense of the parties, the burden on the

12 Court and further delaying in getting to trial.

13 The balance of the rules already specifically

14 address cost issues have been problematic enough, but

15 please don't add to it.

16 I can give you an example of a recent case that

17 I tried in federal court in May of this last year. It

18 was a relatively simple products case with five vehicle

19 occupants. One deceased.

20 We had to take depositions of six lay

21 witnesses, ten expert witnesses, two 30(b)(6) witnesses,

22 five OSI witnesses. Only 20 interrogatories were used.

23 But, again, 20, not 15.

24 The defendant produced documents on two hard

25 drives in a searchable format. Note that they did this

1 How many depositions did you end up taking in

2 the Toyota MDL?

3 MR. SLAVIC: In the Toyota MDL, let's

4 see. I know we had 280 days of depositions. But it was

5 a multi-district litigation, and it became a class

6 action consolidation of somewhere around 250 class

7 actions, and somewhere north of 150 or 200 individual

8 personal injury cases.

9 HON. KOELTL: And in the other case you

10 mentioned --

11 MR. SLAVIC: The other case I mentioned

12 was a single personal injury wrongful death case. And

13 in that case depositions -- we had five to a side, two,

14 seven, thirteen, twenty-three depositions.

15 HON. KOELTL: And --

16 MR. SLAVIC: There was no motion

17 practice.

18 HON. KOELTL: And the presumptive limit is

19 now ten?

20 MR. SLAVIC: Ten.

21 HON. KOELTL: That didn't prevent the

22 parties from agreeing without motion practice to have in

23 one case 280 days, and in the other case 23 depositions?

24 MR. SLAVIC: In the first case we had

25 pushed for it at the beginning, and it was understood
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1 what needed to be done.

2 There was an agreement by the parties with the

3 Court understanding the importance of the issues in that

4 one. That was a large case.

5 This other one, because the Court -- because

6 the parties were experienced and knew what it took to

7 take the case and prepare the case, it was understood.

8 But moving from ten to five you're just putting

9 down further lines, is my point, is that you're now

10 saying discovery is not important.

11 HON. KOELTL: But you don't -- you don't

12 really think that if either of those cases, moving from

13 ten to five would have affected the other side, or the

14 judge, in the number of depositions, do you?

15 MR. SLAVIC: In the Toyota case, I

16 might -- I'm not going to address. That's a whole

17 different issue.

18 But with regards to this other case, I think it

19 would have put them in a better position to say you only

20 get one 30(b)(6) instead of two 30(b)(6)s. You know we

21 are not going to let you take depositions on both sides.

22 We lose the bargaining position. We lose the

23 ability to deal with them. Again, further motion

24 practice. I can see the motion practice. The balance

25 of -- the proportionality is going to be difficult

1 complaint is a set of requests for admissions

2 essentially.

3 The defense may be more harmed. I get requests

4 for admissions from the defense, 40, 50, 60, but if it

5 helps narrow the scope of the issues going to trial, I

6 think they're important.

7 In putting a limit on them, my concern is that

8 it's going to lead to, again, other problems, other

9 problems of either other discovery needed, more motion

10 practice, more issues have to go to trial that shouldn't

11 have to go to trial.

12 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

13 very much, Mr. Slavic.

14 Ralph Dewsnup.

15 MR. DEWSNUP: My name is Ralph Dewsnup.

16 I have practiced law in state and federal courts in Utah

17 for the past 36 plus years.

18 I am also admitted to practice before the

19 Federal Circuit Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

20 and the U.S. Supreme Court.

21 The focus of my practice is representing

22 plaintiffs in personal injury matters. Principally

23 those that involve medical malpractice and defective

24 products.

25 My firm is Dewsnup King & Olsen located in Salt

1 enough.

2 The reason that we try one federal court case

1 Lake City, and we have 11 lawyers.

2 I'm testifying today on behalf of the Utah

3 every other year or so now, as opposed to multi-cases

4 each year back in the 1980s when I started practicing,

5 is because of this motion practice.

6 HON. CAMPBELL: Other questions?

7 (No response.)

8 HON. CAMPBELL: I have a question on

9 your comment, although it was brief, on requests for

10 admissions.

11 Mr. SLAVIC: Yes, sir.

12 HON. CAMPBELL: Organ and Arizona have

13 put limits on request for admissions of -- I think, 25

14 in each state. Both states had surveys conducted before

15 the Duke conference that gave rise to a lot of these

16 ideas.

17 And in the surveys in both states a majority of

18 the lawyers said they wouldn't change that as long as

19 they could litigate perfectly effectively with 25 or

20 fewer requests for admissions.

21 Could you give us your thoughts on why you

22 think that limit would create problems?

23 MR. SLAVIC: Well, interestingly, the

24 limits may not cause much problem, because when we file

25 a complaint, as one of my colleagues noted, our

3 Association for Justice. I have served as president of

4 its predecessor organization for two years, from 1990 to

5 1992.

6 I also served on the Utah Judicial Council's

7 Committee on Improving Jury Service from '97 to 2004.

8 And on the model Utah Jury Instruction

9 Committee from 2005 to 2007.

10 I was a member of the National Board of

11 Trustees for American Inns of Court Foundation from 1988

12 to 1998. I served on its executive committee for the

13 last four years of that period.

14 I'm also a retired United States Air Force

15 Brigadier General having served in the Utah National

16 Guard.

17 The UAJ is opposed to the proposed changes to

18 the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and asked that I

19 appear and set forth some of the reasons why.

20 My testimony will be supplemented with written

21 comments that will be filed with the committee.

22 As I reviewed the testimony and position papers

23 of some of those that appeared before this committee,

24 I'm convinced that many of my own observations and

25 opinions have already been expressed.
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1 What concerns me, though, is the distinct

2 impression that I have that the train has left the

3 station, and that something is going to be adopted.

4 It's just a question of what.

5 I have experienced a similar phenomenon and

6 seen the erosion of the rights of victims of medical

7 malpractice victims in my state as legislators and

8 opinion makers bowed to pressure from interest groups,

9 and changed laws in an effort to correct a supposed

10 problem that didn't exist at all. At least not in our

11 state.

12 It was done in the most draconian of ways, and

13 over a period of time statutes of limitations was

14 shortened, mandatory screening panels were instituted,

15 affidavits of merit were required, burdens of proof were

16 intensified, periods of liability were eliminated, and

17 jury awards were capped. These were limited and

18 insurance companies in our state got richer and victims

19 pounded sand.

20 The atmosphere that's producing the present cry

21 for the Federal Rules changes feels all too familiar. I

22 just hope that my feelings are wrong.

23 As many of you know, Utah has already gone far

24 beyond the federal proposal in implementing its version

25 of proportionality.

1 Tier one allows a total of three hours of fact

2 depositions, no interrogatories, and only five requests

3 for admission and production.

4 All discovery must be completed within strict

5 time limits. Only when ceilings are reached in each

6 category may a party petition for extraordinary relief.

7 Then judges are requiring a showing of truly

8 extraordinary condition. Not extra ordinary

9 circumstances, but extraordinary circumstances. And

10 standards about what that means are not spelled out,

11 they are very subjective, and inconsistently applied.

12 As a practical matter these limits are often

13 bypassed by counsel. The rules are being looked at by

14 attorneys who recognize their impracticality, and agree

15 among themselves to simply take more depositions, or ask

16 and answer more interrogatories. Leave of court is not

17 sought nor obtained.

18 Therefore, whatever data has been compiled in

19 the case of success of a tiered approach in our state, I

20 don't think will be very reliable.

21 Utah rules now limit discovery to that which is

22 both relevant and proportional. The proportionality is

23 defined as requiring consideration of 11 different

24 elements. Then the rule places the burden on the party

25 seeking discovery to show both proportionality and

1 Whereas, the federal focus is threefold,

2 proportional discovery, attorney cooperation and early

3 enacted judicial case management.

4 I view Utah's focus as being different. Given

5 the heavy judicial case loads and scarce resources, it

6 was impractical to urge early judicial case management.

7 Attorney cooperation has been encouraged

8 through moral persuasion and civility campaigns.

9 However, proportionality was implemented by

10 rule with a vengeance.

11 Since I have seen Utah experience touted as a

12 positive example of what the federal changes can

13 achieve, I want to comment on what I see happening.

14 We have a three-tiered system based on the

15 amount in controversy.

16 Tier one if for cases up to $50,000 in damages.

17 Tier two is for those between 50 and $300,000

18 in damages.

19 And tier three is those -- for those over

20 300,000 in damages.

21 In tier three cases total fact depositions must

22 be less than 30 hours, and limits on interrogatories,

23 requests for production and requests for admissions are

24 set at 20 each.

25 Tier two is half that in each category.

1 relevance.

2 What happens is that all a party has to do to

3 halt discovery is object that it's not proportional,

4 then it's up to the party seeking discovery to make the

5 case for proportionality, giving the plaintiff in a

6 product liability case with the burden to show the

7 requirement of all 11 proportionality elements in a

8 vacuum. The defendant has all the documents. The game

9 of hide the ball begins.

10 Remember, the defendant designed the product,

11 tested it, manufactured it, marketed it, and has all of

12 the records of its performance in the marketplace.

13 Yet all it has to do is to assert a

14 proportionality objection, the plaintiff is forced to

15 file a motion, a supporting brief, perhaps supported by

16 an expensive expert affidavit to get important

17 information.

18 Even then the defendant may withhold some of

19 the information in the answer that it gives.

20 Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on the time

21 allotted to give discovery.

22 Which product manufacturer would not want the

23 ability to routinely object to the proportionality of

24 discovery, and then force all plaintiffs to prove

25 proportionality.
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1 Some plaintiffs would simply give up, or be

2 spent into submission, if they can even find an attorney

3 who is counting the cost of litigation, willing to

4 take -- to represent them in the face of such tactics.

5 I laud the recommendations that the Courts

6 become involved early in the management of cases, and I

7 encourage anything that promotes civility and attorney

8 cooperation, but I submit that sufficient

9 proportionality safeguards are already in the Federal

10 Rules, and would add that if adopted the proposed

11 proportionality rules may actually result in preventing

12 a fast, expedient and inexpensive determination of

13 cases.

14 If you have any questions.

15 HON. CAMPBELL: Robert.

16 DEAN KLONOFF: The rule --

17 HON. CAMPBELL: I think it's on. You

18 just need to get in front of it.

19 DEAN KLONOFF: On the one hand you talk

20 about all these horrible consequences that will result.

21 On the other hand, I thought you said that the

22 parties are working between themselves, and essentially

23 dealing with the issues and allowing more discovery.

24 MR. DEWSNUP: Almost ignoring the rules,

25 that's right.

1 implemented by rule, there is always some territory at

2 the edge of the rule that is not defined, and it creates

3 less of opportunity for mischief.

4 HON. CAMPBELL: Any other questions?

5 John, quickly.

6 MR. BARKETT: Yes.

7 Are you talking about the equivalent of the

8 Federal Rule 11 or 26(g)?

9 MR. DEWSNUP: Yes.

10 MR. BARKETT: Have either of those

11 rules been utilized to deal with the concern that you

12 have expressed over what I understood to be really --

13 maybe not frivolous objections based on proportionality,

14 but time-consuming and expensive objections based on

15 proportionality?

16 Because it seemed to me that both of those

17 rules would deal with that concern, if in fact it's a

18 serious one.

19 MR. DEWSNUP: I haven't seen very much

20 litigation involving Rule 11 in Utah courts.

21 These rules are only two years old, and I don't

22 think there is very much experience with it.

23 MR. BARKETT: What's your sense on how

24 those rules work in federal court if in fact defendants

25 begin to raise proportionality objections that -- at

1 What good is a rule if it isn't followed?

2 HON. CAMPBELL: Peter.

3 MR. KIESLER: It sounded that what made

4 proportionality the proportionality with a vengeance was

5 this very strict conception of burdens where the

6 producing party merely needed to object, and then the

7 requesting party had to produce information about

8 something which presumably it wouldn't even have access

9 to information about, which is the imposition on the

10 producing party.

11 If that were taken out of it, if somewhere in

12 the rule process the note, whatever it were, were made

13 clear that this wasn't about formally creating those

14 kinds of burdens, but just identifying the factors that

15 have to be taken into account by all parties and the

16 judges, would you still object to the concept of

17 proportionality if, for example, it was understood that

18 it would be the producing party that would have to

19 explain to the judge why there would be a burden, and it

20 would be the requesting party that would have to explain

21 why the information was important, and it wasn't that

22 kind of strict allocation of proof that you describe?

23 MR. DEWSNUP: Not to the same degree.

24 I don't think we object conceptually to the

25 idea of proportionality if it makes sense, but when it's

1 least from your description, you're suggesting would

2 have no merit?

3 MR. DEWSNUP: Well, if they have no

4 merit, I think that they run into problems with any

5 judge. But I think the proportionality rules that exist

6 already under Rule 26(b)(2)(c) are adequate, and they

7 allow a party to assert when they think they're being

8 used.

9 MR. BARKETT: So why would things be

10 different with this change?

11 MR. DEWSNUP: Well, one, because it

12 changes the whole emphasis, places the rule in the

13 forefront of Rule 26 instead of in the background.

14 I don't think people are utilizing the

15 opportunities that already exist.

16 When you don't define who has the burden of

17 proof, then it's up to the judge where the burden is

18 placed.

19 And when there is no certainty as to how that's

20 going to occur, I think that's mischief.

21 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

22 very much, Mr. Dewsnup.

23 MR. DEWSNUP: Thank you.

24 HON. CAMPBELL: Maja Eaton.

25 MS. EATON: The name is Maja Eaton.
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33

1

2

3 spell.

4

HON. CAMPBELL: Maja. I apologize. 

MS. EATON: It's easy to say, hard to

I want to thank you for the important work that

1 I know that the committee notes and the rules

2 don't currently address multi-district litigation in

3 particular, but one of the issues I do see with the

4 proportionality if 26(b)(1) is adopted, is that in

5 the committee is undertaking.

6 I have practiced law for 30 years with Sidley

7 Austin, exclusively in the area of products liability

8 and mass torts, and on behalf of pharmaceutical and

9 medical device manufacturers.

10 I have also been involved in toxic tort

11 litigation on behalf of industrial companies in the U.S.

12 I want to make clear that my testimony is

13 personal rather than on behalf of my firm. I recognize

14 that I'm very proud and lucky to be a partner, and my

15 comments are my own and not on behalf of the firm.

16 I am also affiliated with Lawyers for Civil

17 Justice, have been for seven years, and I have endorsed

18 the comments that have been submitted by the Lawyers for

19 Civil Justice. But, again, my observations today are my

20 own.

21 The committee's proposed rules are an important

22 step in addressing what I perceive as the challenges and

23 abuses, quite frankly, in civil litigation today.

24 In my 30 years of practice I have witnessed a

25 shift away from what I remember as a young associate

5 multi-district litigation, because of the size of the

6 litigation, I think there is a natural tendency on the

7 part of both the parties and the Court to think of that

8 as somehow broadening the scope of discovery simply

9 because you have got 150 or 15,000 cases.

10 But the -- I think early case management

11 resolution -- or early case management principles and

12 the principles of proportionality should be applied in

13 multi-district litigation as well to focus the parties

14 early on on issues that are amenable to resolution, or

15 that will dispose of the entire issues early on in the

16 litigation through local time orders. I don't currently

17 see that in the advisory committee notes, but I offer it

18 up for consideration.

19 Also, just because you have a multi-district

20 litigation, that's where I practice most today, the

21 issues -- the common issues which have created the need

22 for multi-district litigation don't somehow then broaden

23 liability discovery. But that seems to be some of

24 the -- seems to be the expectation and the attitude on

25 the part of both the litigants and the Courts.

1 as -- you know, my first assignment being sit down and

2 craft your opening statement or your closing statement

3 and then work in discovery to bring those issues to the

4 fore, or to identify and bring forward in early case

5 management the issues that will be helpful, most helpful

6 to resolution, whether it's summary judgment or motions

7 to dismiss.

8 But lately, I'd say for the past ten to fifteen

9 years, what I have seen has been a shift away to

10 focusing on discovery as a means to an end, and the end

11 is usually trying to force settlement.

12 And the -- there seems to be a prize for

13 identifying discovery abuses that then can be the

14 subject of ancillary litigation, and it has become a

15 real issue.

16 Primarily, as I see it, there has been an

17 explosion, I think, in the last ten years as well in

18 multi-district litigation. And it's been in that

19 context, unfortunately, although MDLs are set up to be

20 an efficient way to handle mass tort litigation, it

21 often becomes carte blanche for unfettered discovery and

22 seeking out of a sort of gotcha mentality.

23 And I applaud the committee's proposed

24 amendment to Rule 26(b)(1), and putting proportionality

25 right up front to keep that as a goal.

1 I would just -- I think -- you know, if we

2 focus on the factors in 26(b)(1) that might define the

3 scope of discovery, things like being in controversy,

4 the importance of the issues and the size of the

5 litigation sometimes can overshadow looking at the

6 issues that are to be resolved, as opposed to the size

7 of the litigation itself.

8 Thank you.

9 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

10 Parker.

11 MR. FOLSE: In a supplementary public

12 comment that the Lawyers for Civil Justice filed -- have

13 you seen that?

14 MS. EATON: Yes, I have.

15 MR. FOLSE: One of the points that's made

16 there is that people who object to the proposed

17 amendment concerning proportionately are

18 misunderstanding that under the current state of the law

19 the burden falls on the resisting party to show that a

20 discovery request is not proportional, and that nothing

21 in the proposed rule would alter that.

22 Is that -- I guess it's two questions. Is that

23 a point of view that you share?

24 MS. EATON: Yes, it is.

25 MR. FOLSE: And second, do you see, given
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37

1 some of the comments, examples of which we have already

2 heard this morning, do you see value if the rule is

3 adopted in making clear through an advisory note, or

1

2 can.

3

HON. CAMPBELL: Let me ask one, if I

If the change was adopted and I am a defendant

4 otherwise, that no intent to change burdens is intended

5 as a result of the proposed amendment?

6 MS. EATON: You know, in discovery

7 disputes I have always considered it to be a burden of

8 persuasion as opposed to a strict burden of proof, and

9 in that respect I don't see this rule changing that.

10 In fact, what it does is move the discussion of

11 proportionality and the scope of discovery and make it

12 the responsibility -- the early responsibility of both

13 the litigants and the Court, and it's that -- if there

14 is an expectation that you're going to have those

15 discussions up front, then I think the issues of likely

16 dispute are going to be identified.

17 And, again, it becomes a burden of persuasion,

18 whether you're filing a motion for protective order, or

19 a motion to compel. The issue is going to be

20 proportionality, does this discovery exceed the real

21 needs of this case?

22 And we lose sight of -- you know, we lose sight

23 of what ultimately is going to be tried, or the issues

24 like preemption, for example, that may be used early on

25 to shape the issues. So I don't see it changing burdens

4 and I receive a discovery request, do you think it would

5 be appropriate for me to say in the response I'm not

6 going to answer, or I'm not going to respond to this

7 request because it would unreasonably tax my resources?

8 MS. EATON: Well, the cost benefit is

9 already -- excuse me -- one of the considerations for

10 proportionality, that the discovery -- that the cost --

11 the utility of the information is outweighed by its

12 cost, that is an objection that defendants currently use

13 today. I don't know that the rules would change that.

14 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

15 very much, Ms. Eaton.

16 Becky Kourlis.

17 MS. KOURLIS: Good morning.

18 I want to begin, and this is not a platitude,

19 by thanking you-all so much for the hours and days and

20 weeks and now years that you have put into this work. I

21 think everybody in this room recognizes what a

22 prodigious undertaking it has been and will continue to

23 be, and we thank you.

24 I'm Becky Kourlis. I'm the executive director

25 of the Institute for the Advancement of the American

1 of proof. I don't think of them in terms of burdens of

2 proof.

3 MR. FOLSE: Thank you.

4 HON. CAMPBELL: John.

5 HON. KOELTL: Your comment with respect

to

6 MDL and the amount involved, would it be more helpful in

7 the list of factors to be considered for proportionality

8 if the factors didn't begin with the amount in

9 controversy, but something else, like the importance of

10 the issues at stake?

11 MS. EATON: Yes. Indeed, I think

12 starting with a case where there is a lot -- you know, a

13 million dollar case, or a $5 million case may still turn

14 really on one issue.

15 When you have an MDL, at least in product

16 liability litigation, you're still going to be

17 struggling with the issues of design defect or failure

18 to warn or warranty issues, and those issues are common

19 across the cases.

20 So I think a focus on what truly are the issues

21 in the case, whether it's described as important, but

22 just the relevance and the materiality of the issues, I

23 think would be helpful.

24 HON. CAMPBELL: Other questions?

25 (No response.)

1 Legal System, AALS, at the University of Denver.

2 We have filed two sets of comments, to which I

3 will refer briefly in a moment, but I want to begin at a

4 little bit of a higher level, if I may.

5 You, as rule makers, and I think many of us in

6 this room have also been on that side of the table, have

7 the responsibility of simultaneously having a long-term

8 vision of the civil justice system, and at the same time

9 being acutely mindful of the minute operational details.

10 In other words, you have to keep one eye on the

11 5,000 foot view, and the other on the five foot view,

12 and that's a bit dizzying at times.

13 These new rules proposals must operate at both

14 levels. They must serve the ultimate vision, and must

15 actually work on the ground.

16 More profoundly perhaps, they should have

17 impact on changing the legal culture.

18 Starting from 5,000 feet I believe it is

19 everyone's vision that the system should live up to its

20 Rule 1 promise, that it should really provide a just,

21 speedy and inexpensive process for the resolution of

22 every dispute.

23 Plaintiffs and defendants alike, academics,

24 judges and court staff would all like to see the system

25 be trusted and trustworthy.
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41

1 Functional, not dysfunctional, and undergird by

2 rules that provide the right defaults in the event one

3 or both counsel or the judge are not paying attention.

4 I think there is also broad agreement across

5 the country with the proposition that the system

6 currently invites gamesmanship, which can sometimes be

7 punitively expensive for one side or the other or both.

8 Solutions to those problems are your job. But

9 as the saying goes, the devil is in the details, and

10 that's where we find ourselves now.

11 Everyone seems to agree that more active

12 judicial case management is part of the right set of

13 solutions. There appears to be very little disagreement

14 with that set of proposals.

15 I would add, by the way, here that this is one

16 of the areas in which the federal system is indeed

17 different from some of the state systems.

18 You heard from an earlier person who testified

19 that in Utah there was a presumption that judges had too

20 great a docket to be able to manage with detail.

21 At the federal level I think you operate from

22 perhaps the opposite presumption, that indeed judicial

23 case management on a case-by-case basis is possible, and

24 should be part of the solution.

25 Having a judge who is knowledgeable about the

1 expensive, and I'm quite sure that is not a good thing.

2 What we should seek to achieve is a transparent

3 accessible system in which people get access to the

4 information they need in order to present their claims

5 or defenses, in which they have access to a judge who is

6 knowledgeable and able to resolve their issues

7 expeditiously and access to an ultimate resolution on

8 the merits.

9 It should not be the goal of the system to push

10 parties toward settlement either by virtue of the cost,

11 or by virtue of the process itself.

12 I believe that if I -- this is sort of ironic,

13 but having been on a court that uses this particular

14 system of lights, I'm not exactly sure what that

15 particular system of lights is telling me, but the

16 bottom line is that I stand ready to answer your

17 questions.

18 In particular, if I may, I would like to use a

19 little bit of time speaking about a couple of studies

20 that have come out in the last two days, in fact.

21 One on the New Hampshire Project, and one on

22 the Boston Litigation Section Project.

23 So --

24 HON. CAMPBELL: Please, go ahead and do

25 that.

1 case overseeing disputes and shaping discovery is

2 something that attracts broad support, it matters, it's

3 clearly part of the answer.

4 The question is, as Professor Gensler would put

5 it, should the judges be managing up or managing down?

6 Where is the default against which they manage,

7 where is the fallback, and that's the rub. That's where

8 the disagreement arises.

9 The discovery constraints have been the source

10 of the disagreement which you will hear in this room,

11 and which is reflected in the comments.

12 Generally speaking, the plaintiffs are

13 concerned that these proposals will permit defendants to

14 further hide the ball. The defense attorneys are

15 concerned that these proposals don't go far enough.

16 Clearly, the answer is somewhere in between, and it

17 falls to you to cut that balance.

18 What I would like to suggest that we all

19 remember is that access is not just at the door of the

20 courthouse. It is access to a full and complete

21 process, including resolution on the merits by a judge

22 or a jury.

23 We have a system that is geared towards

24 settlement, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

25 We have a system that is prohibitively

1 MS. KOURLIS: You find yourself in this

2 very interesting posture where you are asked to step

3 forward and lead perhaps before all the data is in.

4 These next two studies, I think, will suggest

5 to you that even when all the data comes in there are

6 going to be significant problems, and leaders will still

7 be asked to lead.

8 The New Hampshire Pilot Project Study suggests,

9 interestingly, and we will supplement our comments with

10 the link to that report, that in fact the pilot project

11 rules in New Hampshire made not much of a difference at

12 all.

13 That all of these new requirements, fact-based

14 pleading, mandatory disclosure, more accelerated case

15 management requirements didn't really change much in

16 New Hampshire in terms of time to disposition of the

17 cases.

18 The surveys suggested that most of the

19 attorneys liked what they were being asked to do, but

20 that in fact it comported with what they were doing

21 anyway. So it was a culture issue.

22 The one area in which it did make a significant

23 difference, which is very interesting, is that there

24 were fewer default judgments against defendants based

25 upon this new process in a statistically significant
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45

1 number.

2 So I will tender that to you-all for whatever

1 HON. CAMPBELL: We look forward to

2 getting those links to those other studies.

3 it's worth. I think you have already heard that there

4 are concerns that as the data begins to come in all of

5 us are going to be in a posture to say, yes, but.

6 Yes, but that may or may not be analogous to

7 what we're looking at.

8 Yes, but those were different rules.

9 Yes, but it was a different culture, you're

10 talking about New Hampshire, not New York.

11 The Boston Litigation Section Study was a set

12 of surveys. It was not coupled with data analysis from

13 the Courts themselves.

14 That set of surveys suggested that the

15 attorneys litigating under the pilot project were very

16 favorable about it.

17 Now, keep in mind -- then this, of course,

18 relates to one of the fundamental partings of the waters

19 in these discussions, those cases were cases where the

20 attorneys had the opportunity to opt out.

21 So they were before the Court in a business

22 court setting. The Boston Litigation Section is

23 essentially a commercial section. And they were in a

24 pilot project context, but they did have the opportunity

25 to opt out. Few of them did parenthetically, but they

3 MS. KOURLIS: Thank you very much.

4 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you very much.

5 Our next speaker, I believe, is Michael Cowles.

6 MR. COWLES: Yes, your Honor. Thank you

7 for your time.

8 My name is Michael O'Keefe Cowles, and I'm an

9 attorney for an organization called Equal Justice

10 Center. We litigate on behalf of clients proudly

11 through Fair Labor Standards Act and Title VII claims in

12 and around the State of Texas. We represent solely

13 low-wage litigants who wouldn't have access to the

14 Courts.

15 In all of our cases there are significant

16 asymmetry in terms of the information that each side

17 has. Our clients are operating in an informational

18 deficit, and are often dependent on what they can

19 recover from the defendants in order to prove

20 fundamental aspects of their case.

21 The proportionality rule -- the proposed

22 proportionality rule relegates low-income clients such

23 as ours to a type of second class citizenship in terms

24 of their access to the Courts. It deprioritizes their

25 claims, undermining FLSA and Title VII laws that were

1 had that opportunity available to them.

2 Net, net, they felt that the pilot project

3 rules were better than the then existing rules, that

4 they did provide a better resolution, speedier, less

5 expensive resolution.

6 So, again, we will file that report with you in

7 supplement to our comments.

8 I guess I stand ready for any additional

9 questions you-all have. My fundamental message is you

10 are leaders and you're not going to achieve consensus

11 and you are not going to achieve certainty of the data.

12 You can learn from all of that which you have

13 heard.

14 You rely upon your own experience and upon the

15 data.

16 Ultimately, you have to decide if this is the

17 right direction in which to move, and on behalf of AALS,

18 we believe that it is.

19 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

20 very much, Ms. Kourlis.

21 MS. KOURLIS: Would you like me to answer

22 any further questions, your Honor?

23 HON. CAMPBELL: Well, we probably have

24 time for one if there is any questions.

25 (No response.)

1 designed to protect workers of all income brackets.

2 The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the

3 idea of proportional justice. Rejecting proportional

4 attorney fee awards in Title VII and FLSA claims solely

5 because the damages at issue were relatively small.

6 In the case of the City of Riverside v. Rivera

7 the Supreme Court said, "A civil rights plaintiffs seeks

8 to vindicate constitutional rights that cannot be valued

9 solely in monetary terms."

10 The conditions of proportionality terms in the

11 proposed rules sets the stage for low-wage litigants

12 essentially taking a back seat.

13 With regard to the proportionality rule, while

14 our client's claims might not constitute a, quote,

15 "amount in controversy that is substantial to defense

16 attorney or a judge," to our clients it makes a

17 difference between being able to adequately feed their

18 families, and house their children.

19 In the current political context problems of

20 inequality and misallocation of public resources,

21 including access to the justice system, are already

22 being exacerbated.

23 In these cases it is harder to uncover the

24 facts.

25 In our cases it is harder to uncover the facts
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49

1 because a violation of their rights is often done

2 through informal means and off the books, so we require

3 a wide array of discovery requests in order to obtain

4 the information that we need to fully explain and prove

5 our client's claims.

6 While the rules don't specifically indicate who

7 bears the burden of proof, this will undoubtedly fall on

8 the requesting party.

9 As I explained, in our case, because of the age

10 and asymmetry in terms of information, that's left to

11 the plaintiff.

12 Low-income worker cases would simply not be

13 worth the hassle for the private bar if, as these rules

14 undoubtedly do, would increase the cost of litigating

15 through the discovery period, through exacerbated motion

16 practice, filing motions to compel because of defense

17 counsel's use as a weapon of saying that the proposed

18 discovery requests aren't relevant.

19 The increased cost of discovery would further

20 skew the economics of attorneys working on a

21 contingency-fee basis.

22 All this would have the result that attorneys

23 working on a contingency-fee basis would simply pass by

24 litigants who have low-dollar amount claims.

25 The increased discovery -- the discovery rules

1 Paul.

2 HON. GRIMM: Just a quick question, if I

3 could. I would like to get an understanding, if I

4 could.

5 Currently when you litigate these cases, under

6 Rule 26(g) you are required to certify that you have

7 considered proportionality as you -- as you interpose a

8 discovery request just like the responding party must

9 certify that they have considered proportionality when

10 they object. That won't be changed by this rule.

11 Currently in the cases that you referred to

12 under Title VII and the Fair Labor Standards Act, those

13 are fee shifting. So the more the defendant fights, you

14 fight back and prevail, the greater the fee that you

15 will recover as the attorney at the end of it.

16 The comment that has existed since

17 proportionality came into effect in 1983 was a very

18 clear statement in the advisory note that the value of

19 the case oftentimes could not be judged by the monetary

20 recovery in civil rights cases, free speech cases, and

21 the other type of public interest cases that are the

22 bulk of what you have in your practice are to be

23 considered in determining how to apply the existing

24 proportionality factors, and the existing

25 proportionality factors are the same factors that the

1 would set the stage for a greater conflict, we believe,

2 not less, around discovery.

3 Discovery fights have exceedingly ran our

4 practice, but it's something we are able to work through

5 with our defense counsel. But the new rules will afford

6 defendants a new weapon in terms of the ability to

7 outspend the plaintiff, or even just a threat of

8 increased litigation around important discovery

9 documents needed.

10 The proposed rules encourage discovery fights

11 that will unjustly increase the cost of pretrial

12 practice and judge's dockets -- and weigh down judge's

13 dockets.

14 Starting in the dark as our clients do in terms

15 of proving their case, because they don't have the

16 information the defendants have, and particularly in

17 their position working at the bottom rung, sometimes

18 complex corporate structures involving multiple

19 potential defendants means that at times depend largely

20 on a thoroughly litigated discovery process and

21 information that we are able to recover even though we

22 don't necessarily know exactly what we're looking for

23 starting off.

24 That is all for my comments, your Honor.

25 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Mr. Cowles.

1 new rules would say.

2 Tell me how it is that you can predict that

3 there will be this significant cost when everything that

4 is in the new rule captures the existing law, and tell

5 me how you deal with that presently if the present

6 system is, in your view, so much better than what we

7 propose.

8 MR. COWLES: Well, I mean, I would say

9 that while certainly the notion of proportionality

10 exists in the current Rule 26, it is not codified to the

11 extent that it is. So it doesn't allow defendants to

12 use as a weapon the threat of --

13 HON. GRIMM: It's the same language,

14 isn't it?

15 MR. COWLES: Well, in the rule itself.

16 But limiting the language -- eliminating the

17 language, "Further cause the Court may order discovery

18 from any -- for any matter relevant to the subject

19 matter involved in the action."

20 Eliminating the language that allows for a

21 greater breadth of discovery, I think shifts the burden

22 onto the requesting party to show that under the new

23 language of 26(b) their comments -- their discovery

24 requests are --

25 HON. GRIMM: Relevant to the claims and
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1 defenses.

2 MR. COWLES: But my point starting out

1 that the forms be abrogated?

2 Mr. COWLES: I apologize. I haven't

3 was that starting off with a case without my client

4 operating on such information deficit, we don't

5 necessarily know what it is we're looking for.

6 And with regard -- I would just like to say

7 that with regard to your comments of existing statutes

8 in those claims, while it is true that if you fully

9 litigate those claims, you are able to recover

10 attorney's fees in terms of the possibility of

11 settlement in the interim, is defendant largely on

12 recoverable amounts for the client.

13 HON. DIAMOND: I don't think I

14 understand.

15 You're suggesting that reducing the number of

16 interrogatories, document production requests, or in

17 this case depositions, is going to increase discovery

18 costs.

19 Is it necessarily going to decrease discovery?

20 MR. COWLES: I should have clarified.

21 My comments were particularly focused on the

22 proportionality requirements of Rule 26.

23 HON. DIAMOND: So the other proposals,

24 you agree could well decrease discovery costs?

25 MR. COWLES: I -- to be honest, we

3 looked into that issue, so I can't comment on it.

4 HON. CAMPBELL: John.

5 MR. BARKETT: I just wondered, do you

6 keep metrics on the current cases that you have? How

7 many are successful? How many aren't successful? Which

8 cases are recovered, and which cases are not recovered?

9 If so, could you give us the latest calculation

10 of whether it's a calendar year or fiscal year?

11 MR. COWLES: I'm sorry?

12 MR. BARKETT: The cases that your center

13 sort of manages or outsources or oversees, whatever the

14 right word would be, how many actually result in either

15 a favorable outcome or a favorable settlement or are

16 dismissed or you lose on summary judgment? Where you

17 prevail, whether attorney's fees are recovered? That

18 sort of thing. Do you keep those kinds of metrics?

19 MR. COWLES: Well, offhand I can say

20 almost all of our cases are successful, and specifically

21 our Fair Labor Standards Act cases we take, the cases we

22 take have clear wage violations, and it's usually

23 typically only a matter of determining the extent of the

24 violation.

25 MR. BARKETT: So then what's the

1 haven't looked at that issue extensively.

2 I would say that while it might, to some

3 degree, limit discovery cost, it would also

4 simultaneously limit seriously the amount of pertinent

5 information that our clients would need in litigating

6 complex cases.

7 HON. CAMPBELL: Richard.

8 PROF. MARCUS: An earlier speaker

9 addressed the amount in controversy provision that you

10 are talking about, and seemed to say that it should not

11 permit broad discovery in the billion dollar case.

12 Would it be comforting to you if that

13 consideration were moved farther down the list instead

14 of coming up first? That might be something that could

15 happen.

16 MR. COWLES: Certainly. I mean, I think

17 anything we can do to move away from a deprimarization

18 (sic) of low-wage cases would necessarily be beneficial

19 to our clients.

20 HON. CAMPBELL: Gene.

21 HON. PRATTER: I recognize you haven't

22 offered comments on this, but your clientele and your

23 focus in your opinion work prompt me to ask if, A, if

24 you have ever used the forms that are attached to the

25 rules; and if you have, your view about the proposal

1 significance of -- you complained earlier about your

2 inability to figure out what to discover. It sounds

3 like you know exactly what you need to go after.

4 MR. COWLES: Well, in a lot of our cases

5 defendants don't keep formal payroll records.

6 MR. BARKETT: Isn't that already the

7 problem, that they don't keep them?

8 MR. COWLES: That is the problem, but

9 through discovery we're able to do -- we're able to

10 pursue and investigate ancillary documents that help

11 further color in the full extent of our client's claims

12 and extent of their damages.

13 MR. BARKETT: So I'm having difficulty

14 understanding how you would be frustrated in any manner

15 under the proposed changes to do what you just

16 described.

17 MR. COWLES: Well, I think that if we --

18 the problem starting out is that we don't know exactly

19 what documents are going to speak to that.

20 So with the threatened -- the threat of -- the

21 threat of pursuing -- or just outright denying this, and

22 forcing us into a motion to compel in order to retrieve

23 those documents, but we don't exactly know what it is we

24 are looking for starting out that would speak to our

25 client's specific hours worked and damages, puts us in a
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1 disadvantageous position.

2 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you very much for

3 your comments, Mr. Cowles.

4 John Griffin.

5 MR. GRIFFIN: Good morning.

6 I would like to talk to you a couple of minutes

7 about structural issues, and then substantive issues

8 with a couple of the more far-reaching proposals that

9 are before you.

10 My name is John Griffin. I, at the tender age

11 of 58, am what some young lawyers call a dinosaur in the

12 sense that I have tried 60 or 70 jury cases, and still

13 try cases for plaintiffs and defendants around the

14 country.

15 MS. CABRASER: Welcome to Jurassic Park.

16 MR. GRIFFIN: Thank you for that. My

17 kids would be proud of you saying that. Bless you.

18 Thank you.

19 I bring a perspective of being largely on the

20 plaintiffs' bar, but representing municipalities and

21 doing some defense work as well.

22 I am a member of the American Bar Association;

23 the American Diabetes Association; ABOTA, the American

24 Board of Trial Advocates; and lots of bipartisan groups.

25 But I am also a member of plaintiffs' bar such as AAJ

1 testimony in, because 90 percent of the comments are

2 running against the proposal.

3 Likewise, the plaintiffs' bar has said you need

4 to make your views known.

5 I say that because this, as you-all know, the

6 care you have taken and the time you have given, this is

7 not an election for people to get their votes in. This

8 is serious business.

9 But what we have, my friends who are in the

10 defense bar, they really, really believe this will help

11 their clients, these rules. They really, really believe

12 that proportionality at the gateway will help their

13 clients.

14 Likewise, civil rights lawyers, plaintiffs'

15 lawyers, consumer lawyers, Professor Miller, believe the

16 opposite, that these rules and moving proportionality up

17 and taking steps with Rule 37 in reducing the numbers of

18 types of discovery will do the opposite.

19 Now, Voir Dire Magazine, ABOTA, if you haven't

20 read it, talks about the continuing data on the

21 shrinking number of jury trials we have in the United

22 States Federal Courts.

23 Granted, there are a lot of reasons for it, but

24 the fact is it's a crisis in our country that fewer and

25 fewer cases are actually being tried by a jury.

1 and NELA.

2 The perspective that I bring, though, this

3 morning is for my journey serving as the national chair

4 of the board of the American Diabetes Association where

5 I began to learn about disability rights. About half of

6 my commercial practice now is representing children and

7 adults with diabetes.

8 When I look back I can take great pride in

9 saying that today the Court Security Officers that guard

10 federal judges now can have their hearing tested with

11 their hearing-assisted devices when they were banned for

12 some years.

13 Special agents now serve in the FBI who use

14 insulin to manage diabetes, as does the IRS.

15 We now have young men and women with prosthetic

16 devices serving as special agents in our country.

17 All after jury trials involving discovery

18 issues.

19 But I want to start with something structural.

20 I'm a member of bars on both sides of the

21 docket, and I have been getting emails to show up and

22 get my comments in.

23 The defense bar, my brothers and sisters in the

24 defense bar, of which I am friends, along with groups

25 and corporate counsel have implored us to get our

1 Yes, it's true that pleading rules, Iqbal,

2 Daubert, experts, all of these have a role, and

3 conceivably the cost of discovery has some role in that,

4 but what I say is that the Courts, you are not about the

5 business that we are.

6 We're here to help win our cases for our

7 clients, but the Courts aren't our instruments. We

8 should ask ourselves with these rules will there be more

9 jury trials and fewer summary judgments, or will we

10 continue to shrinken the number of trials we have?

11 Now, I want to talk -- moving a couple of ways

12 about -- a couple of the issues that you are

13 considering.

14 One is the issue of proportionality.

15 Having tried cases against the FBI, and being

16 licensed in the Fourth, Fifth, Eleventh, D.C. and

17 Seventh Circuit, and having tried cases in many of those

18 circuits, and then litigated them all the way to the

19 appellate courts, I can tell you in those cases in which

20 the Marshal Service has allowed COSs finally to have

21 their hearing tested as they actually hear instead of

22 banning hearing aids when they are tested, has made us

23 safer.

24 But at the inception of that case, at the

25 inception of the FBI case, at the inception of the IRS
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1 case, each of those cases at the beginning, our requests

2 were not proportional in any sense of the word, because

3 it was single-plaintiff cases.

4 These law enforcement officers have gotten

5 better jobs. They are low-dollar cases. We don't know

6 of any policy banning people with diabetes, or with

7 hearing deficits in the Marshal Service.

8 It would be hard for me to imagine that the

9 thousands and millions of pages that we finally obtained

10 in those cases that showed a greater need, the discovery

11 itself bridged the gap of proportionality.

12 It would be hard for me to articulate in a

13 single-plaintiff case where we don't know a national

14 policy is at stake that we have to show at the gateway

15 proportionality.

16 We haven't had that issue.

17 Fortunately, in none of those cases had any of

18 the defendants ever raised that issue and forced us to

19 litigate on multiple fronts before we get out of the

20 starting gate for discovery.

21 I can tell you those discovery requests in

22 those cases, Chief Judge Eagan in Oklahoma, Judge Jack

23 in the Southern District of Texas, involved a lot of

24 documents and a lot of expense, but it was those

25 documents that exposed, for example, with the Marshal

1 reduce in our country the notion of preserving documents

2 to a standard where negligence or inadvertent failure to

3 preserve, or spoliation is accepted, the whole system

4 breaks down.

5 The Court system is for the search for the

6 truth. These documents -- understandably both sides

7 understand that if we get to a point where it's all

8 right and blessed by the Court that negligent or

9 inadvertent construction of documents or evidence is

10 countenance, our system breaks down entirely.

11 To prove that the victim -- to show that the

12 person -- the party has lost their evidence is that they

13 did it on purpose or maliciously or in bad faith is

14 fraught with problems, because we have rules in society

15 we have to obey whether we mean to or not.

16 So, yes, I have had a case where a hurricane in

17 south Texas destroyed some documents.

18 No, there was no adverse consequences, because

19 it was ferreted out in the process.

20 But the notion that evidence can -- the parties

21 on both sides can know they don't have to preserve their

22 evidence, so long as it's negligent or inadvertent it's

23 going to be blessed by the Court as something, I don't

24 think that it would be an improvement in our system of

25 justice, which is, at its core, to get at the truth.

1 Service, that when they claimed that people using

2 hearing aids guarding our federal judiciary were a

3 direct threat we found hypertensive obese smokers,

4 morbidly obese smokers with a history of heart attacks

5 that were allowed to work, whereby perfectly healthy

6 people who had improved their hearing were not.

7 Those kinds of discovery were instrumental, and

8 those cases would never ever have been successful, and

9 reach change in policy in this country to be more

10 accessible than people with disabilities.

11 I finally want to touch a little bit on

12 something close to my heart as a federal litigator on

13 both sides in courts, and that's the issue of

14 preservation of documents.

15 Granted, there are a myriad of standards in

16 state and federal courts. I understand that completely.

17 But in my area in trying jury cases, in commercial

18 cases, large commercial cases, everybody sort of knows

19 the rules.

20 If evidence is important, subsequently

21 determined to be important, and your client didn't keep

22 it, there is going to be adverse consequences. That's

23 the thinking among those of us who are on the ground

24 practicing law in front of state and federal courts.

25 Yes, there are different standards, but if we

1 And, yes, it is true that preservation of

2 evidence cost money, and it cost money to my clients who

3 are on the defense side too. But the cost to our system

4 and our truth-gathering function would greatly exceed

5 the cost of preserving that evidence under those

6 circumstances.

7 With that, I see that I have run a little over

8 my five minutes, but a little time for questions. So

9 I'm happy to share the Voir Dire article, or anyone else

10 who wants to read about the shrinking jury trial in the

11 obituary of the American dinosaur trial lawyer.

12 HON. CAMPBELL: Peter.

13 MR. KEISLER: I have a question about

14 your discussion on proportionality.

15 I think it seems to be very much common ground

16 that even in a single-plaintiff case if the issues

17 involved a national policy of a government agency, it

18 oughten be hard to show that significant discovery is

19 proportional to the importance of the issues.

20 I was struck by the fact that you said you

21 needed large amounts of discovery to determine that

22 there was in fact a national policy.

23 I would have assumed, but -- you know, please

24 explain why this is incorrect -- that if there really

25 was a policy in the sense of not -- so there are lots of
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1 people acting in the same way across the country, but a

2 memorialized instruction from headquarters codified

3 somewhere, that that would have shown up in the early

4 stages of even kind of normal conventional discovery.

5 And that then you would have had a basis for saying,

6 okay, there is a policy here we're litigating, so this

7 broader discovery that we are now seeking is

8 proportional to that.

9 When in the course of your discovery did you

10 determine that there was a national policy, and why did

11 it take so long?

12 MR. GRIFFIN: Because the Marshal Service

13 in the case of the COSs were all getting fired because

14 they needed hearing aids to guard the federal judges,

15 there was no written policy, Mr. Keisler. They had said

16 to us in the informal documents, we gave them an

17 individualized assessment, his hearing was not good

18 enough for us, he had to go.

19 When we found out -- your question, we found

20 out in about the fourth or fifth deposition of

21 Dr. Chelter (phonetic), in Federal Health Occupational

22 Health in Atlanta, why are you not letting these people

23 test their hearing in the way they actually hear, in the

24 way they actually guard judges, why are you making them

25 hear -- when they're getting older and are former law

1 protected.

2 Of course, it's important that people with type

3 1 diabetes can serve our country for the FBI.

4 But those policies were not known at the

5 beginning of the case. All we knew was the FBI says,

6 your man was not physically fit to be a special agent.

7 Even though we offered him the job, he has type 1

8 diabetes, and he's not controlled to the extent that we

9 want.

10 It looked to us like it's a single-plaintiff

11 case. Only to find out with the positions of the FBI

12 that they did have a defacto unwritten policy that no

13 one on diabetes injections would be hired by that

14 agency. And today they're serving proudly.

15 All this has happened in the last ten years.

16 And the fear in my heart, deepest in my heart at its

17 core, is that that element of proportionality be at the

18 gateway instead of in the rule where it now is, because

19 in my life it has not yet been raised to keep us from

20 getting the discovery to help advance the cause for

21 those qualified people with disabilities.

22 And I agree with my friend who spoke first. If

23 I'm defending a case, I am going to raise

24 proportionality at the outset in a given case, because

25 the plaintiff is not in a position to show what the

1 enforcement officers, when they can hear perfectly fine

2 and normal hearing what they're hearing, and you won't

3 let them use them, why are you doing that?

4 Well, because we are worried they will fall

5 out.

6 They will fall out? What about if he fell with

7 his glasses?

8 In the middle of the case, in the middle of the

9 case we get that, and then we find out that's a defacto

10 policy, yes, it becomes a loser for the defense.

11 And, yes, after fighting all the way up to the

12 Tenth Circuit with a threatened mandamus we finally got

13 all of the medical records of every CSO in this country

14 protected by HIPAA.

15 But nonetheless we found out all these -- one

16 of them was 440 pounds. We had people who obviously

17 were much more of a direct threat to the judiciary than

18 our physically fit 40-something-year-old former border

19 patrol officer.

20 So you had this sense that at the get-go -- at

21 the gateway, we wouldn't have gotten this discovery,

22 Mr. Keisler. It was only during the case that discovery

23 made it proportional.

24 And when we look back, of course, it's

25 important to our country that the judiciary is better

1 proportionality is before the discovery is exchanged.

2 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

3 very much for those comments, Mr. Griffin.

4 Mary Larimore.

5 MS. LARIMORE: Thank you.

6 My name is Mary Larimore. I'm a partner at Ice

7 Miller in Indianapolis, and I have been practicing law

8 for 33 years. So if 58 is the deadline for a dinosaur,

9 I'm six months away.

10 I practice primarily in the area of

11 pharmaceutical, medical device, toxic torts and

12 commercial litigation.

13 I am active in many organizations, including

14 Lawyers for Civil Justice, International Association of

15 Defense Counsel, National Center for State Court, DRI,

16 and am a fellow in the American College of Trial

17 Lawyers.

18 My remarks today are not on behalf of any

19 organization or the firm. They're purely personal.

20 I want to thank the committee for all of the

21 hard work. I am very familiar with the serious work and

22 effort and all of the different interests that come to

23 bear upon the rules process.

24 I was a part of our rules process in the state

25 of Indiana for our chief justice for a period of eight
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1 years. Four of those years I was chair of the Rules

2 Committee.

3 And the states really do look very closely to

4 the federal rules for guidance as we move forward as

5 well.

6 I have given presentations on proportionality

7 at the Seventh Circuit Bar Conference, and I'm a big fan

8 of proportionality, unlike our prior speaker.

9 Why should proportionality be moved from

10 26(b)(2) to 26(b)(1)?

11 I personally don't like the argument that it

12 isn't getting enough attention, or that it is buried,

13 although I'm certain that that's absolutely true.

14 Conscientious and competent lawyers should read and know

15 all of the rules.

16 The reason that it should be moved is because

17 proportionality criteria are simply common sense

18 appropriate criteria that should be taken into

19 consideration at the outset of each and every case by

20 all of the parties and the Court as we consider the

21 scope of discovery, the needs of the case, the issues

22 and focus in on what is important.

23 I have had success in arguing proportionality

24 at the outset of a case, but the enemy of

25 proportionality, and the thoughtful consideration of the

1 I know the committee has heard many different

2 examples of discovery that's out of proportion. You

3 know, I like to give mine.

4 As part of an MDL team, which I am regularly a

5 part of, you know, I can spend a year defending company

6 depositions, have teams reviewing tens of thousands of

7 hundreds of thousands of depositions, and not only are

8 those deposition exhibits never used at trial, not only

9 are those trial transcripts, or deposition transcripts,

10 never used at the trial, the witnesses by name are never

11 even mentioned.

12 Thus, the change from deleting reasonably

13 calculated would go a long way, a long way, to focusing

14 on what is important.

15 The change from relevance to subject matter to

16 relevance to claims and defenses would go a long way to

17 culling out all of these irrelevant custodians whose

18 hundreds of thousands of documents are currently being

19 collected and produced and reviewed by associates across

20 the country.

21 If the subject matter is a product, and the

22 product has a long history, the chain of discovery that

23 can be pursued electronically is endless.

24 And yet it provides no more meaningful data or

25 information concerning the issues, claims and defenses

1 scope of discovery, is indeed business as usual.

2 This isn't the way it's done, your Honor.

3 She can't do that now.

4 I have never had a motion like this granted at

5 the outset of a case. These arguments have nothing to

6 do with the issues, and has nothing to do with the

7 evidence that should be important to develop the needs

8 of the case.

9 If the important issues in the case are, for

10 example, the health environment to be a federal marshal,

11 then those are the needs of the case, and let's focus on

12 those.

13 If the medical records are important, let's do

14 that, but let's not also ask for ERISA records.

15 The committee has lots of examples -- oh, you

16 know, one of the other things I wanted to mention is,

17 when you look at 26(b)(2) and where it's located, it's

18 located under limitations on frequency and extent.

19 So it really does make it look as though this

20 is something that a party is supposed to invoke after

21 discovery has gotten out of hand, late in the

22 litigation, a year into it, as opposed to an important

23 part of the process that should be made a part of the

24 initial plan for appropriate discovery on the issues

25 that are important.

1 in the suit.

2 You know, the reality is in today's business

3 world, every employee at a company pretty much has an

4 electronic diary of their every day. But if they

5 weren't involved with any of the issues, if they weren't

6 at a level within the company to have addressed any of

7 the issues, then their file is really of no moment, and

8 it shouldn't be pulled into these huge document sweeps.

9 I would also like to speak on behalf of the

10 changes to Rule 26(c), which I don't think has been the

11 subject of too much discussion. And Rule 26(c) is

12 the -- the aspect that I would like to speak to relates

13 to cost allocation. 26(C) is going to give judges the

14 opportunity once again to put sensible cost allocation

15 in place.

16 You know, in preparing these remarks I went

17 back and read the advisory committee notes going all the

18 way back to 1970.

19 In the 1970 amendment it said that the burden

20 placed on the respondent will vary from case to case so

21 the Courts have ample power under Rule 26(b) to protect

22 the respondent against undue burden or expense, either

23 restricting discovery, or requiring that the discovering

24 party pay costs.

25 This concept has been part of our discovery
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1 rules since I started practicing law in 1980. You know,

2 back in the day, you know, in the good old days, I guess

3 one would say, when associates didn't sit at the

4 computer screens, went out and interviewed witnesses and

5 holds files and talked to plaintiffs' attorneys about

6 how many feet of files you had, and you talked about,

7 you know, the prepared details of indexes, and they

8 actually checked off on the indexes, you know, which of

9 the files they actually wanted.

10 You know, why did they do that?

11 Why didn't they just ask for it all?

12 It was because it was 20 cents a page back in

13 the day. Then as expenses came down, you know, they

14 started making -- they made judicious decisions about

15 how they were going to spend their money, because they

16 paid for copy expenses.

17 This fiction that the cost is the CD is

18 obviously just that. It is an absolute fiction. I

19 think we need to move away from it.

20 I would like to give a good example of an MDL,

21 a recent MDL, in which we had argued to the judge that

22 the documents that our client had were not completely,

23 but largely, in the possession of another defendant.

24 The originals had been sold, and therefore had already

25 been processed by another defendant.

1 a seven-hour deposition day, the reality is that even

2 with lawyers working hard, the number of breaks that

3 occur throughout a day, it can often go until 6:30 at

4 night, and it's tough for witnesses, and I think it's a

5 nice change.

6 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

7 Richard.

8 PROF. MARCUS: I want to ask you

9 something about Rule 26(c).

10 You favor the change. Do you expect then that

11 judges should expect your clients to make some kind of

12 forcible showing to justify an order under 26(c), or do

13 you think judges should simply do it routinely?

14 MS. LARIMORE: Well, I don't think

15 anything should be routine. I think that one should

16 look carefully and thoughtfully at the discovery

17 requests, and when they're appropriate, they should be

18 responded to.

19 When discover is asking for, you know, the

20 manufacturing documents and failure to warrant cases, or

21 when they're asking for a scope of discovery from a time

22 frame that is way outside the bounds, you know, then I

23 think that we should be in court, and we should be

24 asking for appropriate limitations when this process

25 results in, you know, turning on a machine that results

1 While we acknowledged that we probably had

2 other documents in that repository, it did not make

3 sense for us to reprocess this huge collection of

4 documents of over 50 years.

5 So we asked for a document repository, and the

6 judge put an 8 cent page cost for the plaintiffs to

7 select whatever documents they wanted.

8 And, you know, that document repository has

9 been sitting for well over a year, and there is not a

10 single lawyer, not a single paralegal that has spent a

11 single day or a single hour looking for a document in

12 that document repository.

13 I think that that really goes to the issue here

14 of what is the marginal value of the additional 10 or 20

15 or 30 million documents that end up getting produced in

16 this large litigation.

17 One of the best ways to find out the marginal

18 value of these document productions is to assess the

19 cost.

20 Then finally I would like to say that there

21 haven't been many comments about shortening the

22 deposition day, the presumptive limits, but I think it's

23 a wonderful change, it's a modest change. I think it's

24 important.

25 But when you are sitting with witnesses through

1 in legal expense.

2 PROF. MARCUS: Yes. Ordinarily 26(c)

3 orders are supposed to issue only where there is a

4 pretty strong showing that they will be excessively

5 burdensome, or something like that. Discovery.

6 MS. LARIMORE: Uh-huh.

7 PROF. MARCUS: Are you saying it's

8 something different?

9 MS. LARIMORE: No. I think that, for

10 example, in the example that I gave on the document

11 repository -- I mean, the processing was 50 years of

12 documents, in a situation where those large -- in large

13 part those documents had already been produced by a

14 co-defendant, was a perfect example of adding a huge

15 layer of expense to a client that was unnecessary.

16 And when nobody has ever even come to look at

17 those documents, I think that's perfectly reflective of

18 why that additional expense was simply not worth it.

19 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you,

20 Ms. Larimore.

21 We're going to break for 15 minutes. We will

22 resume promptly at 10:45.

23 (Brief recess.)

24 HON. CAMPBELL: Folks, can we take a

25 seat please.
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1 All right. We are going to resume with the

2 comments from William Curtis.

3 MR. CURTIS: My name is Bill Curtis. I

4 am the founder of Curtis Law Group here in sunny, warm

5 Dallas, which is not always sunny nor warm. Curtis Law

6 Group specializes in representing plaintiffs that have

7 been injured in some form or fashion.

8 A good junk of our practice is focused on

9 individual cases, truck wrecks, construction site

10 accidents, medical malpractice back when that was still

11 viable here in Texas, and things of that nature.

12 The bulk of my personal practice, and what I'm

13 here to talk about today, is pharmaceutical practice. I

14 represent folks who have been injured by dangerous

15 drugs.

16 I am board certified in personal injury law

17 here in Texas. I practice literally from coast to

18 coast. I have cases pending in Maine, Florida, State of

19 Washington, California, and virtually everywhere in

20 between. Not yet Utah, so I'm glad to hear that the

21 Utah Association of Justice had a representative here

22 for us today.

23 I would like to focus my comments primarily on

24 the discovery rules that you are talking about, written

25 depositions, oral depositions, interrogatory numbers and

1 facts reveal, not by what facts are concealed."

2 So let's start with that context again, and go

3 back to the, okay, why are we exactly restricting

4 discovery? What is it that we are trying to prevent one

5 side or the other from doing?

6 Let's assume, for example, that I file a

7 products liability against Pfizer, one of the largest

8 corporations in the world, and I accuse them of having a

9 lousy drug that harmed one of my clients.

10 You would think the very first thing Pfizer

11 does when they tell me that I'm full of nonsense would

12 be to say, we are so confident that there is nothing

13 wrong with our drug, you should come on down to the

14 plant, come walk through, talk to our people, come look

15 at our documents, examine everything that we have done,

16 we are that confident in the fact that we have done

17 nothing wrong. They ought to think that way.

18 They don't.

19 The reality is that visceral reaction that you

20 folks are listening to on both sides indicates this

21 isn't a changing the way the game is played, this is

22 changing the game.

23 The rules of procedure are designed to make it

24 a fair playing field for both sides. If you change the

25 rules in baseball one set of teams ought not be jumping

1 requests for admission numbers.

2 But first I would like to take kind of a step

3 back, because those are the individual trees that we are

4 going to reach out and touch, perhaps tinker with some,

5 but let's view this again from a much higher view, and

6 look at the entire forest.

7 The concept of discovery is at its core to

8 learn what the case is about, which presumably should be

9 fair to both sides.

10 I on the plaintiff's side, of course, want to

11 know information about the defendant, the drug

12 manufacturer.

13 The drug manufacturer, likewise, wants to know

14 information about my plaintiff.

15 That's fair. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court

16 described it in 1947 Hickman versus Taylor said, "Mutual

17 knowledge of all the relevant facts by both parties is

18 essential to proper litigation."

19 That ought to be self-evident, but I fear we

20 have lost that message in the conversations that we have

21 been having about these rules.

22 Texas, prone for its ability to twist a phrase,

23 in 1984 said, Texas Supreme Court, Jean Paul versus

24 Tuschy, "The ultimate purpose of discovery is to seek

25 the truth so that disputes may be decided by what the

1 up and screaming that that's an unfair change, while the

2 other side is jumping up and saying we love that change,

3 we should do more changes like that.

4 In this context the Scales of Justice are

5 having their thumb put on it by these changes.

6 How do we know that?

7 The V in the middle of plaintiff versus

8 defendant, that V is a visceral difference between one

9 side of the docket and the other.

10 If this is just a change to the rules, why

11 isn't everybody on both sides saying we like this, we

12 don't like that, we should change this a little bit, we

13 should tinker with that?

14 Y'all aren't hearing that. You're hearing the

15 defense side and the corporations they represent say, we

16 love it, and the plaintiff side and the folks that we

17 represent saying, you're changing the way the game is

18 played and it's unfair. I think that's a very telling

19 point that we ought to be reminding ourselves of.

20 Specifically Rule 30. The way it reads right

21 now we have ten depositions of seven hours each for a

22 total of presumptively 70 hours of oral testimony.

23 The proposal that you guys are considering

24 would cut that by 60 percent down to five depositions of

25 six hours apiece. So from 70 hours we have cut it down
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1 to 30 hours. That's not a little bit of a change.

2 That's a ginormaus change, as my teenage daughters would

3 describe it.

4 It's a change that favors just one side of the

5 docket. They can't possibly depose my client, nor my

6 client's widow for 30 hours, nor for 70 hours. So from

7 the defense side it doesn't take them long to discover

8 their case.

9 From the plaintiff's side just the 30(b)(6)

10 representatives to figure out how Pfizer structured this

11 particular drug department could easily take 70 hours of

12 time, and often much more than that.

13 The similar is true on the written discovery.

14 The depositions on written questions. Presumably they

15 are more efficient and more effective than many of the

16 tools in the discovery toolbox because they can

17 accomplish things at very little expense to the parties,

18 and very little consumption of time for those of you who

19 sit on the bench.

20 Why would we limit those? Shouldn't we be

21 expanding those to say let's not have fights in front of

22 the Court on that sort of thing?

23 Likewise, with interrogatories, the current

24 number of 25, reducing it to 15, including the subparts,

25 again, this is one of the cheapest and easiest ways that

1 to this committee, "Rule amendments should be undertaken

2 only with great caution, should respond to a

3 demonstrated need, and should be adopted only in the

4 absence of less Draconian solutions."

5 We have no demonstrated need yet, none that I

6 have heard apart from partisan complaining. There is no

7 less Draconian solution other than it's not broken and

8 doesn't need to be fixed, and so why are we tinkering

9 with these rules?

10 The final thought, and I hate to quote

11 Professor Miller twice in short order, but since he

12 cited Chicken Little, I will as well. The sky is still

13 not falling when it comes to discovery.

14 I'm over time by a long ways.

15 Thank you, Judge.

16 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions.

17 (No response.)

18 HON. CAMPBELL: Perhaps I can ask you

19 one.

20 MR. CURTIS: Yes, sir.

21 HON. CAMPBELL: When we held the Duke

22 Conference that started this ball rolling there were a

23 number of surveys done, plaintiff's lawyers, defense

24 lawyers, in-house counsel, the ABA, which had plaintiffs

25 and defense lawyers, and all of them by substantial

1 we gather information. Why on earth would we try to

2 restrict that?

3 Shouldn't we be expanding that to say, rather

4 than the expensive tools of discovery, let's encourage

5 and expand the efficient and inexpensive rules?

6 Then, finally, a request for admissions. The

7 purpose of a request for admission is to eliminate the

8 things that we don't need to fight about, because these

9 things are agreed to by both sides. Isn't that exactly

10 what we want?

11 So by the time it gets to the courtroom and we

12 are resolving the issues in the courtroom, we know the

13 things we don't need to fight about, because they have

14 been resolved by request for admissions.

15 In reviewing some of the information that you

16 folks have been through already, I have yet to see a

17 truly demonstrated need for why these changes are being

18 suggested.

19 I hear shrill complaining, as I have heard from

20 others in my practice. I have not yet entered Jurassic

21 Park, but I hear much complaining, as I have my entire

22 career, and as all of you have for your careers as well.

23 I'm reminded of two things that I'll close

24 with, because my red light has gone off already.

25 As Professor Arthur Miller said in his comments

1 majority said discovery is too expensive, discovery

2 takes too long, we are having fewer trials because

3 parties can't afford to litigate in the current

4 environment.

5 That seemed to be quite an accepted -- now the

6 FJC study, which was a bit of a different kind,

7 producing different results, but the general attorney

8 surveys all said discovery is too expensive and takes

9 too long.

10 How would you attack that problem, or do you

11 not think it's a problem?

12 MR. CURTIS: I do agree it's a problem,

13 but I think you are attacking the wrong end of the

14 element.

15 Rather than restricting the scope of what it is

16 that we're going to look for, let's restrict the fight

17 about the scope.

18 In other words, rather than having more

19 discovery disputes that go to the courtroom with the

20 defense now claiming, oh, it's not proportional -- I

21 mean, what you are doing is giving them a brand new set

22 of objections that -- how is it going to be resolved in

23 the courtroom?

24 HON. CAMPBELL: How do you do that? How

25 do you reduce the fights rather than the scope?
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1 MR. CURTIS: If I could ask just one

2 request for production in every case it would be the

3 only request I would ever ask. Give me the 50 documents

4 you most don't want the jury to see.

5 (Laughter.)

6 HON. CAMPBELL: Well, obviously you

7 think that rule would work.

8 MR. CURTIS: I would love to say yes, but

9 honestly not a chance.

10 HON. CAMPBELL: Well, in the real world

11 how do we restrict fights and not limit or reduce

12 discovery that is almost unanimously viewed to be as too

13 expensive, too cumbersome, too lengthy?

14 MR. CURTIS: I disagree with the

15 discovery part being too expensive. I agree that the

16 dispute about discovery is too expensive, and they are

17 different.

18 Here's what I would suggest, your Honor.

19 I think the proposals to Rule 34 are a very

20 good start, because what they do is they eliminate

21 prophylactic objections.

22 Texas has a very similar rule in Rule 193, and

23 the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure are probably not a

24 very good model for this panel to be using, but Rule 193

25 is a good model because what it does is it eliminates

1 categories of documents, and so far I've been given 3

2 million pages of documentation.

3 In the hormone replacement litigation that is

4 now a decade or so old, in the process of that

5 litigation over 10 million pages of documents were

6 produced.

7 There may be somebody in this room that thinks

8 I dig digging through 10 million pages of documents. I

9 know that I don't think that way. So let's eliminate

10 the unnecessary dumps of paper, and truly make the

11 answers responsible.

12 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

13 very much, Mr. Curtis.

14 Mr. Michael Weston.

15 MR. WESTON: Good morning.

16 I'm Mike Weston, a lawyer from Cedar Rapids,

17 Iowa. I've been practicing for 34 years, but I'm only

18 25 years-old, which makes me the youngest president of

19 DRI in its 64-year history -- 54-year history.

20 Thank you for your service. DRI, I think, is

21 well-known to you. It is the world's largest

22 organization of lawyers who represent the interest of

23 corporations, insurance carriers, business people and

24 governmental entities.

25 And I say "represent," because very often now

1 unnecessary prophylactic objections.

2 You have asked for documents that I don't yet

3 have, but I might, and so I'm going to insert an

4 objection, and that leaves the other side wondering,

5 first of all, is there a document. And so we have to

6 have a dispute about that, we have to go down to the

7 Court. The other sides says, well, I don't have

8 anything, but I might someday. Rule 34 helps to

9 eliminate some of that nonsense.

10 Second, in responding to a request for

11 production, if I have asked for the job description of

12 the current marketing director at Pfizer, I don't need

13 700,000 pages of documents in response that. That's

14 what I get. So I totally agree. I don't want to look

15 through 10 million pages.

16 You know, the defense folks that you have heard

17 from today complain that they feel like they are called

18 upon to produce a giant chunk of information.

19 Back to my hypothetical request for production,

20 don't give me a mountain when I have asked for a scoop

21 of dirt, give me the stuff that I have asked for.

22 Some concrete examples.

23 I chair the Reglan Litigation Group, which is a

24 pharmaceutical tort. Thus far in the Reglan litigation

25 we have requested probably 100 categories, very finite

1 in the areas of commercial litigation, intellectual

2 property litigation, our clients are plaintiffs. So we

3 view this not just as a plaintiff versus defendant

4 issue. We don't see that cassum. We're here to make

5 our system of justice better.

6 And this group before me, this august group has

7 done just that.

8 We have about 21,000 members, who as I, in the

9 private practice of law, and represent our various

10 clients in the courts of our country, we provided this

11 group with our written submission on January 14th, and I

12 will not elaborate on those remarks.

13 You will also be receiving additional

14 submission from our members, and people who are

15 interested in this process as we approach the submission

16 deadline.

17 I want to talk to you as an Iowa lawyer today,

18 and I'm fortunate enough to practice in a state that is

19 very, very congenial. Our bench and our bar is small.

20 We know one another and we get along.

21 But even in a state where we get along very,

22 very well, the number of jury trials are diminishing to

23 such an extent that we wonder whether our children, and

24 my son practices with me in our Des Moines office, will

25 ever try a jury case.
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1 We believe that in the federal system where

2 only 1 percent of the civil filings result in a

3 disposition through trial by a jury, that our citizens

4 are not getting the constitutional protection they

5 deserve, to hear from their peers in a jury trial.

6 We believe that the reason in the federal

7 system, and most of the states who pattern themselves

8 after the federal system, that the number of jury trials

9 have diminished is the incredible burdensome process of

10 discovery.

11 We commend the committee for moving

12 proportionality up in Rule 26.

13 We commend the committee for eliminating the

14 words that really, in our view, does not create a

15 standard, a standard that anything that reasonably leads

16 to discovery of admissible evidence shall be

17 discoverable from the rule. Because that -- that

18 standard has hamstrung our courts, has really not given

19 the kind of guidance necessary to limit and control

20 discovery so that the parties can efficiently get a

21 trial on the merits.

22 I practice in a state and deal with a lot of

23 smaller companies. You have heard from many, many large

24 corporations, some of our nation's finest and largest in

25 submissions to you and in testimony today.

1 of two magistrate judges in Iowa, and how they approach

2 two significant pieces of litigation that I have been

3 involved with to demonstrate what I think would be the

4 promise of proportionately. That is, involvement of the

5 Court as a referee, consultant, discovery master,

6 friend, counselor, to help the parties navigate the

7 discovery process.

8 One was a class action that was brought against

9 an insurance company for its claims practices in a

10 problem that would have had about 5 to 6,000 members,

11 but a very active magistrate judge in one of our federal

12 district courts who said, I see what's coming, I want to

13 sit down with you and walk with you through the

14 discovery process.

15 In effect, we went from the inside out. We

16 started with a narrow scope of discovery, a few

17 depositions and reported back. We talked about what the

18 next level of discovery should be. And we did that

19 until both sides knew what the merits of the claims

20 were, and settled the case. Did not try it, settled the

21 case not based upon the discovery process, but on the

22 genuine assessment of risks that both sides made looking

23 at the case through that proportionate discovery prism.

24 On the other side of the state we had -- I had

25 another case, which was an exposure case, a product

1 The one thing I would say is it is difficult to

2 explain to an Iowa businesswoman or man the discovery

3 process they are about to go through, how they have to

4 dig through documents and go through computer programs

5 that they have long since put away to mine for documents

6 and material that may never see its way to the

7 courtroom.

8 It's a horribly destructive process, and the

9 rules that you have proposed are the rules not for the

10 large and the great corporations, but they are the rules

11 for the small business person, the small city, the small

12 community, the township who finds itself in litigation,

13 and has to deal with the standard that really isn't a

14 standard. So I speak for them.

15 The process that we currently have is very

16 contentious. The meet and confer process under the

17 current standard is one really which is a -- charade is

18 too strong a word, but it's just a step on the way to

19 the courthouse to a motion to compel.

20 While the parties fight and argue about

21 discovery, the litigation stops, the cooperation stops,

22 deadlines get pushed back, trial dates get pushed back.

23 The result of all that is that the delay costs all of

24 our clients' money.

25 I want to leave you with two concrete examples

1 liability case, where the attitude of the magistrate

2 judge was, I'm here as a referee to handle discovery

3 disputes, and unless I have a motion before me, I'm not

4 really going to get involved.

5 That piece of litigation resulted in an

6 enormous amount of discovery requests, very contentious

7 meet and confer conferences, and a very, very lengthy

8 motion to compel process where the judge basically held

9 up his hands and said, well, the standard is will it

10 lead to discovery with admissible evidence, and most of

11 this stuff does.

12 It also was a case where the plaintiffs served

13 a little under a thousand requests for admissions, and

14 asked us to authenticate documents that had been

15 produced in similar cases around the country, but they

16 didn't produce it back to us to authenticate it in the

17 form that we had produced it.

18 So they used their requests for admission

19 process in a way to play gotcha, and we had to spend

20 thousands of thousands of dollars in the requests for

21 admission process trying to figure out what combination

22 of documents we were seeing, who the custodian was, who

23 the author was, to be able to respond to those requests.

24 None of that moved that litigation forward, and

25 our client, who was a foreign company, absolutely could
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1 not understand our system, could not understand how we

2 could not control the Court, could not understand what

3 the Court was thinking about, and really doubted whether

4 they wanted to be in our American system. That's what

5 we confront.

6 By doing what you have, by proposing

7 proportionality, you have said to the litigants of our

8 country and our federal courts and our state courts, who

9 pattern it, we're going to engage in a cooperative

10 process to try to better target discovery, to get at the

11 issues, to frame the issues, and try the case. That's

12 really what we want.

13 Those are my prepared remarks. I would be

14 interested in your questions.

15 HON. CAMPBELL: Parker.

16 MR. FOLSE: Mr. Weston, like you, my

17 experience has been -- and they tend to be in larger,

18 more complex cases where there are vast numbers of

19 lawyers on the scene, but my experience has been that

20 the meet and confer process, as you said, are just a

21 step on the road to a motion to compel.

22 Endless amounts of time are spent haggling back

23 and forth, usually by young lawyers, not people like you

24 who are actually going to be trying the case, and has a

25 little sense of what matters and what doesn't, they

1 eliminated some really open-range language from the

2 rule, and given some things for the Court to look at and

3 the parties to look at.

4 Most lawyers who appear before you could make

5 an argument that would make anything discoverable, and I

6 think because you have come up with criteria for the

7 Court to look at, the Court can view its rule

8 differently, and that litigants can ask the Court to

9 view its rule differently than it was before.

10 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

11 for those comments, Mr. Weston.

12 MR. WESTON: Thank you, your Honor, for

13 your service.

14 HON. CAMPBELL: Professor Thomas.

15 PROF. THOMAS: I am a professor at the

16 University of Illinois. Prior to my academic position I

17 practiced for eight years representing both defendants

18 and plaintiffs, four years for a big firm, and four

19 years for a smaller firm. So while I testify as an

20 academic, I come from a perspective of knowing the

21 reality of the difficulties of discovery.

22 I have two points.

23 First, that the discovery rules should not be

24 changed regarding proportionality.

25 And second, that if the rules are approved,

1 don't resolve things, they argue. And then it comes to

2 the Court eventually. I do think that is one important

3 element of the cost of civil litigation.

4 How will any of the rule changes that are on

5 the table today change that?

6 MR. WESTON: Because I think that the

7 Court will look at the position -- the elimination of

8 any reasonably calculated standard, the moving of

9 proportionality up in Rule 26, and view this as an

10 opportunity to get involved early on at the Rule 16

11 conference. I think more of them will be held.

12 I think the magistrate judges will get more

13 involved in the discovery process early on. I think

14 parties on both sides of the V will be more inclined to

15 invoke a court conference early on to discuss the

16 contours of the case, and to discuss a discovery plan

17 that makes sense.

18 I don't think we have that right now.

19 MR. FOLSE: Why do you think, for

20 example, that moving proportionality factors up in Rule

21 26(b)(1) is going to lead to fewer discovery disputes as

22 opposed to more objections and more discovery disputes

23 that will then fall down into the black hole of meet and

24 confer processes?

25 MR. WESTON: Because I think you have

1 they should be amended to account for difficulties in

2 administration.

3 The advisory committee has said that under the

4 current rules discovery works in most cases, but is out

5 of proportion in a worrisome number of cases. That's

6 what has offered states this worrisome set constitutes 5

7 to 15 percent of the cases. So the proposed discovery

8 rules focus on this small set of rare, albeit important

9 cases.

10 The question is should the proposed rules be

11 changed when discovery is proportional in most cases

12 under the current rules?

13 I believe future empirical evidence make the

14 Court a move away from transsubstantivity for a

15 proportionality rule only for the worrisome cases.

16 I'm going to come back to this point, but first

17 what I want to talk about is something about what I have

18 written an entire article. That is, that legal change

19 should not occur where atypical cases motivate legal

20 change, and the change affects typical cases. This can

21 create bad law.

22 The proposed rules should not be changed in the

23 present circumstances where atypical worrisome cases

24 motivate change in the rules, and the changes will also

25 affect typical already proportional cases.
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1 Because the adversarial system and lawyers tend

2 to use the rules, I'm going to say as fully as they can,

3 with the proposed rules we will see lawyers in a typical

4 case not producing discovery that was produced in the

5 past because arguments that discovery is not

6 proportional. I think this is natural lawyer behavior.

7 In this situation the requesting party will be

8 required to move to compel discovery that would have

9 been produced in the past causing already overworked

10 federal judiciaries to face more motions to compel.

11 Present and former judges have told me that

12 this may very well occur under the proposed rules.

13 At the same time that problems are created for

14 already proportional cases, those cases do not advance

15 the concerns of the rare higher stakes cases that are

16 problematic that were the impetus for the rule, and

17 disproportionality problems should be fixed.

18 Future empirical evidence, including the

19 surveys of federal judges, make the Court a move away

20 from transsubstantivity to a rule for these cases that

21 is similar to the Class Action Fairness Act that

22 provides a different rule for very large cases.

23 Now, with this said, in the event that the

24 rules are approved, I ask the committee to consider

25 changes.

1 promote candor between the parties, and will lead to

2 less motions practice.

3 The final point I want to make is adding to the

4 advisory committee notes is not sufficient to address

5 any of these concerns.

6 In Gonzalez versus Sailor Justice Scalia

7 suggested that such notes may not carry much weight

8 because they're not a product of Congress. As a result,

9 we shouldn't rely on those notes.

10 May I hand you copies of my proposed changes?

11 HON. CAMPBELL: Yes. Why don't you just

12 start them at the end of the table and they can be

13 passed around.

14 PROF. THOMAS: Can I answer any

15 questions?

16 HON. CAMPBELL: Yes, I do have a

17 question.

18 The premise on which you started was that the

19 rules are being changed to address 5 or 15 percent of

20 the cases.

21 In the survey of the National Employment

22 Lawyers Association that was done for the Duke

23 Conference 80 percent of the plaintiff lawyers surveyed

24 said that discovery is not proportional in small cases,

25 it's disproportional.

1 My first suggestion relates to burdens. There

2 is a concern about who holds the burden on a motion to

3 compel when discovery is withheld on proportionality

4 grounds. Language should be included in Rule 37(a)(1)

5 to state that the nonproducing party bears the burden of

6 showing that the discovery should not be produced.

7 Including this language is consistent with past rule

8 changes clarifying the burden on summary judgment.

9 My second suggestion is for proportionality

10 laws. Under the proposed rules parties can withhold,

11 either side, and other discovery without giving the

12 other party much information about what is withheld.

13 The committee has recognized a potential

14 problem by requiring specificity, but it's not clear how

15 much information must be provided.

16 The proposed rule includes two categories of

17 discovery that can be withheld that are relevant to

18 claims and defenses. Privilege discovery and discovery

19 lacking proportionality in relationship to the needs of

20 the case.

21 26(b)(5) requires a party to provide a

22 privilege log so that the other party can assess whether

23 to make a motion to compel.

24 Additional language should be added to 26(b)(5)

25 to require a proportionality log. This practice will

1 Could you comment on that in light of the sort

2 of premises where you started?

3 PROF. THOMAS: Yes. I guess the thing I

4 would say the most about that is that I'm primarily

5 relying on the Federal Judicial Center's studies,

6 which -- you know, I have come to very much appreciate,

7 and I know that they spent a lot of work on it. I know

8 that surveys of various lawyers might not be as

9 empirically based. So I guess that would be my comments

10 to that.

11 HON. CAMPBELL: Okay. Any further

12 questions?

13 DEAN KLONOFF: Just a little bit off

14 topic, but a number of law professors around the country

15 signed a letter proposed by Professor Siegel at George

16 Washington University opposing the aggregation of the

17 rule and the forms.

18 I don't see your name on the letter, but I was

19 curious if you had thoughts on that rule?

20 PROF. THOMAS: Yes. I had intended to

21 submit my own written testimony. I haven't decided

22 whether I'm going to comment on those forms.

23 I will say that I am concerned about those

24 forms. I have read Coleman's article on the subject.

25 The concern that I have is because I think that
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1 given the history, that those forms were part and parcel

2 of the adoption of those rules. I'm concerned that that

3 takes away from the meaning of those rules.

4 HON. CAMPBELL: Judge Koeltl.

5 HON. KOELTL: First, good to see you.

6 Even the Federal Judicial Center survey found

7 that for the closed cases there were 25 percent of the

8 lawyers reported -- plaintiff-defendant -- 25 percent of

9 the cases that were closed in that quarter the costs

10 were disproportionate to the stakes involved.

11 Is it acceptable to have a system where the

12 study that came up with the lowest number still found

13 that a quarter of the cases the cost were

14 disproportionate to the stakes? That has enormous

15 consequences for such things as the impetus to settle

16 rather than try cases that should be tried.

17 And as Judge Campbell said, all of the other

18 surveys came out with levels of dissatisfaction for

19 smaller cases of -- 80 percent or more, including a

20 plaintiff's survey, the ABA Litigation Section study.

21 The question is, first, don't we have an

22 unacceptable situation?

23 The second question is, given your prior

24 practice in the Southern District of New York where

25 interrogatories are substantially cut back, there are

1 cases being proportional. That's what I'm relying on,

2 as well as the FJC studies.

3 So I am concerned about those worrisome set of

4 cases, but I do think that the better course would be to

5 think about a transsubstantive -- moving away from

6 transsubstantivity to something special for some cases.

7 So -- and if that isn't the case, if we are

8 going to move towards this rule, I really think a

9 proportionality log is necessary here.

10 HON. KOELTL: Could I just ask one

11 followup? I know it's over time, but doesn't a move

12 away from transsubstantivity concern you, because it

13 would suggest that we have two kinds of rules?

14 One for what people would come to describe as

15 the bigger, or perhaps more important cases, and

16 others -- another set of rules for other kinds of cases.

17 Now we have a system where we say we have one

18 set of rules, we don't have different rules for

19 different kinds of cases. Everyone is treated equally.

20 Everyone is treated importantly. Everyone is treated

21 with the same kind of respect. Then in every case we

22 attempt to tailor the general rules to the needs of that

23 case.

24 PROF. THOMAS: I think we have come to a

25 point in time where we need to really consider a move

1 about five interrogatories that you can ask, and you are

2 a plaintiff's employment discrimination lawyer, and a

3 very good one, did you find that that was an acceptable

4 way to discover and actually try cases, as you did?

5 PROF. THOMAS: And I also represented

6 companies, so -- after that, so I want to make sure that

7 I have a broad range of experience.

8 But, yes, I had the honor of appearing before

9 Judge Cote a lot in the Southern District.

10 I think with respect to interrogatories, I will

11 say that my focus is about the 26(b)(1) change. I am

12 still looking at the changes with respect to the number

13 of depositions and the number of interrogatories.

14 I certainly -- from talking to lawyers about

15 this issue, I think that it's possible that it might be

16 better if one or the other wasn't changed, because

17 people have talked about that you need one or the other.

18 But I am not as concerned about the change of

19 the definition of interrogatories, because I think that

20 there is some potential for telling -- asking judges and

21 working things out.

22 With respect to the stats, I don't disagree,

23 but I think there is a problem. I think that there

24 is -- even in all the information that I have read that

25 all of you have put out, you have talked about most

1 away from transsubstantivity. I think that even though

2 the Class Action Fairness Act is a different type of

3 animal, I think that that change in some ways helps have

4 us move in this direction with respect to discovery.

5 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you very much for

6 your comments, Professor.

7 Mark Chalos.

8 MR. CHALOS: Thank you, your Honor.

9 My name is Mark Chalos. I'm here today on

10 behalf of the Tennessee Association for Justice, and

11 also to express my personal views on the proposed rule

12 changes.

13 I practice with the law firm of Lieff Cabraser

14 in Nashville, Tennessee, and my views today are not on

15 behalf of my law firm.

16 I come at this from the perspective of

17 primarily plaintiffs' lawyer. I represent exclusively

18 plaintiffs today.

19 However, in the course of my career, and I

20 recognize I'm a junior member of this bar, I've been

21 practicing 16 years, I have represented civil --

22 defendants in civil cases, big corporations, small

23 businesses, and I have represented criminal defendants

24 as well.

25 So I have been in the room where you have had
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1 those difficult discussions with your clients about why

2 you must turn over certain documents, and the client's

3 concern that those documents may be taken out of

4 context, and have to explain to them why they're subject

5 to civil discovery.

6 I would like to first start with a discussion

7 of the rule changes that we at the Tennessee Association

8 for Justice support.

9 First, the proposed change to Rule Number 1

10 which makes it clear that it's incumbent on the parties,

11 as well as the Court, to interpret and to implement the

12 rules in a way that will secure that justice be an

13 inexpensive determination of every action.

14 That clarification that is also incumbent on

15 the parties, I hope will be vigorously enforced by the

16 district courts and by the magistrate judges, and I

17 think that can have a positive impact on reducing the

18 cost of litigation to all parties.

19 Second, we support the proposed amendments to

20 Rule 34(b)(2)(c), which makes it incumbent on a

21 producing party to make it clear where they are

22 withholding documents pursuant to an objection to a

23 document request.

24 Three concerns I would like to express with

25 respect to the proposed amendments.

1 got to pay for it. We see those as really driving up

2 the cost of discovery in many cases. We see this as yet

3 another opportunity to slow the process down, and to

4 drive up costs for both sides.

5 Second, I would like to address the proposed

6 change to Rule 26(c), and this would be the cost

7 shifting of the express power making implicit that the

8 Courts have the power to shift the cost.

9 We recognize that some courts and some

10 litigants believe that power is already inherent in

11 either the rules or the Court's powers.

12 Our proposal is that if such an amendment is

13 going to be implemented that makes that power clear,

14 that it also make clear that it also make clear that the

15 American rule -- the so-called American rule that each

16 party bears its own cost is explicitly retained as the

17 default rule, and that only in extreme and unusual

18 circumstances should the opposing party be made to pay

19 for the other side's efforts in collecting and analyzing

20 its own documents, and producing its own witnesses.

21 And, thirdly, I would like to address the

22 proposed amendments to the sanction Rule 37(d).

23 I think we all agree that this is a laudable

24 aspiration to have a national standard for dealing with

25 these sometimes very difficult issues of what happens

1 First, regarding proportionality, the proposed

2 rule as it sits today is unclear where the burden lies

3 in establishing that the relevant evidence is also

4 discoverable.

5 The concern that we have is that the rule as it

6 is drafted in the proposed amendment gives yet another

7 battleground, another reason to withhold relevant

8 information, and another expensive -- another motion in

9 a series of motions.

10 In practice we see in our cases right out of

11 the gate a 12(b)(6) motion in almost every case

12 challenging under Iqbal and Twombly.

13 We see boilerplate objections to almost every

14 discovery response. We see motions for summary

15 judgment, motions to strike class allegations, Daubert

16 motions, renewed motions for summary judgment, motions

17 to decertify class actions. In individual cases we see

18 the same type motions.

19 Now, add to that a threshold motion, you're not

20 entitled to any discovery except for the very basic

21 discovery, because it's not proportional, you haven't

22 met your burden that establishes that it is

23 proportional.

24 Then the inevitable fallback motion under Rule

25 26(c), well, fine, we will give it to you, but you have

1 when data goes missing, the documents go missing.

2 We see in practice this is a fairly frequent

3 occurrence. The nature of the way corporations and

4 others operate these days, we don't see so much the one

5 document missing, where is that letter, where is that

6 memo, you must have destroyed the only copy. Given that

7 almost all commerce is done electronically in emails and

8 scanned and otherwise, we typically don't see just the

9 one document missing, we see big gaps in data.

10 We see years of emails that are not present.

11 We see years of product sales, and those are

12 real examples from cases I'm dealing with right now.

13 And the question of why did that happen is a difficult

14 one.

15 For -- the way the rule -- the proposed

16 amendments are drafted, our concern is that it would

17 make it nearly impossible for a requesting party to ever

18 get meaningful sanctions against a party that allowed

19 evidence to be spoliated, whether it was intentional or

20 negligent or something else.

21 To prove the state of mind of willfulness, to

22 prove bad faith, as a predicate for getting any type of

23 meaningful sanctions is going to be nearly impossible.

24 And the additional heightened standard of proving that

25 it's essential to your case is even more difficult.
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1 Leaving substantial prejudice aside, when you

2 don't know what you don't know, it's impossible to go to

3 a court and say I have substantial prejudice, or I

4 haven't been able to prove my case because of this

5 missing data, we just don't know what's in there.

6 For example, in those two cases I mentioned, we

7 don't know what's in those two years of emails.

8 We don't know the product sales for those three

9 years that they say are now gone.

10 For us to go in and prove willfulness, bad

11 faith and substantial prejudice, or inability to prove

12 our case because of the missing data would be just

13 nearly impossible.

14 So our concern is that the proposed amendments,

15 as they are written now, with the burden lying where

16 they do, would inadvertently create a safe harbor for

17 parties that spoliate evidence, either negligently or

18 intentionally, where we can't prove that today, what

19 happened.

20 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you,

21 Mr. Chalos.

22 Paul.

23 HON. GRIMM: Real quick question.

24 You said at the beginning of your comments with

25 regard to Rule 37 that pretty much everyone would agree

1 negligently.

2 You know, sometimes bad things happen, but also

3 the burden ought to be on them to establish that it's a

4 no-harm-no-foul situation, what was lost would have no

5 impact, because they know it was lost.

6 We, as the requesting party, we don't have any

7 idea what was lost.

8 HON. GRIMM: So you would favor that the

9 rule be clear that the burden of showing both that it

10 was benign or that it was cumulative, as well as the

11 culpability would shift to the party that failed to

12 produce or preserve to establish that?

13 MR. CHALOS: Yes, sir. I think that

14 would help the rule.

15 I think that the -- it may require more study.

16 I don't know that the rule as written, that I would

17 endorse it with just that change, but I think that's a

18 good place to start.

19 HON. GRIMM: Thank you.

20 HON. CAMPBELL: No other questions?

21 (No response.)

22 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

23 very much, Mr. Chalos.

24 Bradford Berenson.

25 MR. BERENSON: My name is Brad Berenson. I'm

1 that a national standard would help.

2 If your respective is that willful or bad

3 faith, willful and bad faith, that is a clone with the

4 other conditions as well is not the right national

5 standard, what national standard do you think would

6 work?

7 MR. CHALOS: Well, I don't believe -- I

8 don't know that it's not the right standard in that my

9 concern is more with the burdens of proving willfulness

10 and proving bad faith.

11 There may be more well developed terms that we

12 can use. I mean, willful has a meaning in a criminal

13 context, and I don't think we could ever meet that

14 standard, quite frankly, within this type of debate.

15 What I would propose is some sort of rebuttal

16 presumption. The data is missing, we all agree on that,

17 and I think that, or maybe something a little bit more,

18 ought to trigger the responding party, the spoliators,

19 to have to rebut the presumption that something bad

20 happened.

21 They are in the position -- they know the

22 information, they know what happened, they know why it

23 happened, they know what went missing. It ought to be

24 their burden to say, we didn't do this intentionally, we

25 didn't do it grossly negligently, we didn't do it

1 in charge of litigation for the General Electric

2 Company. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before

3 you today, and share some thoughts and some information

4 on these important rule changes that you are

5 considering.

6 Our company has a really unusual vantage point

7 from which to evaluate these proposals precisely because

8 we are so large. We are in 160 different countries,

9 3,400 different locations. We are involved at any given

10 moment in time in literally thousands of civil cases all

11 across the world. 40 percent of our significant cases

12 are outside the United States in other systems.

13 We have the largest Outlook email system in the

14 world. There are 450,000 unique mailboxes across 141

15 servers in eight global locations, so we know a thing or

16 two about the complexity, difficulty, burden and expense

17 of trying to manage preservation and discovery.

18 In general, we support the proposed amendments,

19 although we do have some suggested modifications to the

20 proposed changes to Rule 37(e). We filed written

21 comments on Wednesday that provide a lot more of the

22 reasoning and the details and additional examples beyond

23 those that I'm going to provide you with my time here at

24 the podium this morning.

25 While I'm here in front of you I thought
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1 probably the most useful thing I could do, as compared

2 to the other commenters, is provide you with a somewhat

3 richer factual record by talking about a few specific

4 examples that we have seen in our company, which are not

5 meant to be outliers in any sense, but are fairly

6 representative of large cases.

7 The first point I want to make is the obvious

8 one that I think the committee has heard a lot about, so

9 I won't belabor it, which is simply the waste, burden

10 and cost of the current regime.

11 My predecessor back at the Duke mini conference

12 in 2001 went through three specific examples of cases,

13 and one thing that we did in preparation for the

14 comments we filed, and for this morning, was to update

15 those three examples, see what's happened in those cases

16 in the ensuing three years.

17 The second of the three examples he provided,

18 in 2011 he reported that we had spent $5 million to

19 preserve and collect documents from 250 unique

20 custodians.

21 Three years later, today, those 350 custodians

22 have become 815 across the EU and the United States

23 where the documents were preserved. Four hundred

24 fifteen of those custodians, there has actually been a

25 collection of documents, and ultimately documents were

1 By definition, when you are settling for

2 nuisance value, you're settling not because anybody has

3 made the adjudication of the merits and found you

4 liable, not because you yourself necessarily consider

5 yourself liable, but rather because the cost of

6 continuing to litigate are simply greater than the cost

7 of settling, and as an economically rational act, or the

8 economically rational thing for you to do, is simply pay

9 to make this go away.

10 So the third example my predecessor provided at

11 the Duke mini conference involved $6 million of

12 discovery cost, 700,000 documents, 15 million pages as

13 of 2011. Today that's $6 million. That case is still

14 ongoing. That $6 million has become $11 million.

15 Our best most objective good faith assessment

16 of the fair settlement value of this case is $4 million.

17 We have opponents on the other side, who for a variety

18 of reasons I won't worry you with, are unwilling to

19 engage in reasonable settlement discussions anywhere

20 near the level we think is fair or reasonable.

21 And the point here is that these discovery

22 costs makes settlement of three times our honest

23 assessment of the real value of this case an

24 economically rational and efficient thing to do.

25 This is not justice, this is not how we want

1 produced to the other side from only 85, or about 10

2 percent, of those whose documents were originally

3 preserved.

4 Of the documents produced there are 340,000

5 unique documents, 6 million pages. When the case

6 finally reached trial all of the documents fit in a

7 couple of binders that both sides designated and used as

8 exhibits. There were 194 of those.

9 So .1 percent of the documents that were

10 actually produced at the end of this huge funnel

11 actually found their way into trial, and were documents

12 that one side or the other considered necessary to the

13 accurate determination of the case in a court of law.

14 The overall cost over seven years of discovery

15 in that case, $22 million.

16 But the waste and burden and cost, in many

17 ways, is the subordinate problem here. The bigger

18 problem here, the thing that I worry more about, and I

19 suspect many of you worry more about, is the distorting

20 effect that that kind of waste, burden and cost can have

21 on the actual substance of justice, on outcomes in

22 particular cases.

23 In particular, what I'm talking about, and what

24 the next example I think will illustrate, is nuisance

25 value settlements.

1 the system to work, and yet settlements like this go on

2 every day throughout the system because of the explosion

3 in cost of electronic discovery that means that nuisance

4 value nowadays can mean multi-million dollar

5 settlements.

6 The last -- finally, the last portion of my

7 remarks is addressed to sanctions. This in many ways is

8 the bigger problem from my point of view than the scope

9 of discovery. There is a couple of different reasons

10 why it's such a big problem.

11 The first is that it creates very strong

12 incentives to gin up sideshow litigation and gotcha

13 games, and those incentives are the strongest when

14 someone has a weak case.

15 If they can take attention away from the

16 merits, divert it to this game tactical litigation

17 advantage through ginning up a spoliation fight, they

18 can often obtain settlement leverage, or an adverse

19 inference instruction that will help a weak case.

20 So let me tell you the final example I'll offer

21 you this morning, it's what we call our Tale of Two

22 Cities.

23 We had two roughly comparable cases in our oil

24 and gas business. One in federal district court in

25 Houston here in the great state of Texas, and the other
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1 in commercial court in Paris, France.

2 In the first case in Houston there was about a

3 $55 million claim. It went all the way through to

4 trial, a one month long trial, we prevailed with a

5 defense verdict, and the total cost for that case for us

6 was $7 million in fees paid to a really outstanding and

7 very efficient local boutique litigation firm.

8 In Paris the claim was both larger and more

9 complex, a $130 million claim. The evidence was

10 distributed across the EU and the CIS countries. We won

11 that case as well in the Paris commercial court, and

12 then there were two levels of appeal. It was affirmed

13 on appeal, and went all the way to the highest court.

14 The total cost for that litigation, $671,000

15 for a top flight household name local firm. All the way

16 through the final appeal to the Supreme Court of France.

17 About half the total cost of the federal

18 district court in Houston was discovery, and of most

19 interest given that we're talking about sanctions and

20 spoliation, is that as the other side saw their case was

21 weakening, they made a spoliation claim very late in the

22 case.

23 The Court ordered additional discovery,

24 additional depositions and fact witnesses and experts,

25 and the total cost of litigating the spoliation claim

1 the Tale of Two Cities came first?

2 MR. BERENSON: You know, I don't know the

3 exact sequence of timing, but they were roughly

4 contemporaneous. They all occurred recently within the

5 last five years, at least the trial proceedings were all

6 within the last five years.

7 MS. CABRASER: Well, one was not

8 completed before the other?

9 MR. BERENSEN: No, I don't believe --

10 well, one must have been completed before the other, but

11 I don't think there is a sequencing issue, at least not

12 that I'm aware of.

13 PROF. MARCUS: One of the things that we

14 have been asked to do is define "willfulness and/or bad

15 faith" as part of 37(e) changes.

16 The American College of Trial Lawyers has

17 suggested a definition that the standards of bad faith,

18 which they define as, "taken with the intent to destroy

19 or delete potentially relevant evidence, or in reckless

20 disregard of the consequences of that party's actions."

21 Could you live with that definition?

22 MR. BERENSON: I think that gets very

23 close to the right answer. We prefer the Sedona

24 Conference's suggested language.

25 I think the main difference, if I have got this

1 alone was almost equal to the total cost of the Paris

2 case end to end.

3 The second thing about sanctions that I think

4 is so damaging, the current sanctions regime, is that

5 without requiring that there have been specific intent

6 to frustrate the other side's discovery effort, without

7 bad faith, you can actually be ordering sanctions

8 remedies that corrupt outcomes and distort justice in

9 yet another way.

10 After all, if the loss of data was not

11 intentional, and was not intended to deprive the other

12 side of evidence that it needed for its case, there is

13 absolutely no reason to suppose that the evidence lost

14 would have helped them rather than you.

15 When there is an inadvertent loss of data we

16 are as unhappy about that -- in many ways more unhappy

17 about that -- than the other side. So to order punitive

18 sanctions, particularly those that come in the form of a

19 jury instruction or adverse inference, may actually cut

20 directly against the right outcome in terms of an

21 accurate verdict according to law.

22 With that, I'm happy to take any questions.

23 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. One quick

24 question.

25 MS. CABRASER: Which of the two cases in

1 right, is the question of whether "reckless disregard"

2 is included.

3 The concern that I would have about "reckless

4 disregard" is that in actual practice and operation it

5 could evolve very easily into a negligence-type

6 standard.

7 Having seen what I have seen now, I know how

8 unbelievably difficult it is, even for the most

9 scrupulous litigant in a large company, to do all this

10 exactly right, particularly as against a

11 hindsight-driven criticism.

12 PROF. MARCUS: Would you agree that the

13 finding of an intent to destroy is something that can be

14 inferred even without direct evidence?

15 MR. BERENSON: Of course.

16 PROF. MARCUS: Would you agree that

17 "recklessness" is relevant to making that determination?

18 MR. BERENSON: Yes. I think

19 "recklessness" probably is relevant to that

20 determination.

21 PROF. MARCUS: I appreciate that.

22 Thank you.

23 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

24 very much, Mr. Berenson.

25 Michael Harrington.
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1

2 Honor.

3

MR. HARRINGTON: Good morning, your

My name is Michael Harrington. I'm general

1 In the last three years we spent over $50

2 million to review and produce documents for litigation

3 in the United States.

4 counsel of Eli Lilly & Company. Eli Lilly is a global

5 pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops,

6 manufactures and markets innovative human

7 pharmaceuticals and animal health product around the

8 world.

9 It's my pleasure to be with you today, and I

10 thank you for your work.

11 I want to begin by expressing my personal and

12 my company's respect for the federal courts. Like

13 General Electric, we litigate every day in state and

14 federal courts around the country. We litigate in

15 courts around the world.

16 It is always my preference when we have a

17 material piece of litigation that that litigation is

18 venued in federal courts in the United States, precisely

19 because I believe that when it comes time to a merits

20 determination I have great confidence that the federal

21 courts are going to get it right. So I would like to be

22 in the federal courts.

23 It is precisely because we have this respect

24 for and admiration for the federal courts that we think

25 that the rules that you propose are so critically

4 But the key point, of course, is not the

5 absolute dollar that we have spent. The key point is

6 that too much of that spent has been spent on producing

7 and processing documents that have no bearing on the

8 ultimate outcome of the litigation.

9 For example, we recently tried a product

10 liability case where we reviewed over 20 million pages

11 of documents. We produced 1.2 million pages of

12 documents, and 200 documents were chosen by both sides

13 from that universe to be used at trial.

14 We were recently the plaintiff in a patent case

15 where we produced -- where we reviewed over 6 million

16 pages of documents, produced 1 million pages of

17 documents, and 140 documents were used at that trial.

18 While this is interesting antidotal evidence,

19 pharmaceutical companies understand that in order to

20 demonstrate causation, you need to control a clinical

21 study.

22 Like General Electric, we conducted controlled

23 clinical studies in this area. We have recently tried

24 three patent cases, one in the United States, and two

25 involving the identical patent in two other developed

1 important.

2 This committee has recognized that excess

3 discovery occurs in a worrisome number of cases,

4 particularly those that are complex and involve high

5 stakes and generate contentious adversarial behavior.

6 These are the cases in which we operate every

7 day. We have a full docket of these cases. We are both

8 the plaintiff and defendants in roughly 4,000 such

9 cases, and we agree with your concern about excess

10 discovery.

11 Our experience as a global company has led us

12 to support the proposed rule changes, particularly

13 proposed Rule 37(e) and 26(b)(1).

14 Specifically, like Mr. Berenson, I think the

15 best value that I can offer today is to share with you

16 what our experience has been over the last five or six

17 years in administering discovery for federal courts.

18 Specifically, I would offer the following:

19 Since 2008 it's been my observation that of our

20 total global litigation spent, over 60 percent of that

21 spent is driven by costs related to -- directly related

22 to preserving, processing and producing documents for

23 U.S. litigation.

24 We have spent in that same time period over $40

25 million on a system to preserve email documents.

1 English-speaking countries at substantially the same

2 time.

3 In the United States we produced 1.4 million

4 pages. In the other two countries we produced 600,000

5 pages and 20,000 pages respectively.

6 In the United States approximately 150

7 documents were used during the trial. In the other two

8 countries approximately 150 documents were used in the

9 trial.

10 Substantial overlap, as you would expect,

11 because these are the documents that all sides knew were

12 ultimately going to be relevant to the claims and

13 defenses at stake.

14 Interestingly, all three courts came up with

15 the same determination on validity and infringement in

16 the public patent. So it's these experiences that have

17 led us to support the proposed rule changes.

18 Specifically, we propose -- we support Rule

19 23(b)(1) (sic) without reservation. We think it will

20 not have an impact on the merits of the litigation, but

21 will significantly decrease wasteful and unnecessary

22 discovery.

23 There has been a lot of discussion about

24 proportionality today. The greatest benefit, I think,

25 that we find in 26(b)(1) is the changed language to get
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125

1 away from the old standard, which I think is very broad, 1

2 and leads to excessive discovery. 2

Paul.

HON. GRIMM: Just a followup on the same

3 We also support Rule 37(e). We think it's an

4 improvement, albeit an imperfect improvement over the

5 rule today, and we endorse the changes that have been

6 proposed by LCJ.

7 In closing I want to say that the proposed

8 rules enjoy overwhelming and widespread support in the

9 corporate community and by general counsels.

10 There is a letter being prepared that we will

11 receive next week from a small, medium and large general

12 counsels, from general counsels of for profit and not

13 for profit companies, over 250 general counsels that

14 support the proposed rule changes.

15 So we thank you for your work, and I'm happy to

16 take any questions that you have.

17 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

18 Richard.

19 PROF. MARCUS: I am asking you, but might

20 be relevant to others as well, could you tell me in

21 terms of preservation, focusing on 37(e), how adoption

22 of the proposed rule would affect and perhaps improve

23 your handling of preservation issues?

24 MR. HARRINGTON: It's a good question.

25 Some of the concerns we have, if the language

3 question I asked a moment ago.

4 If we were to do as some have urged us to do,

5 which is either to eliminate the "willingness" instead

6 of making it disjunctive "willfulness or bad faith," and

7 make it "bad faith or willfulness and bad faith," would

8 you agree that either as a definition similar to the one

9 that the -- that the American Collage of Trial Lawyers

10 suggested, that specifically define "bad faith" to

11 include "reckless disregard," would you agree that if

12 the definition didn't have that component, that

13 "recklessness" was relevant to determining whether or

14 not "bad faith" could be inferred?

15 MR. HARRINGTON: I do.

16 HON. CAMPBELL: Let me ask one other

17 question, if I can.

18 You gave us statistic, as others have, about

19 the fraction of a percent of documents produced that

20 actually wind up at trial.

21 When I was litigating it was before the advent

22 of millions of pages of production electronically, but

23 the truth was of the 900,000 pages I got, as opposed to

24 9 million, only a small fraction ever got to trial,

25 because most of them weren't relevant, I asked broadly,

1 about "willfulness" remains in, and (b)(2) remains in,

2 immediately what we would do, frankly, is monitor the

3 development of the law and the use of factors.

4 We would not be any less meticulous in our

5 preservation, nor would we immediately be any more

6 narrow in our preservation.

7 My hope is that as the law develops around

8 those factors over time, we would be in a position to

9 begin to change the way we operate our preservation.

10 Specifically, one of the questions that's very

11 hard on our preservation is when it ends. Right? When

12 can you stop?

13 I'm hoping that the articulation of factors in

14 37(e) will allow law to develop that will let us rely,

15 and that we will be able to make some of those

16 determinations without fear of post-docket sanctions.

17 PROF. MARCUS: Well -- so You like the

18 factors in 37(e)(2)?

19 MR. HARRINGTON: Well, I like that there are

20 factors. I don't think they provide the kind of

21 perspective guidance that I would like to see, but there

22 is things that -- if that's the way the rule comes out,

23 those are what we will look to to change the way we

24 operate.

25 HON. CAMPBELL: Other questions?

1 and got broadly, and because the practical reality is

2 you can't use that many documents in a trial.

3 So what are we to make of these statistics?

4 I mean, are they really reflective of a problem

5 in discovery, or are they simply reflecting the fact

6 that there are now millions of documents preserved that

7 can be produced readily that didn't used to exist?

8 MR. HARRINGTON: Well, it's certainly the

9 latter, right, the promulgation of electronic documents.

10 You know, our company probably adds to its electronic

11 archives and ULs hundreds of thousands of emails every

12 day. That certainly exacerbates the problem.

13 But I think the current rule, the breadth of

14 discovery doesn't make it any easier. I think the

15 proposed language will improve that by narrowing the

16 scope.

17 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you.

18 William Hangley.

19 MR. HANGLEY: Good morning.

20 I am here speaking for members of the

21 leadership of the ABA Section of Litigation. We are, of

22 course, the largest section of the American Bar

23 Association.

24 Within the section I chair the Federal -- or

25 co-chair, the Federal Practice Task Force of the
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1 association.

2 When I say I speak for members of leadership,

3 it is because of the arcane protocols of the ABA that I

4 can't say I speak for the ABA Section of Litigation.

5 I'm sorry about that. It's not my fault.

6 I should give you a little bit of my personal

7 background and credentials, because I think it's

8 relevant to the testimony.

9 I am a past member of the Advisory Committee on

10 Federal Rules of Evidence. I am a fellow of the

11 American College of Trial Lawyers, and recently became

12 the regent, or what my wife calls the Grand Raccoon to

13 the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

14 (Laughter.)

15 MR. HANGLEY: I am -- through the college

16 have been a member with former Justice Becky Kourlis'

17 organization, she testified today on the IAALS, our

18 joint task force on discovery in the civil justice

19 system.

20 We, frankly, view ourselves as the parents, or

21 at least the grandparents of what ultimately became the

22 Duke Conference, and led to many of the proposed changes

23 that this organization is discussing today.

24 And I have practiced law since before dinosaurs

25 walked the earth.

1 in commenting on the development of these rules, both

2 the Duke subcommittee protocols, and the spoliation

3 rules. And, generally, we favor and applaud them. We

4 hope we had something to do with their current shape.

5 In Don Bivens' letter of February 3rd we have

6 run through those things that we strongly endorse, and

7 we mentioned a handful of things on which we still have

8 concerns.

9 First, with respect -- my yellow light is on so

10 I am just going to talk about areas where we disagree.

11 First, we see no point in reducing

12 presumptively the number of depositions, although we

13 agree with cutting down on the hours, because believe

14 me, at 7:00 at night a witness is really tired. But we

15 think that you don't have a problem with the number of

16 depositions such as sufficient to justify cutting from

17 ten to five.

18 We think that with respect to Rule 37,

19 spoliation of documents, that the standard should not be

20 "willfulness," it should be "bad faith."

21 We have given you as an exhibit to our letter a

22 variated list of definitions of fee cases of what

23 "willfulness" means. We think we are going into a tar

24 pit if we go there.

25 We also -- as mentioned in the letter -- and my

1 (Laughter.)

2 MR. HANGLEY: Now, I think the novel thing

3 about the organizations with which I have been -- and

4 the efforts which with I have been associated, and with

5 my own law practice, is that there is no sidedness to

6 it.

7 On the enterprise with IAALS and the American

8 College we had long, long sessions of plaintiffs and

9 defendants lawyers sitting together and saying we have

10 this wonderful justice system, we have the most perfect

11 set of rules designed to uncover all relevant

12 information that one could imagine, and nobody can

13 afford to access the thing.

14 Or for those who must access it, it has become

15 so frightfully important that they do, as witnesses that

16 testified earlier today, settle for nuisance values at

17 absurd numbers.

18 That was not a plaintiffs' or defendants'

19 enterprise. The group which put together our responses

20 to the proposals was not a plaintiffs' or defendants'

21 group, the Federal Practice Task Force, and the Council

22 of the ABA Litigation Section, and the section itself

23 were peopled by people from both sides of the aisle,

24 both sides of the V. And so I think we are objective.

25 As you know, we have participated step by step

1 red light is on -- we discussed various other aspects of

2 Rule 37(e)'s enumeration with which we disagree, in our

3 view, contrary to, I think the last witness was, we do

4 not think the enumeration rules ultimately will be

5 useful.

6 Although, of course, all of the factors, and

7 probably others, are very important to be taken into

8 account.

9 I apologize for overstepping my time. I would

10 be delighted to answer questions.

11 PROF. MARCUS: I haven't had a chance to

12 look carefully at the comments you made, that the

13 organization made, but, again, if we were to follow your

14 advice and make it "bad faith," do you agree that -- I

15 don't want to put one organization that you're a member

16 of in conflict with the other, but since you're a member

17 of both the ABA and American College, they point out to

18 us that if "bad faith" is the intent to destroy, that

19 the relevance of that determination, since that may have

20 to be inferred, is "recklessness."

21 MR. HANGLEY: I certainly think that

22 measuring the level of the conduct, of course, is

23 critical, and that a consideration or finding of

24 "recklessness" could go towards a determination of bad

25 faith. But I think -- and this will really make me
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1 sound lawyer, your Honor, but I think that

2 "recklessness" stand-alone should not be the standard.

3 Thank you.

4 HON. CAMPBELL: Other questions?

5 MR. BARKETT: Mr. Hangley, could you

6 comment on -- I notice their concern expressed that

7 sending preservation letters, particularly

8 prelitigation, kind of causing a number of problems, and

9 I'm interested in the section's view, and the leaders of

10 the section's view, on that specifically.

11 MR. HANGLEY: The leaders of the section

12 thought that section that -- in particular, we are

13 troubled with all, but we really don't like the one --

14 don't like most of all is (c), because it presumes, the

15 way it's worded, that a party, or a nonparty, who

16 doesn't respond to a request for document preservation,

17 that that nonresponse is a factor.

18 As a lawyer whose firm -- and who personally

19 represents plaintiffs and defendants, and the joy of not

20 being associated with either camp full time, let me tell

21 you that you get requests for preservation of documents

22 that are not worth answering. You get demands that are

23 so broad that they really are not entitled to a

24 response.

25 Now, if it turns out that the response was a

1 greater number is consistent with the rules.

2 Why is it an unwise rule that parties should

3 have to explain why that number of deposition is in fact

4 the appropriate number, why taking those depositions are

5 merely consistent with the rules, particularly when we

6 know that this is going to affect that band of

7 depositions?

8 MR. HANGLEY: Judge, here's what I think

9 about that.

10 I think that when you get to the Court and you

11 get the Court's attention, when you get the Court's

12 attention on this issue, having spent some money and put

13 your position together, we must presume that the Court

14 will make the right call. But just as a presumptive

15 limit of ten creates a certain mind-set, so too would a

16 presumption of five create a certain mind-set.

17 It's relevant here, I think, sir, that -- that

18 these battles become not battles between senior trial

19 lawyers discussing things between themselves, but often

20 you find yourself dealing with a less experienced lawyer

21 in the firm, always a discovery lawyer, not -- having

22 the benefit of coming from that early age when cases

23 were actually tried -- and they are afraid not to invoke

24 every possible position to frustrate whatever it is that

25 you want to do.

1 reasonable response, that's one thing, but the mere fact

2 of not answering, or presuming that you have to answer

3 every request, particularly for larger corporate

4 parties, I'm sure, is just, I think, unjustified.

5 By the way, the other one that we did not like

6 was (e), which sets up the same sort of indirect

7 inference that when you're requesting the documents you

8 should seek guidance from the Court.

9 The people from whom documents are requested

10 often are nonparties. Even the parties often are

11 nonparties because the lawsuit hasn't been brought yet,

12 and they should not have particularly the unilateral

13 burden of running into a court that doesn't want to hear

14 it because there is no case, or they are not parties in

15 that case, and saying I want some sort of protection.

16 HON. KOELTL: With respect to the issue

of

17 the presumptive number of depositions, changing the

18 number from ten to five would mean that the parties in

19 the cases where they wanted to take more than five, but

20 not more than ten, would be the party affected, because

21 ten is already the presumptive limit, and it would

22 require that they either agree on taking the

23 depositions, or be able to explain why they should have

24 that number with an instruction to the judge that the

25 judge must grant more if the judge finds that the

1 I can tell you from past experience, sir, that

2 change to ten depositions as a presumptive limitation,

3 that cost my clients money. It cost myself and my

4 lawyers time. Not in so much the litigating, in the

5 true sense of the word, but in the bickering, and in the

6 responding to the letters and back and forth of this and

7 that and the other thing.

8 Now, we have -- I don't think ten is a bad

9 number. I think five is almost always a good number,

10 but I really don't want -- and lawyers don't want to

11 have it be a mindset where the young insecure litigator

12 on the other side is going to get locked in and say you

13 got your five and that's it. Of course, that's what we

14 use. It happened once and it's going to happen again at

15 a lower level.

16 So that's what I think, Judge.

17 I would like to thank Judge Koeltl for serving

18 on our task force even though he's never been able to

19 participate in any of our deliberations.

20 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Mr. Hangley,

21 thank you very much.

22 We will break until 1:00.

23 (Lunch recess.)

24 HON. CAMPBELL: We have got Mr. Cook, I

25 presume, at the lectern, so we will go ahead and start.
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1 Then, Mr. Moor, we will take you after Mr. Cook

2 so we can hear from you before you have to leave.

3 All right. We have at the lectern Gregory

4 Cook. Please proceed.

5 MR. COOK: Thank you, your Honor.

6 My name is Greg Cook. I'm a lawyer at Balch &

7 Bingham in Birmingham, Alabama, and I speak today on my

8 own behalf.

9 My practice focuses heavily on class action

10 defense work, and therefore I'm going to concentrate my

11 remarks on Rule 37, which I believe will have the

12 greatest impact in a class action area.

13 First, I would like to endorse and compliment

14 the committee's work on Rule 37. As the committee is

15 aware, the cost to litigate class actions have escalated

16 significantly, and those costs are especially true in

17 the ESI area.

18 In addition to the costs, there is the risk

19 from ancillary litigation over ESI disputes, so both the

20 cost and those risks can sometimes force defendants to

21 settle cases that they would either win on the merits or

22 win in class certification. Both sides are aware of

23 those costs, and the potential leverages they can

24 create.

25 And it is true that an asymmetry of cost is

1 would argue that discovery in the old paper world was an

2 effective way to find speedy, inexpensive and just

3 results.

4 My law school civil procedures teacher was

5 Arthur Miller, and I remember very clearly in my first

6 year of class when he told us that the Xerox machine was

7 the greatest lie detector ever invented, because you

8 could never be sure that if you were the wrongdoer that

9 you had destroyed every copy of that document.

10 The same is even more true with ESI. There is

11 no way that anyone can be sure that every text message

12 and every copy of that email had been deleted, and they

13 should assume just the opposite.

14 Now that I have endorsed the rule I will make a

15 couple of friendly suggestions.

16 First, I agree with LCJ that it should be

17 "willful and bad faith," not "willful or bad faith."

18 Second of all, I would argue that the

19 irreparably deprived exception should be deleted, or in

20 the alternative, that it should be limited to physical

21 evidence where it's much more likely that you have had

22 true irreparably deprived -- either truly or irreparably

23 deprived plaintiff of evidence.

24 Lastly, I would suggest that the factors be

25 deleted. They risk the bad faith standard, they are

1 going to be true in any case between a single plaintiff

2 and a corporate defendant, but that asymmetry is

3 particularly amplified in the class action context.

4 I believe that the committee's proposed Rule 37

5 changes will promote a uniform national standard, and

6 help curtail this ancillary litigation.

7 As Rule 1 has said, the goal should be the

8 just, speedy and inexpensive determination of disputes.

9 The goal should not be perfect discovery.

10 I have had the opportunity to practice before

11 ESI really happened. Back when I started practicing, as

12 you know, when discovery came in you would go talk to

13 the company, you would get their file, then you would go

14 talk to the key employees and ask them for their

15 documents, you would go to the warehouse and you would

16 find the index and you would provide the index to the

17 plaintiff's counsel.

18 What you did not do is go through every single

19 box in the warehouse. And what you did not do is rifle

20 through your employee's desk looking for their Post-It

21 Notes. Or when you heard that a lawsuit might get

22 filed, you didn't tell them that they needed to keep

23 their Post-It Notes.

24 I think the discovery in the ESI world should

25 parallel discovery in the old paper word, because I

1 vague, and I would, as a cross-action lawyer, be

2 particularly concerned with the anticipation litigation

3 language in those factors.

4 It's particularly hard at the beginning of a

5 class action to determine the scope and the class, it's

6 often pled too broadly, but at least in those cases I

7 have got a complaint to look at. Before the class

8 action gets filed it's going to be very difficult for me

9 to determine what the true scope is, whether it's

10 national or it's confined to a particular state.

11 So, therefore, I would argue that that factor

12 is particularly difficult, but I would just argue that

13 all of the factors that you brought to this point --

14 And I do want to talk briefly about the risk,

15 and I mentioned it earlier, the risk of ancillary

16 litigation.

17 Mr. Bradford (sic) from GE this morning

18 mentioned that there is a perverse incentive on risk if

19 there is in fact no case to the plaintiffs, or their

20 case is weak, that's when you find the ESI spoliation

21 motion being made. That's another strong reason why I

22 would endorse this committee's changes to Rule 37.

23 Thank you very much.

24 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you.

25 Are there questions from members of the
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1 committee?

2

1

PROF. MARCUS: On the (b)(2) factors, 2

HON. GRIMM: Thank you.

PROF. MARCUS: I don't remember if you

3 which it is your recommendation that we eliminate, I'm

4 struggling with finding how it is that -- what factors

5 you think, if those factors in their entirety are

6 unhelpful, would guide courts?

7 If courts are going to look at this rule and

8 try and figure out how to interpret it if it's adopted,

9 it strikes me as being anomalous to say that they should

10 consider all relevant factors, but give you no guidance

11 at all. If you were arguing to a court whether factors

12 that you think they should consider, and if so, why is

13 it that you feel that it's better to have nothing than

14 to have factors?

15 MR. COOK: First, I do think there can be

16 some development of the case law, and everything is

17 factually specific often in these ESI disputes.

18 HON. GRIMM: Well, what right now, given

19 the status of the law right now, if you had to make that

20 argument and there were no factors to go on, would just

21 stand up to the judge and say, Judge, I'm doing

22 everything that's right, Judge? You would surely come

23 up with something that you think would be guidance. If

24 what we have is wrong, what are the ones that should be

25 there, in your opinion?

3 said where your practice is. We have heard many say

4 that the standard of culpability is handled quite

5 differently in different parts of the country.

6 Could you tell me where your practice is, and

7 whether you see ancillary litigation more prominently in

8 places with different culpability standards?

9 MR. COOK: My practice is in Birmingham,

10 Alabama.

11 PROF. MARCUS: And that's in the Eleventh

12 Circuit?

13 MR. COOK: Eleventh Circuit.

14 PROF. MARCUS: What is the culpability

15 attitude of the Eleventh Circuit?

16 MR. COOK: The Eleventh Circuit tends to

17 be closer to the Seventh Circuit. It hasn't expressly

18 said that, but the District Courts in the Eleventh

19 Circuit have moved towards a bad faith kind --

20 PROF. MARCUS: And you have ancillary

21 litigation problems with that standard?

22 MR. COOK: I believe we have less

23 ancillary litigation standards -- fights than other

24 circuits have.

25 And I can't -- all I can do is look at the

1 MR. COOK: I guess my concern is that

2 there are any factors, Judge. I think that those --

3 HON. GRIMM: So we just flip a coin?

4 MR. COOK: No. What I'm suggesting is

5 that the factors, as they are today, would be seen as a

6 guidepost and as an exclusive list, I believe, by

7 judges. Even -- whether they treated it that way --

8 whether it was explicit in the rule or not, they would

9 be treated that way.

10 And these ESI disputes are so factually

11 intense, and -- furthermore, I would say that those

12 factors apply both to the willful and bad faith portion

13 of the rule, and also to the other portion of the rule

14 talks about curative measures.

15 So I would argue that those factors are --

16 could be treated as exclusive, and also are being

17 applied to try -- they could be applied to determine

18 what bad faith is. And I would argue that when you're

19 talking about reasonableness in those factors, that

20 shouldn't be applied in determining bad faith.

21 HON. GRIMM: So reasonableness is

22 irrelevant to whether someone can do that in good faith?

23 MR. COOK: No, your Honor, I didn't mean

24 that. I meant that it would be -- that would be equated

25 to whether or not they had acted in bad faith.

1 disputes and the case law. I can't give you a

2 comparison otherwise.

3 HON. CAMPBELL: Other questions?

4 (No response.)

5 MR. COOK: The Eleventh Circuit follows

6 the Fifth Circuit standard under the Byers case after

7 the split, which is a bad faith standard. Bad faith is

8 bad faith.

9 PROF. MARCUS: So adopting the rule as

10 you would have it be would not change anything in the

11 courts where you litigate?

12 MR. COOK: I don't think so.

13 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

14 very much for your comments, Mr. Cook.

15 We're going to take Mr. Moor, who is listed as

16 witness 35, out of order, and hear from him next.

17 MR. MOOR: Thank you so much for the

18 consideration. I appreciate that.

19 Good afternoon. My name is Karl Moor. I'm a

20 senior vice president and chief counsel for Southern

21 Company. In that capacity I'm responsible for writing

22 legal advice and policy guidance on environmental

23 matters affecting the Southern Company system, which is

24 a fleet of about 43 megawatts of generating capacity

25 based in Atlanta and the surrounding states.
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1 We serve about 4 million customers, and we also

2 have operations in about a dozen states elsewhere in the

3 United States.

4 Today I would like to talk about a few examples

5 of real world impacts that the electronic discovery

6 rules have had on us.

7 I would like to address two of the proposals

8 that have been made. One would be Rule 37(e), the

9 preservation sections, the foreign sections, and when a

10 party acts with willfulness or bad faith, and the loss

11 of information causes substantial prejudice.

12 The amendment to Rule 26(b)(1) are also of

13 interest, limited discovery to information relevant to

14 claims defenses proportional to the needs of the case.

15 I didn't know it until today, but I'm actually

16 standing here before the counsel -- my counsel in this

17 case that I'm about to speak about. I don't think it in

18 any way prejudices what I'm going to say, but I was

19 fortunate enough to be represented by one of the lawyers

20 at the table. And I can tell you that these were -- the

21 cases that I'm about to talk about were one, two and

22 three of a very unusual claim.

23 There was a claim that essentially said

24 electric utilities and other admitters of ScO2 were

25 responsible for climate change and damages to -- damages

1 electronic form all that they had that could in any way

2 be relevant to the cases.

3 And our normal 90 day auto delete function was

4 turned off for about -- in the end 1,100 employees,

5 really 1,200, and our normal company retention system

6 practice was terminated with respect to those employees.

7 But due, as I said, to the large and sweeping

8 nature of these claims, we also took the step of

9 preservation efforts to say, okay, look, the scope of

10 these claims, it cannot be handled by simple auto

11 delete.

12 The operation of the system has been called

13 into question, and so we took all of our emergency

14 backup tapes, which essentially recreate our systems

15 across the company, and maintained those over the course

16 of five years of litigation.

17 Now, there was never a single item produced in

18 discovery. Fortunately, all three of these cases were

19 handled on motions to dismiss that were ultimately

20 successful, but the appeals went on for a significant

21 length of time.

22 As a result, in some instances between five and

23 seven years in these cases, we incurred about three and

24 a half million dollars worth of expense in preserving

25 all of the data that we thought was relevant.

1 to individuals and to villages as well as to communities

2 as a result of climate change.

3 Those cases caused us, obviously, to put into

4 place litigation holds of significant proportion. In

5 fact, we issued a hold over 1,500 employees. We issued

6 it to our IT departments, to our records management

7 groups and to facilities where we maintain our records

8 really throughout the south.

9 Obviously, this hold has been in place because

10 this was a very, very broad set of allegations. It

11 ranged not over just the question of whether or not

12 individual employees, what they had done about climate

13 change, what they might have done, but the very essence

14 and operation of the electric system over the course of

15 100 years, but more specifically in time since the

16 litigation had been brought. But prior to that with

17 regard to claims that we had engaged in a conspiracy to

18 hide climate change from the world, and as a result our

19 system had been managed in a way that had increased the

20 harm to the individual plaintiffs' clients.

21 So with those allegations we did what we

22 thought we felt necessary to do. We charged all of our

23 employees under all of the appropriate guidance that

24 they had that they had a heavy responsibility to

25 maintain these documents, and to maintain it in an

1 We also put ourselves in a position, frankly,

2 where we were, if you will, custodians for the

3 plaintiffs in explaining to our clients internally why

4 it was that we had to disrupt the functioning of the

5 system at such a high level.

6 They say, well, the cost, how could it possibly

7 be?

8 One backup tape alone is $75,000. Over the

9 course of time we accumulated 40,000 of these backup

10 tapes, and then we had to find a place to securely store

11 them, and make sure that we could show custodianship of

12 them.

13 The duration and length of that process that

14 led us at the end of the day to impose these costs on

15 the system to disrupt our working relationships and to

16 tell our employees that basically they had an obligation

17 to the plaintiffs to preserve this because of the depth

18 and breadth of theories that were very difficult to

19 explain to our employees.

20 Now, that is a burden that comes with all

21 litigation, but it does seem to us that when you look at

22 what we might have been able to do in response to that,

23 I think over time we took a very cautious approach, and

24 it was a very sensible approach from a corporate

25 standpoint.
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1 Which is, if we're told to preserve the

2 maximum, and then anything that we do after we preserve

3 the maximum is going to be presumed to be bad behavior

4 if we alternate it, if we turn back on auto delete for

5 some significant portion of employees, or we decide

6 after a while that the burden of those tapes is simply

7 too great, and we start picking and choosing among the

8 systems that we're going to allow to back up, system

9 planning comes off, maybe our long term economic

10 planning goes off, our government system which tracks

11 all of our activities stays on, we start to make choices

12 like that.

13 But I will tell you we were paralyzed over that

14 period of time, because we were at a point where we were

15 looking at the development of this case law, and being

16 advised by great attorneys that anything that we did

17 might put us at greater legal risk because it could lead

18 to the allegation, particularly in a conspiracy claim,

19 that we were essentially creating a discovery tool, and

20 that we were compounding the problem and the perception

21 that we were wrongdoers.

22 As a result, we did the responsible thing, we

23 did the difficult thing, we did the expensive thing,

24 whether it was the right thing, whether or not it was a

25 good thing, I would suggest leads to this question,

1 thought to how your behavior would have been different

2 if our proposed Rule 37(e) had been in place at the

3 time?

4 MR. MOOR: I have. I have talked about

5 it with a number of folks that are involved with this

6 process.

7 I think that what I had at the time was very

8 good, sound legal advice. The case law was popping up

9 all over on a range of activities.

10 And these cases, by the way, were in

11 California, they were in Mississippi, and they were in

12 New York. So we were dealing with a range of

13 jurisdictions.

14 I think every bit of advice that I got was

15 steered toward the conservative.

16 I think there is, at least in these rules, the

17 possibility where they -- a willful and -- a willful

18 test that looks at our behavior, specifically, I would

19 have felt more comfortable at some points in paring back

20 the scope of this.

21 And I think I also would have done some things

22 with those disaster recovery tapes, because I would have

23 felt that I could have reasonably made a case to the

24 judge that we made some very careful searchable

25 decisions, we reduced the scale of it, and as a result,

1 which is at the end of the day who paid the $4 million?

2 Obviously, the corporation did its parts, and

3 obviously we paid for the services, but at the end of

4 the day those $4 million worth of additional costs

5 flowed through to our customers.

6 Many of our customers are low-income customers.

7 They can scarcely afford the electricity they buy now.

8 And even the increment of $4 million, which in

9 the context of large system sounds small, is not a small

10 thing. It is an important thing. And our ability to

11 steward for our customers these kinds of costs, and make

12 sure that they're not incurred in a way that -- in a way

13 that imposes upon them something that shouldn't be, I

14 think is a part of this process.

15 So looking at it, I would ask you to think

16 about what it is, and I pretend to be no expert on these

17 rules, but I would say anything that would give

18 corporate -- corporate counsel greater latitude to allow

19 outside counsel to give the advise you can pare back,

20 you can change and alter, you can take reasonable steps

21 without it automatically being presumed that you're

22 taking willful or wrong conduct toward the preservation

23 of this material would be very useful for us.

24 I thank you.

25 HON. CAMPBELL: Mr. Moor, have you given

1 could I have saved a million, could I have saved 2

2 million out of 4 million, I think anything that I would

3 have done like that would have been suspect as I felt

4 the law was being advised to me at that time.

5 I think with these rules, as I have -- as has

6 been suggested to me, and so I have tried to understand

7 them myself, I think I would have felt more comfortable

8 making decisions to let certain things go.

9 HON. GRIMM: Followup on that.

10 Since you have given some thought to that, and

11 that's very helpful to get a sense of the before and

12 after, do you have a view as to whether the factors in

13 (b)(2) that deal with proportionality and good faith

14 efforts, and those things, would have, if you had those

15 factors, been helpful to you, or if they're the wrong

16 factors, do you have others that you would suggest to

17 us?

18 MR. MOOR: Again, pretending -- not even

19 pretending -- telling you I'm no expert in this, but

20 here's the one thing that I have thought about.

21 One of the difficulties you have in a case like

22 this, is you have to imagine for the plaintiffs the

23 largest scope of their case imaginable, and so you have

24 to pretend with them that everything that they're saying

25 is not only true, but that it can be proven with your
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1 own documents. So you do become their spokesperson.

2 I think that if I had been armed with my right

3 set of lawyers in a proportionality test, I could have

4 gone in and made some reasonable arguments about how we

5 were going to limit the reach of this within the system,

6 and we are going to reduce these burdens.

7 The difficulty that I have, and the difficulty

8 that I think I will have in the future is, the more that

9 I go in and tell about what we are doing and why we're

10 doing it and how we're doing it, I'm helping them make

11 their case, because I'm teaching them all of the systems

12 and mechanisms that the system uses to manage our

13 business.

14 The more I do that, the greater the likelihood

15 that I am going to increase their knowledge the next

16 time that they pursue a case like this.

17 So there is some risk here, but I would have

18 taken that risk. If I had felt that the case law had

19 been a little more steered toward our way, I would have

20 taken that risk.

21 Because I will tell you as a legal officer with

22 a corporation making decisions that impose millions of

23 dollars of obligation on the corporation month after

24 month, hundreds of thousands of dollars month after

25 month, over $5 million, you want to talk about being the

1 which is a little town about two hours east of here. I

2 practice almost exclusively in federal court.

3 I was chair of the Eastern District of Texas

4 Local Rules Advisory Committee for nine years.

5 I have edited the O'Connors Federal Rule Book

6 for 15 years.

7 I'm immediate past chair of the Texas Bar

8 Section of Litigation.

9 I'm here today -- I was asked to sub in a

10 couple of days ago to represent the Texas Trial Lawyers

11 Association, and I kind of -- I have to explain to you

12 that I'm kind of an odd duck to be doing that, because

13 while I started out representing individuals in

14 traditional personal injury and product liability cases,

15 it's been four years since I have had one of those

16 trials.

17 What I do for a living these days is primarily

18 representing defendants in complex patent infringement

19 litigation. So the last trial I had as a personal

20 injury plaintiff was four years ago. I have had 14

21 trials since then in federal court representing

22 generally defendants, and sometimes plaintiffs in patent

23 cases.

24 I'm only going to talk about one issue today,

25 and that is the change to the scope of discovery in

1 unpopular guy in the executive hallway, that is the guy.

2 And I tell you at the end of the day that there

3 is -- the corporate officer who is trying to serve a

4 legal function, a need and a sense of need with respect

5 to electronic discovery that is pressing on us in a way

6 that really can only be answered as you move a little

7 more in the direction you're going now, I'm not sure

8 what you're doing now is going to get us there, but I do

9 encourage it because I think we have to get American

10 corporations to the place where they can feel secure

11 about making these kinds of decisions.

12 PROF. MARCUS: So if you knew at the time

13 that you could argue to the judge that you had done a

14 reasonableness analysis of what you had chosen to

15 preserve and a proportionality analysis, based on what

16 you knew then, do you think that that would have helped

17 you?

18 MR. MOOR: I do.

19 PROF. MARCUS: Thank you.

20 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you for your

21 comments, Mr. Moor.

22 Mr. Smith.

23 MR. SMITH: Thank you, your Honor.

24 Members of the committee, my name is Michael

25 Smith. I'm a lawyer in my hometown of Marshall, Texas,

1 26(b)(1).

2 I oppose that. The reason why is because I

3 believe it's going to interfere with the trial court's

4 ability to rule on proportionality disputes, because

5 we're going to bury trials courts with motions raising

6 proportionality in every case.

7 I'm going to explain to you why that's going to

8 happen, but let me back up to when I have worked with

9 the rules committee in the Eastern District.

10 When I did that, what we were always trying to

11 do in facing the budget cuts at the clerk's office was

12 come up with the best default that would take the least

13 judicial time, the least clerk's office time, and keep

14 the case moving.

15 I believe the rule that you have in place now

16 does that because it puts the burden on me. I'm usually

17 the party producing documents. It puts the burden on me

18 to determine under (b)(2) when to file a motion raising

19 proportionality.

20 Proportionality is not in the standard right

21 now. It's something I have the option to raise if I

22 think it's necessary.

23 But what the rule doesn't allow me to do is to

24 simply unilaterally decide I'm not going to produce

25 relevant documents because my client and I think that
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1 the needs of the case and the scope of the case, that

2 it's not proportional to that case. That's an awful --

3 that's something I can't do now.

4 What the rule change would do is flip it to

5 where I could do that, to where I could unilaterally --

6 well, not -- well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

7 I can force the other side to have to file a

8 motion to come after me for those documents, because I

9 no longer have to file a motion to withhold them. I

10 think that's going to result in massive motion practice,

11 and it's going to stop discovery dead in its tracks.

12 I would like to use the rest of my time to

13 respond to some of the good questions I have heard today

14 about that.

15 Let me start with -- there was a question about

16 would I raise proportionality as a defendant in the

17 cases.

18 Absolutely, I would raise it, and here's how I

19 would do it.

20 I would not just object. I would unilaterally

21 withhold relevant documents based on my client's

22 subjective evaluation of whether the documents are

23 proportional to the kind of case we're in.

24 Now, that works great for me in patent cases,

25 because patent cases, in my experience, are unique in

1 Dean, Lonnie Hoffman emailed me and said he

2 wanted you to know that on the academic letter that was

3 submitted to the committee, that was only signed by the

4 academics that worked on it, it was not circulated for

5 signatures. He wanted me to point that out.

6 DEAN KLONOFF: That was referring to a

7 different letter that had over 100 signatures.

8 MR. SMITH: Oh, I apologize. There is

9 one that's coming that is signed by seven or eight

10 academics. I misunderstood.

11 PROF. MARCUS: You haven't read the one

12 that's coming.

13 (Laughter.)

14 MR. SMITH: Finally, Your Honor, you

15 asked the hard question of my law school classmate, Bill

16 Curtis. You said, well, what would you do to reduce

17 discovery costs?

18 And let me tell you -- let me tell you what we

19 have in the Eastern District. It's kind of the secret

20 sauce that especially since I have been on the defense

21 side I found to be very effective.

22 We have some language in one of our local

23 rules, CV-26(d) that was written by a former chief

24 judge, Bob Parker, back in 1991.

25 What that says is, it tells parties in looking

1 that you have early on such diametrically opposed

2 evaluations of the case.

3 It's not unusual for the plaintiff to think

4 they have got a several million or tens of millions

5 dollars case, and my client is looking at saying there

6 is no way this patent is valid, there is no way we

7 infringe. And even if we do, we can't figure out the

8 Federal Circuit's law on damages, but it looks like we

9 only owe 20 or $30,000.

10 I get to use that standard under this rule and

11 say, okay, here's a product data sheet, that's all that

12 you get.

13 The second question, Mr. Keisler, you said what

14 if the burden was straightened out to where the burden

15 is still on the party that's producing.

16 I think that would be helpful. That would keep

17 it the way it is now, which is it puts the burden on the

18 party that has the ability to explain why it's not

19 proportional.

20 But the problem is it doesn't fix the problem

21 that the scope of discovery has been changed so that I

22 can still withhold the documents until the Court rules.

23 Previously, I have to turn over the documents

24 until I get a ruling. This would allow me to not do

25 that.

1 at whether something is within or without the scope of

2 discovery, one of the things that you consider is that

3 it is, quote, "what reasonable and competent counsel

4 would consider reasonably necessary to prepare, evaluate

5 or try a claim or defense," close quote.

6 If you can't tell, I use that language a lot.

7 I found that to be very effective, because while it

8 sounds like the rule equivalent of a what-would-Jesus-do

9 bracelet, what it actually does for you is it forces you

10 to make the other side -- it forces you to look at can I

11 go to the judge and get away with saying that this is

12 not something that reasonable and competent counsel

13 does, it would be what one would actually need.

14 The last thing I will say before I close, and

15 see if there are any questions is, I believe that this

16 would be a way that I can shut down document discovery

17 in a case, bring it to a screeching halt by using this

18 rule, and just saying, under my definition of

19 proportional within the rule, this is what we think is

20 relevant, now go get the Court to get an order.

21 Now, with apologies to both Woody Allen and

22 Professor Miller, as stop signs go, that's a pretty good

23 one.

24 HON. CAMPBELL: Comments or questions?

25 Paul.
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1 MR. BARKETT: So the assumption in your

2 conclusion is that a judge would allow you to get away

3 with that?

4 MR. SMITH: Yes. Because that's -- if I

5 did it right now they would throw me under the jail.

6 But under the rule that is here I have a good

7 faith belief that the proportionality of this case where

8 I have got this patent asserted against my client that's

9 already got problems in the Patent Office, I have a good

10 faith belief that this is what is proportional to this,

11 and that we don't need to get into expensive or

12 far-reaching discovery until either the Patent Office

13 looks at the patents on reexam or something else. It

14 has given me control over what gets produced instead of

15 the Court having it.

16 MR. BARKETT: And your belief is that a

17 judge will just accept your argument, and not look at

18 the allegations in their complaint. And that you,

19 representing your client, would be in a position to take

20 that risk and not offend a judge?

21 MR. SMITH: I have only represented

22 clients in 4 or 500 patent cases in the Eastern

23 District. So there are others that are more experienced

24 than me, but that's something I think I can be very

25 effective with, because I will be -- what I'll be very

1 split discovery out like that. But that certainly could

2 be done.

3 HON. CAMPBELL: Gene.

4 HON. PRATTER: A number of patent lawyers

5 have encouraged the aggregation of Rule 84. I know you

6 haven't spoken about that.

7 Have you any view on that?

8 MR. SMITH: I was going to say I can

9 respond to any of these proposals. I do -- I can

10 understand why patent lawyers would say that, because

11 there is a lot of controversy over form 19, and whether

12 that's -- I don't think there is a need to aggregate it

13 for the simple reason that in the Courts that hear

14 patent cases frequently, within 30 to 60 days after the

15 answer comes in we're required to provide -- the

16 plaintiff is required to provide detailed infringement

17 contentions that take care of the issues, so the issue

18 becomes moot.

19 MS. CABRASER: So form 18 doesn't do

20 anything one way or the other?

21 MR. SMITH: It does for the initial

22 motion to dismiss, because with respect to claims of

23 direct infringement it provides a much lower standard,

24 but it becomes moot very quickly because so much detail

25 is required -- is provided in the court ordered

1 happy to come back in with is a detailed explanation to

2 the Court of here are the problems with this case, here

3 is the shape that this patent is in at the Patent

4 Office, here are the problems that it's got, here are

5 the issues, this is what is proportional to this case at

6 this point, and only when we get further down the road

7 should something different be done.

8 This rule, I believe, allows me to do that, and

9 it protects me when I do that.

10 MR. BARKETT: There are a number of

11 courts with local rules that allow discovery in tiered

12 ways. You start with certain amounts of discovery, and

13 then you proceed from there.

14 That's also presumably a potential outcome of

15 the argument that you're presenting?

16 MR. SMITH: Yes.

17 MR. BARKETT: Is there something wrong

18 with that?

19 MR. SMITH: No. I like phased discovery

20 like that. It slows the case down, I have to admit

21 that, but I like the phased discovery because it allows

22 me to kind of limit the cost as we go into the case.

23 It does drag the case out further. I mean, I

24 have to be clear about that, but we can't get the cases

25 developed under the current schedules that we have if we

1 infringement contentions very quickly after the answer

2 comes in.

3 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

4 very much for those comments, Mr. Smith.

5 Thomas Kelly.

6 MR. KELLY: Good afternoon, your Honor,

7 members of the committee.

8 Thank you the opportunity to be here today.

9 I'm pleased to offer additional comments on behalf of

10 Pfizer today.

11 My name is Thomas Kelly. I am the vice

12 president, assistant general counsel of employment law

13 at Pfizer. We are responsible for the company's

14 domestic litigation docket.

15 I have been an employment lawyer for about 28

16 years, half of those spent in private practice on the

17 management side for the defense, and half spent

18 in-house.

19 Pfizer, as you know, devotes substantial

20 resources to litigation across our civil docket. We

21 devote considerable effort and resources to electronic

22 preservation and discovery.

23 Today I would like to talk to you about our

24 efforts in electronic preservation and discovery, give

25 you some examples of what it is that we do, the lengths
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1 that we go to, and to talk to you as well about Rule 26

2 and Rule 37, both of which we support.

3 The amount of electronic information that is

4 available today is staggering. It has driven the

5 problem that we face right now with respect to

6 preservation and discovery and spoliation.

7 Pfizer is no different in terms of what it

8 preserves than some of the other companies that you have

9 heard from today and on prior dates.

10 Let me give you some examples of what our most

11 recent review of electronic discovery has shown.

12 We have 300 active legal holds in place, and

13 that's just for litigation and government

14 investigations, not including regulatory and

15 administrative matters.

16 We have over 80,000 people, that's both

17 employees and contractors on some type of legal hold.

18 We have 5 billion emails in our email archives,

19 and that number grows about 1 billion emails every year.

20 We hold an additional 1 billion emails in

21 legacy email archives from companies that we have

22 acquired over the recent past.

23 We have 250,000 boxes that contains 750 million

24 pages of documents, all of which have exhausted their

25 retention period under our retention schedule, but which

1 consideration to proportionality in terms of the scope

2 of discovery rather than simply as a limitation on

3 existing discovery.

4 Contrary to the views expressed by many here,

5 we don't think the proposed amendments will frustrate

6 the purposes of discovery, and we think that the

7 proposed amendment will provide clarity around what the

8 scope of appropriate discovery is.

9 We also think that this change will not bar

10 plaintiffs at the courthouse door, and we think it will

11 not shift the burdens that are available right now.

12 Much has been said about burden shifting and

13 barring the doors, particularly in the employment law

14 and the civil rights practice. We reject that

15 contention. We don't think that this change in

16 proportionality will lead to that kind of a result.

17 With respect to Rule 37 we also believe that

18 the proposed amendments to 37 are appropriate regarding

19 the grounds for the imposition of sanctions, and a

20 company's obligation to preserve information. We

21 believe that those are appropriate.

22 We support the change from "or" to an "and"

23 with respect "willful and bad faith." We think that's

24 the appropriate and proper solution.

25 We think that solution will enable companies to

1 we are continuing to hold because of our concern over

2 our obligation to preserve.

3 We also create or image over 2,100 hard drives

4 and laptops each year when colleagues leave Pfizer at a

5 cost of approximately a million dollars a year.

6 All of those data points are a function of the

7 fact there is a lack of certainty on the current

8 standard for preservation, and the sanction for

9 spoliation.

10 We are required to place significant numbers of

11 employees on legal hold, which in turn requires their

12 time and diligence to monitor their electronic databases

13 and make sure they are preserving documents. We are

14 required to archive huge volumes of emails daily.

15 All of this is driven by the fact that there is

16 not a consistent standard in place for us to react and

17 to respond to. As a result we save all because we are

18 concerned that that which we get rid of becomes the

19 motion for spoliation sanctions.

20 Let me turn now to Rule 26, and our support for

21 Rule 26.

22 We applaud the effort by the committee to move

23 the existing reference to proportionality from

24 26(b)(2)(c) to 26(b)(1). We think that is the

25 appropriate place for it because it gives primary

1 operate appropriately, and to make proper reason and

2 responsible decisions.

3 The way it stands right now, without having an

4 articulated standard that applies across all of the

5 country, we have to save everything in the hope that we

6 don't get caught up in some kind of spoliation sanction.

7 One final word, if I may, on presumptive

8 limits, and the change in presumptive limits. Much has

9 been said about that by the plaintiffs and plaintiff bar

10 as well.

11 Having practiced in the area for a number of

12 years, it is my view that the change in presumptive

13 limits will not result in a wholesale change in the

14 employment law practice. It will not result in changes

15 to a plaintiff's ability to get justice, to have their

16 claims adjudicated, to get the discovery they need.

17 What will happen is that the parties will sit

18 down and have an appropriate discussion about

19 proportionality and about what needs to happen and how

20 discovery should be leveraged, rather than to simply go

21 off and ask for everything and fight about it later.

22 So let me stop now and thank you for your time

23 and ask for your questions.

24 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you.

25 Questions?
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1 Parker.

2 MR. FOLSE: Mr. Kelly, we have had

3 testimony from you as well as others today, including

4 Mr. Berenson and Mr. Harrington and Mr. Moor, about the

5 tremendous cost that -- huge amounts of money that have

6 been expended by the companies such as yours in specific

7 cases.

8 Is it a fair inference, in light of the support

9 that you have expressed for the change in Rule 37(e),

10 that as a result of the proposed changes that there

11 would be deliberate decisions made at Pfizer in the

12 context of specific cases not to preserve information

13 that would be preserved in those cases today?

14 MR. KELLY: I think -- I think the answer

15 is yes, but when we make those decisions deliberately

16 and responsibly and reasonably based on the facts and

17 circumstances before us.

18 As it stands now we save everything. If a

19 standard is articulated, then we can going forward, as

20 others have said, as case law develops, and as the body

21 of law develops in this area, we can start to make those

22 reasonable and responsible decisions.

23 MR. FOLSE: And that's really kind of

24 what I was driving at, which is whether or not you

25 believe that the amendment as it is currently drafted is

1 fits with the overall approach of these rules to deliver

2 civil justice reform, and to deliver amendments to the

3 rules that make discovery more efficient, more

4 appropriate, that force the parties to sit down and have

5 the discussion about proportionality.

6 HON. CAMPBELL: Any other questions?

7 Paul.

8 HON. DIAMOND: Your position is on the

9 spoliation sanctions it should be the conjunctive, not

10 the disjunctive, "willful and bad faith"?

11 MR. KELLY: Yes, sir.

12 HON. DIAMOND: Can you act in bad faith

13 without acting willfully?

14 MR. KELLY: I think you can. I think you

15 can do so negligently.

16 HON. DIAMOND: That's your position?

17 MR. KELLY: (Nodding head up and down.)

18 HON. DIAMOND: Okay. I understand.

19 MR. KELLY: Maybe I misunderstood your

20 question?

21 HON. DIAMOND: Maybe I misunderstood my

22 question too.

23 (Laughter.)

24 PROF. MARCUS: Can I try a rephrase,

25 please?

1 specific enough and definite enough to give you the

2 comfort to dispose of information in specific cases that

3 you would preserve today?

4 MR. KELLY: I think the standard gives us

5 the ability to make those decisions.

6 As it is articulated in the proposed amendment,

7 it gives us the ability to make reasonable and

8 responsible decisions going forward.

9 HON. CAMPBELL: Solomon.

10 HON. OLIVER: Do you see a problem in

11 your cases today regarding the presumptive limit of ten

12 depositions? Is that a problem in your practice?

13 MR. KELLY: In the employment practice,

14 sir, I do not. And over the years I have to say I have

15 not seen a problem with those presumptive limits.

16 Whether they be ten or five, most cases are disposed of

17 at below that five-deposition limit.

18 They are sort of straight garden variety

19 employment discrimination cases. They typically resolve

20 with less than five depositions in my experience. I

21 think the change is not going to have an impact on the

22 way that docket is litigated.

23 HON. OLIVER: Do you think that change is

24 necessary?

25 MR. KELLY: I think it's good, because it

1 What if it only said "bad faith," would that be

2 different?

3 HON. DIAMOND: Thank you.

4 MR. KELLY: I think it should say

5 "willful and in bad faith." I think --

6 PROF. MARCUS: Why is that different?

7 MR. KELLY: Well, because one goes to

8 state of mind, the other goes to intent.

9 HON. DIAMOND: Which is the state of

10 mind? What's the difference between "state of mind" and

11 "intent"?

12 Mr. KELLY: I guess "intent" goes to the

13 reason you act, and "bad faith" goes to why you have

14 undertaken the action.

15 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

16 very much for your comments, Mr. Kelly.

17 John Martin, please.

18 MR. MARTIN: Good afternoon.

19 I am the first John Martin that you will hear

20 from today. And a clarification, I am the John Martin

21 from Dallas, Texas where I have practiced law for, hard

22 to believe, nearly 40 years with the firm of Thompson &

23 Knight, and my practice is exclusively civil litigation.

24 The main area of emphasis in recent times has

25 been representing commercial airlines primarily in mass
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1 accident cases. And also pharmaceutical and medical

2 companies defending product liability cases. And,

3 finally, defending law firms. So a fairly wide variety

4 of different types of cases.

5 I'm a past president of both DRI and Lawyers

6 for Civil Justice, a fellow of the American College of

7 Trial Lawyers, and the International Academy of Trial

8 Lawyers.

9 What I really want to talk to you about is some

10 of my experiences with the rule-making process with

11 regard to the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.

12 I served for a number of years on the State Bar

13 Committee on Court Rules that deals with proposing rule

14 changes to our Supreme Court, and then I followed that

15 with six years on the Texas Supreme Court Rules Advisory

16 Committee, which is effectively the Texas counterpart of

17 this committee.

18 So I was involved with the rule-making process

19 for 15 years, and was heavily involved as chair of the

20 Discovery Subcommittee of the State Bar Committee when

21 Texas went through a very similar process in the late

22 1990s to dramatically amend our Texas rules of discovery

23 to address the same concerns that you're dealing with

24 now, and that is, what everybody agrees is the extensive

25 cost of discovery, to try to reduce something to reduce

1 way in our rule for a long time. And 15, 18 years ago

2 is a very long time, but I honestly don't remember any

3 complaining about it at the time, and I have not seen

4 any problems with it since.

5 I will tell you that these predictions, these

6 dire predictions that it's going to greatly increase the

7 motion practice simply has not been the case in Texas.

8 Texas requires that you file a motion if you're

9 going to invoke proportionality, and I do not believe

10 that I have ever signed my name to a pleading -- a

11 motion raising that issue. It's probably been discussed

12 far more often in negotiations and discussions with

13 opposing lawyers trying to resolve a potential discovery

14 dispute.

15 I think when you're writing rules, one thing

16 that I always thought was important when I was involved

17 in the process is to write rules not only to deal with

18 issues that -- as they come up before the Court, because

19 I think all of us would prefer to resolve discovery

20 disputes beforehand.

21 I think rules should also give clear guidance

22 to lawyers as to what's important and what matters so

23 that those matters can be addressed in the negotiating

24 process, the meet and confer process that's required

25 before going before the Court.

1 the cost of discovery.

2 Now, Texas tackled the problems in some

3 different ways, but there are some similarities and some

4 things that I would like to take a few minutes to point

5 out just to give you an idea of how some of these issues

6 you're talking about have played out in the laboratory

7 of the state courts of the state of Texas.

8 I have listened and I have read the prior

9 hearing transcripts and I have listened to all this

10 discussion today about moving the proportionality

11 language from where it's sort of buried at the back of

12 the rule up to a more prominent place.

13 So I went back into those long deceased brain

14 cells to try to remember how we dealt with that back in

15 the late 1990s in Texas. When we amended our rule on

16 the scope of discovery, is Rule 192.3 and 192.4, we had

17 a very long, a two-column long rule on scope of

18 discovery. It's titled in big black letters, Scope of

19 Discovery, and it's followed immediately by a fairly

20 short section, two paragraphs long, entitled Limitations

21 on Discovery.

22 The primary limitation on discovery that is

23 discussed there is verbatim language out of Federal Rule

24 26(b)(2) at the time, it was imported in there.

25 So it's been right up front in a very prominent

1 I certainly agree that it is advisable to have

2 the gray-haired lawyers talking to each other. My

3 long-time adversary, Mr. Slack, and I over here probably

4 had cases against each other since both of us started

5 practicing law. And I can tell you that we do a lot

6 better resolving these things, Mike Slack and I talk

7 about them, than if we had somebody younger.

8 And I see Mike nodding his head.

9 I also want to talk about the Texas experience

10 very briefly -- and I see my time is running out, but

11 two other quick points.

12 Texas has a lot of juris prudence on what the

13 word "willful" means. It goes back to the Texas

14 Constitution of 1869. It contained the word "willful"

15 to keep alive wrongful death cases since those were not

16 recognized in common law, and it was over 100 years

17 later that our courts finally settled on a definition of

18 "willful."

19 I don't want to beat to death this "or" or

20 "and" issue. I favor "willful and bad faith" for the

21 reasons that others have stated far more eloquently than

22 I possibly could do.

23 But if you going to use the word "willful" in

24 there, please define it.

25 Then another thing -- another good thing about
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1 our rules, and then I'll stop, is there was discussion

2 this morning from Mr. Curtis about how our rules have

3 gone a long way towards eliminating boilerplate

4 prophylactic objections.

5 What we did, instead of what this committee has

6 proposed of requiring a statement that they are

7 withholding documents with regard to any objections, is

8 the Texas rules limit that to where a privilege is

9 asserted.

10 I think that's worked well, and I think that

11 should be considered. You don't even have to file a

12 motion. You just say you're withholding documents based

13 on usually the attorney-client privilege. Often that

14 ends it, because nobody wants attorney-client privilege

15 documents.

16 Then if somebody wants a privilege log, you

17 give them a privilege log within a few days, and take it

18 to court if necessary.

19 But our rule there, I think, works very well.

20 Did you have any questions?

21 MR. FOLSE: In looking at the Texas

22 rules, and these changes came about after I left Texas

23 and moved to Seattle, but the way I'm looking at the

24 rules is that they are more closely parallel to the

25 current federal rules than they are to these proposed

1 to an increase in motion practice. I just don't see

2 that happening.

3 I think it is interesting that -- as you

4 commented on it, I meant to mention it -- the Texas

5 rules actually seem to encourage judges addressing this

6 on their own motion with notice to the parties so if

7 somebody wants to respond to it, they can. I have

8 actually seen that happen.

9 HON. CAMPBELL: Other questions?

10 (No response.)

11 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

12 very much, Mr. Martin.

13 Leigh Ann Schell.

14 MS. SCHELL: Good afternoon.

15 Thank you for the opportunity to address you

16 today to talk in favor of some of the proposed rules to

17 the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

18 My name is Leigh Ann Schell. I'm a lawyer from

19 New Orleans. I have practiced for 25 years. I'm a

20 partner in the firm of Kuchler Polk Schell Weiner &

21 Richardson.

22 My 25 years of practice have been devoted

23 almost exclusively to civil litigation on the side of

24 defense, and the cases vary from -- everything from a

25 slip and fall for Petco to the deep water horizon

1 amendments in that the proportionality language, the

2 factors that are discussed in the Texas rules come up in

3 the context of a rule on limitations on the scope of

4 discovery, which begins with the preamble, "If the

5 discovery methods permitted by these rules should be

6 limited by the Court if it determines on motion or on

7 its own initiative and on reasonable notice," and so

8 forth, rather than, for example, having the

9 proportionality factors imported into the definition of

10 the scope of discovery.

11 Am I misunderstanding how this works?

12 MR. MARTIN: I think, Mr. Folse, you are

13 reading it correctly.

14 As I pointed out it is in the limitations

15 section, but it is far more prominent than it has been

16 in the Federal Rules where it's buried down in some

17 subdivision number.

18 MR. FOLSE: I guess the reason I want to

19 get clarity about it is because you were commenting on

20 the fact that there has not been extensive practice

21 under the Texas rules, and that that might be a reason

22 to give pause in considering the claims of some people,

23 but the proposed amendments here would lead to an

24 increase in motion practice.

25 MR. MARTIN: I don't believe it will lead

1 incident off the coast of Louisiana, but is still in the

2 Gulf.

3 Also, toxic tort cases, oil and gas cases of

4 all different kinds. I'm currently spending a good bit

5 of time working on the land loss cases that were

6 recently brought in Louisiana.

7 I would like to focus today first on the

8 question of the scope of discovery in Rule 26. And by

9 illustration note the importance of eliminating the

10 reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence

11 requirement, which is not intended to be the scope of

12 discovery, but which has involved -- evolved into the

13 scope at issue by the courts.

14 I endorse moving away from relevant and subject

15 matter involved in the action moving toward what the

16 committee has proposed, which is relevant to the claims

17 or defenses.

18 I'll do that by referencing the land loss

19 litigation, which some or all may have read about in the

20 national press, which is a suit brought against 97 oil

21 and gas companies. It's pending in the Eastern District

22 in New Orleans, and the case asserts that the land loss,

23 the loss of the wetlands in Louisiana is the fault of

24 the activities of these 97 oil and gas companies.

25 The suit references activity from 1930 forward,
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1 so some 84 years and counting, and a host of

2 drilling-related activity.

3 So the written discovery that was propounded in

4 the case that came with the petition when the case was

5 still in state court, now it's been removed to federal

6 court, the first request for production, 41 requests for

7 production, asked for documents related to all

8 activities.

9 Then there is a long string of them related to

10 drilling from 1930 forward, and the land that forms the

11 basis of the lawsuit, which is basically the land from

12 east of the Mississippi River all the way to

13 Mississippi, and from south of Lake Pontchartrain all

14 the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.

15 So what's worst is the next request asked for

16 every document produced in response to that broad

17 request, produce the associated files that were

18 associated with that document.

19 So I ask you to play judge today, and for many

20 of you that's not a stretch at all, but to think about

21 those requests from the current rule, which is

22 reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of

23 admissible evidence, could there be in all the files

24 that have existed since the beginning of time something

25 that might be admissible, or lead to something that's

1 for example, in the deep water horizon case there were

2 multiple tracks of depositions running at the same time

3 for an extended period of time, and because of the

4 severity of the spill, and the number of companies

5 involved, those were needed. It wasn't argued about.

6 It was agreed on at the outset about how the scheduling

7 would run.

8 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you.

9 Solomon.

10 HON. OLIVER: You would agree then that

11 this is not just a change of language, the language that

12 talks about reasonably calculated to lead to discovery,

13 getting rid of that, and going to what's relevant in the

14 claimed defenses?

15 It's not just a language change. You're saying

16 that it's a change in the standard, change in the law.

17 You would admit that?

18 MS. SCHELL: I think it's a return back

19 to what was intended in the first place. That language

20 has been overused and overblown from what it was

21 originally intended to do, which was to make it clear

22 that the evidence that was requested didn't necessarily

23 have to be admissible.

24 So for -- in the example of hearsay, but that

25 it has been expanded to the point of where the scope of

1 admissible?

2 Maybe.

3 But if we look at it from the proposed frame of

4 reference, which is relevant to the claims or defenses,

5 I think that we take a more narrow and more reasoned and

6 more measured look that I am in favor of, which is to

7 eliminating that broad, broad scope, and bring it down

8 to what's relevant to the claims or defenses in the

9 case. I think that that's a very important change to

10 the rule.

11 Using the same case as an example, there are 86

12 requests for admissions. They -- probably all of them

13 need a Ph.D. in something in order to be able to answer

14 them.

15 And so for that reason I think the requirement

16 for the presumptive limits limiting the number of

17 requests for admission to 25 would at least have the

18 parties look at what questions they would like to ask

19 with a more surgical focus, and to narrow that. Of

20 course, if the need arises for more, that can always be

21 addressed.

22 In the course of my practice I have had in most

23 instances very good cooperation on both sides of the V

24 to agree on what the scope of discovery should be.

25 And I'll make one final point, and that goes --

1 discovery is now defined by that broad term.

2 So, yes, I do think that there would be a

3 material change, but I think it's just to get back to

4 what was always intended.

5 HON. CAMPBELL: Art.

6 HON. HARRIS: The case where there was 86

7 requests for admission, did you respond to them, or did

8 you challenge them on proportionality or other basis?

9 MS. SCHELL: They will be challenged,

10 your Honor. We haven't gotten that far yet, because now

11 that we are in federal court we will have the Rule 26

12 requirements. So they will be challenged.

13 But so far initial discussions have not led to

14 an agreement to reduce them, so it's more likely than

15 not that that will be something for judicial

16 intervention.

17 JUDGE CAMPBELL: So you agree that the

18 rule as now written allows you to make that kind of

19 proportionality argument?

20 MS. SCHELL: I think so. I mean, I think

21 we can make the argument not only -- that there are too

22 many of them, so it's disproportionate, it's harassing,

23 so it's not reasonable. We can make the argument that

24 it's just not reasonable.

25 We can also make the argument that the subject
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1 matter is not appropriate for requests for admissions,

2 because they are the subject of expert analysis, and

3 have been, you know, some of these issues have been

4 studied for many years.

5 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Any other

6 questions?

7 (No response.)

8 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you very much,

9 Ms. Schell.

10 MS. SCHELL: Thank you.

11 HON. CAMPBELL: David Werner.

12 MR. WERNER: Thank you for allowing me a

13 little time this afternoon.

14 My name is David Werner. I'm a managing

15 counsel, and part of the global litigation team for

16 Shell Oil Company based in Houston, Texas.

17 I also manage the Shell Global Litigation

18 Information Group, and participate in the nuts and bolts

19 of discovery across the globe every day.

20 As you will see from the shake in my voice, I

21 am not a trial lawyer, but I have practiced with Shell

22 for about 13 years.

23 And, in fact, my job is the result of Shell

24 trying to get ahead of these kinds of issues even

25 before line of cases and the 2006 amendment. So I thank

1 particularly of corporate communication devices.

2 Each time technology changes for us, larger

3 data stores are created in more remote places. We hope

4 that the amendments will position the rules to reduce

5 wasteful over preservation and return the focus of

6 litigation to the underlying merits.

7 Shell's global litigation team was formed in

8 2001 to manage the company's litigation matters

9 globally. Our largest litigation is beyond U.S.

10 borders.

11 Everything that we are required to do

12 concerning preservation and collection of content here

13 in the U.S. can and does have an impact on all of

14 Shell's litigation.

15 Shell is operating in 99 countries, has over

16 9,000 litigation matters pending in those countries.

17 Shell U.S. litigation alone comprises 2,500

18 matters and spans 50 states and all 12 federal circuits

19 with varying standards of practices.

20 Shell is happy to see that the amendments will

21 serve to bring some clarity, and more uniformity to

22 Shell's discovery obligations.

23 A significant part of Shell's litigation

24 expenses are for discovery, and specifically

25 preservation and collection activities.

1 you very much, and my colleagues, for the opportunity to

2 comment on the proposed rules.

3 Shell applauds the difficult work of the

4 committee to do this. In Shell's view the new

5 amendments will advance the interest of justice, and

6 will help to secure determinations of actions on the

7 merits where they should be in a speedy, proportional

8 cooperative and expeditious manner.

9 Discovery under the rules should promote

10 resolution of the cases quickly, and shouldn't be used

11 as a tactic to increase our cost as a defendant, or to

12 increase the chances for settlement. We think the

13 proposed changes will advance that goal.

14 With technology and data systems and the

15 information that they store changing more rapidly than

16 ever before, the opportunities for mere mistakes have

17 grown exponentially since 2002 when residential funding

18 was decided.

19 The scope of discovery allowed by the rule

20 should be narrowed as the committee has proposed. At

21 present the rules contribute to at least shelves over

22 preservation, and I have heard that from other

23 corporations today.

24 The rules have not kept up with the corporate

25 use of technology systems, and the proliferation

1 Although we continually strive to preserve,

2 collect and produce material efficiently, and in a

3 manner that promotes the underlying goals of the

4 judicial system, we think the current rules and

5 applications are overly broad because of the response

6 that we have to take, and require our over preservation

7 and over collection.

8 This is so because we need to be ready. We're

9 told by counsel we need to be ready just in case we

10 require some ESI in one of the jurisdictions where

11 negligence is a sufficient showing of culpability.

12 In this situation the cost of discovery, as

13 opposed to the facts of the case too often drive the

14 results.

15 Shell currently has more than 7,000 individual

16 custodians on hold for U.S. disputes alone.

17 We routinely send and track preservation

18 notices across all of our 2,600 U.S. matters.

19 We cascade notices in each and every U.S.

20 matter through our businesses to applicable custodians,

21 and to a continually updated list of business contacts

22 to support Shell's preservation action.

23 This effort involves our lawyers, business

24 managers, records and information management

25 professionals, and IT and system specialists, who work
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1 hard to identify and preserve potentially relevant ESI.

2 As a precaution, often long before our lawsuits

3 are filed, millions and millions of pages of electronic

4 information, as well as the email boxes of each

5 custodian likely to be involved, are put on permanent

6 hold to assure that information will be available when

7 and if the time comes for the development of the matter,

8 and ultimate collection and production.

9 Yet only a fraction, certainly well less than 1

10 percent, is ever produced in any matter, let alone

11 actually used in trial or on summary judgment. The

12 volume of preserving collected content just keeps

13 growing and churning with each new matter of

14 notification.

15 I am personally involved daily in advising our

16 IT specialists, both here in the U.S. and in the Hague,

17 and our developers on the inexact discovery requirements

18 around identification, preservation, collection,

19 processing and production of information as part of

20 their development of new Shell information systems, and

21 communications technology and devices.

22 For giving such advice I am often accused of

23 stymying their creativity, and the efforts they can

24 bring to being innovative. They see our effort to

25 comply with preservation as stifling their ability to

1 transferred into the new platform.

2 And then decisions what to do with the content

3 that is no longer actively needed by the business.

4 These are business decisions.

5 As part of the risk analysis counsel advised

6 that some unknown part of the no longer needed content

7 could come into scope in the future for litigation under

8 a reasonably calculated to lead sort of argument, and

9 that this unusable -- the business has made the decision

10 that its unusable business content should be archived,

11 and a process designed to search it just in case.

12 This has a real financial consequence. 20 to

13 $80 million is the estimate for this archive, depending

14 on the term of years it is kept, from 5 to 20 years, and

15 we're moving forward with that project.

16 We have seen the cycles of technology

17 replacement compressed over the years. In 1995 the

18 cycle was about every ten years. Then it became every

19 five years. Now, one to two years is the cycle of major

20 corporations having to replace their technology with

21 some of the newer communications technologies being

22 changed every six months.

23 Preservation and how to do it are major

24 financial considerations for us.

25 The result of all this effort is not

1 quickly develop communication and collaboration

2 capabilities for Shell folks who find the power we live

3 by.

4 Let me give you an example.

5 Three years ago one of our major software

6 suppliers made the decision to no longer support one of

7 their principal large project tools. The tool had

8 reached the end of its functional, useful life, and was

9 no longer stable.

10 The tool was a very successful collaboration

11 tool used by many businesses across the world in major

12 projects, including Shell, to plan, structure and

13 implement projects of all sizes.

14 Think of big rigs in the Gulf.

15 Think of huge refineries in Saudia Arabia or in

16 Port Arthur.

17 We have had the system well over ten years as

18 our primary project tool, and it contains terabytes,

19 millions and millions of pages of information.

20 The decision to decommission the system, which

21 is a decision we have to take, because the vendor is not

22 going to support it, carries with it expense, enormous

23 migration efforts on the part of the business to get

24 active content and their records out of the existing

25 system that they need for the business to operate

1 necessarily a better outcome of litigation when our

2 trial lawyers ultimately visit your courthouses, but an

3 annual expenditure of enormous sums, the interruption of

4 routine IT system maintenance and decommission, enormous

5 people resources, just in case the information would

6 ever likely be needed.

7 Productive hours that should be spent focusing

8 on providing oil and gas and efficiency to the energy --

9 global energy markets are instead focused on mothballing

10 obsolescence.

11 Technology is not the answer to the problem

12 that technology has created. There are no software

13 systems in the market that fully manage our preservation

14 holds. They must be managed individually, system by

15 system, which results in further costs and loss of

16 productivity.

17 Additionally, there are no keyword search tools

18 that you will routinely search across distinct unlinked

19 servers, independent systems numbering in the thousands

20 in most corporate environments, including Shell's IT

21 infrastructure.

22 While I have no estimate of the millions of

23 dollars a year that this cost our Shell business, I can

24 tell you that Shell has invested millions of dollars on

25 my signature in hold notification and tracking systems,
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1 collection devices, and ESI processing systems to assist

2 our preservation and collection activities.

3 And we have to constantly support, maintain,

4 update, ultimately decommission and replace these

5 systems with each technology advance.

6 I'm just a mechanic. I don't go to trial and

7 defend these rules. I live in the rust and weeds of

8 discovery, and its results and solutions.

9 But I can say without hesitation that unless

10 there is some sort of reasonable narrowing of the scope

11 of preservation, particularly collection, processing of

12 content, all counsel, defense, plaintiff counsel, and

13 most importantly, litigants in court, will be

14 significantly and negatively impacted.

15 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

16 very much for your comments, Mr. Werner.

17 I think we need to move on to the next speaker.

18 Michael Slack.

19 MR. SLACK: Good afternoon.

20 I thank my colleague, John Martin, for handling

21 my introduction.

22 My name is Mike Slack with Slack & Davis,

23 Austin.

24 It seems like everything these days by way of

25 introduction has passed.

1 be, where the parties' thoughts were, very collaborative

2 discussion.

3 The problems I have in discovery, primarily

4 written discovery, and numerical limits on discovery

5 occur in federal court. I'm not going to take any time

6 discussing the whys and wherefores of that other than

7 the -- those that want to take advantage are going to

8 take advantage where -- when the teacher is out of the

9 room, and where there is the opportunity for long

10 periods of time to go by before the teacher comes back

11 into the room.

12 In Texas state court if you have a status

13 conference every 30 days by phone call or show up at the

14 courthouse, it is visible, it is transparent. It

15 doesn't -- it doesn't get in the way.

16 I like phrased discovery. I just made a deal

17 yesterday to do some phased discovery because it will

18 not slow things down. I'm not going to make that same

19 deal in some other cases I have pending right now in

20 federal court. It won't work. It will slow the case

21 down.

22 So I think context is really important. So I

23 am very concerned about the proportional aspect being

24 introduced in the conjunctive in 26(b)(1) in federal

25 court.

1 I'm a past president of the Texas Trial Lawyer,

2 and I'm a past chair of the American Association of

3 Justice Aviation Section.

4 I came here to offer a few comments about this

5 proportionality discussion, but before doing so I want

6 to elaborate on what John said about the Texas rules.

7 I would agree with him 100 percent that the

8 Texas rules have functioned like I believe a lot of

9 people envisioned the Federal Rules functioning, but I

10 think that's -- the context is important.

11 First of all, I think the language, as you

12 point out, is more aligned with the current language,

13 that it is informative to the parties and the Court, but

14 it doesn't have that primacy that is now injected in the

15 proposed change with the term "proportional" in the

16 conjunctive with "relevant."

17 The other thing is, the context is important,

18 is the fact that, first of all, we don't need the rules

19 with John and I, occasionally, but we by and large work

20 by agreement. But the rules are there for the parties

21 and the Court when agreement escapes reason.

22 And so in state court in Texas we have access

23 to the judges. We have the ability, as I did in Tarrant

24 County yesterday, to have relatively wide ranging

25 discussion about what the scope of discovery is going to

1 One thing I will put in a plug for.

2 Occasionally I sue somebody other than one of John's

3 domestic airlines, which has a large operating

4 headquarters somewhere in the vicinity of D/FW.

5 (Laughter.)

6 MR. SLACK: I will sue a foreign

7 manufacturer.

8 By the way, I rode in with them today, John.

9 Also, a foreign manufacturer. And the ability

10 to get service of a foreign manufacturer, when you play

11 by the rules, takes a while.

12 And occasionally when I launch one of those

13 lawsuits I will get a nasty gram from the federal court

14 that I hadn't gotten service done.

15 That takes time. Usually a distraught

16 paralegal calls me somewhere where I am across the

17 country, we have run out of time, judge so and so wanted

18 to know why we haven't gotten service on that defendant.

19 We need time to get service on a foreign -- and

20 we are a global industry now. John and Bob will both

21 tell you, we are a global -- our litigation now is

22 global. We'll be more so with whom we involve in our

23 cases. There is a lot more offshore manufacturing, so

24 we have foreign defendants. We need that time.

25 So I know it's just a one-liner in there, just
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1 the one number, but please, please, please don't take

2 that time away from those of us that need that time to

3 perfect service using treaties and relatively -- I mean,

4 arcane and very detailed treaty requirements to obtain

5 that service.

6 I want to talk about deposition limits.

7 Other than to say that in federal court so goes

8 the limit, so goes the deal. You drop the limit -- I

9 just made a deal in a federal court across the Pacific

10 for 15 -- and the case settled -- but 15 depositions,

11 nonexperts, nonrecords, noncustodians. It was 15 fact

12 witnesses.

13 I don't make that deal with these limits in

14 play. I just don't get that deal. I get six or seven

15 on the best day. So you tell me the environment, you

16 tell me the context, I'll tell you what agreements we

17 can reach.

18 Now, John and I are going to have that problem,

19 because he and I both probably mutually dislike the

20 discovery process the same, and we both would like to

21 get out of discovery and get to the merits and get the

22 case resolved.

23 But when we do -- it's incumbent upon me to

24 make my case since I have that burden, I have got to

25 engage in discovery, and let me assure you, the key

1 If the parties can go quickly to the judge, the

2 issue of whether you're going to get seven or ten or

3 twelve depositions could easily be worked out. Just

4 tell us why you need them.

5 MR. SLACK: I'll be happy to respond.

6 HON. KOELTL: Sure.

7 MR. SLACK: It depends. I have a couple

8 of federal judges that are essentially as accommodating

9 and accessible and interested in seeing the case flow as

10 any state judge I encounter in Texas or New Mexico or

11 Oklahoma.

12 It doesn't matter what the rules say. It

13 doesn't matter what the conferences -- the judicial

14 conferences say. It doesn't matter.

15 It's the environment. The environment in

16 federal court is different. It's formal. It's rigid.

17 It does not flow like a state court.

18 In state court you're dealing with judges,

19 you're not going through law clerks, you're not going

20 through a hierarchy, you're dealing with judges.

21 In Texas we deal directly with judges. Many

22 times the judge comes out, as the judge in Tarrant

23 County did yesterday, sat there around the table with

24 all the lawyers and visited, do I need to make a record,

25 probably on one issue, made the record, then came back

1 documents in that case are not in the first thousand,

2 they're in the last thousand. They're not in the first

3 deposition, it's going to be in the last two or three.

4 So those are my concerns. I'll be happy to

5 take a question or two.

6 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

7 John.

8 HON. KOELTL: Your concern about getting

9 before a federal judge is a concern that all of us have

10 had. We have -- in the proposed changes we have

11 promoted a live simultaneous -- or a live communication

12 conference with the judge in a Rule 16 conference,

13 eliminating the possibility of a mail Rule 16

14 conference.

15 We have included in the possibilities -- in the

16 case management order the possibility of having a

17 conference with the judge before making a discovery

18 motion, so the judge continues to get involved.

19 We have promoted with the Federal Judicial

20 Center judicial education in order to help judges

21 understand their -- the importance of their involvement

22 in the entire case management process.

23 What else would you do in the federal system,

24 particularly with the rules, to make the system better,

25 as you're saying?

1 to the table and sat down and we visited.

2 It's not accessibility. It's a collegiality.

3 I think if I was going to say one thing about where I

4 have been in the almost 40 years of practicing law, like

5 John has, we start on a slippery slope by putting

6 technical things in rules, and once we get on that

7 slope, we start tinkering with it, it becomes more

8 technical and more technical and more technical.

9 I think that the problem we have today is we're

10 already technical, now we're ratcheting down further.

11 We are making it -- and I hear the corporate types --

12 let me respond to this about the expense of document

13 production.

14 I have problems in federal court with this

15 scenario. I take a -- the first time defect case, and I

16 get the core discovery, 50,000 pages. That's the core

17 discovery. And there's a protective order that says,

18 "return or destroy."

19 Next crash happens, same defect, they

20 relitigate, and you wonder why do they want to

21 relitigate this. They want to relitigate me getting my

22 hands on those same 50,000 documents.

23 It's the occasional judge that says, all he

24 wants are the 50,000 you produced in case A. I'm

25 relitigating that.
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1 Now, if you are concerned about cost, why do I

2 have to do that five times in five different cases?

3 And why are they making me give the documents

4 back? Why don't they just let me keep them, because

5 they know I'm going to get the next case. So it's too

6 rigid, and I can't break that pattern.

7 In state court I go into state court -- and I

8 had one of these defect cases 30 miles south of

9 Austin -- I said I would like all the documents in the

10 Jones case.

11 Judge looks at the defense lawyer and says, why

12 does he have to ask you 100 requests for production?

13 Well, you know --

14 He says, give it to him.

15 Yes, sir.

16 That's the difference.

17 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

18 very much for your comments, Mr. Slack.

19 Steven Puiszis. I apologize for the

20 mispronunciation.

21 MR. PUISZIS: My name is Steve Puiszis.

22 I'm a partner with Hinshaw & Culbertson in Chicago.

23 I'm secretary-treasurer of DRI.

24 I'm a member of the Seventh Circuit's

25 Electronic Discovery Pilot Program Committee.

1 that it was done in bad faith.

2 The Seventh Circuit has defined "bad faith" as

3 for the purpose of hiding adverse information.

4 Now, Judge Grimm, going to your question about

5 recklessness, and the American College definition, I

6 could not support including "recklessness" in a

7 definition for "bad faith," nor would I agree that

8 "recklessness" raises an inference of bad faith.

9 The reason why I say that is -- again,

10 returning back to Voss, the Seventh Circuit says the

11 crucial element is the reason for the destruction.

12 So I don't think whether or not it was done

13 negligently or recklessly goes to the reason for the

14 destruction.

15 The other reason why I could not support

16 recklessness, and I would ask your Honor to think twice

17 about considering that, is the definition of

18 "recklessness" probably had -- you could probably find

19 as many definitions of "recklessness" as you can

20 "willful."

21 A common definition of "recklessness" that I

22 see is the failure to exercise reasonable care in the

23 face of a known danger, which is essentially a quasi

24 negligent standard.

25 And we all know that a known danger of failing

1 I'm a trial attorney. My practice focuses

2 primarily on civil rights, class action and commercial

3 litigation.

4 Although about five years ago my firm asked me

5 to assume additional responsibilities as deputy general

6 counsel of the firm. So in that regard I get involved

7 in providing ethics, professional responsibility, and

8 risk management advice to our lawyers.

9 I'm also a member of a practice group at our

10 firm that provides ethics, professional responsibility

11 and risk management advice to other law firms. So it's

12 with that experience and background that I want to talk

13 to you in connection -- and I want to focus my comments

14 on 37(e).

15 "Willful" or in "bad faith." You have heard a

16 lot of comments about that, and I'm not going to beat a

17 dead horse. I believe it should be "willful and in bad

18 faith."

19 Otherwise, you're going to make it easier to

20 obtain sanctions than you can in the Seventh Circuit,

21 which is my home base of operations.

22 In the Seventh Circuit -- I think it's the Voss

23 versus the Sears Roebuck case -- in order to get an

24 adverse inference you have to have information

25 intentionally destroyed, and there has to be evidence

1 to take certain steps can result in the loss of

2 information.

3 So the argument we are going to face with

4 "recklessness" is you failed to do A, B or C. You

5 failed to exercise reasonable care in the face of a

6 known danger, information was lost, and essentially

7 we're incorporating a quasi negligent standard, which I

8 thought this was trying to move away from in the

9 definition of 37(e).

10 So I -- my suggestion is to steer clear of

11 "recklessness," or define it in a away that it does not

12 include a quasi negligent standard.

13 I would also recommend, if we're going to keep

14 "willfulness" in, I believe it should be, "willfull and

15 in bad faith." That we have a definition of

16 "willfulness," either in the rule itself, or in the

17 committee note. That would be an intent to deprive a

18 party of material evidence relevant to the claims or

19 defenses of the parties.

20 That's similar to the Sedona, and it's similar

21 to the LCJ definition that goes to "willfulness." I

22 think that would be a material improvement of the rule.

23 Now, one issue that I see that I haven't heard

24 anyone else discuss today deals with the topic of

25 curative measures.
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1 We can call it curative measures, but the

2 impact on our clients, and the effect on lawyers where

3 the curative measures are the same, whether we call it a

4 sanction or we call it a curative measure, the client is

5 going to have to pay for that -- the cost of that

6 additional discovery. The client may have to pay for

7 the attorney's fees involved. So the label doesn't make

8 a difference. The impact on the client is the same.

9 The impact in terms of the professional and

10 ethical responsibilities of the lawyer who gets hit with

11 that type of motion is the same, whether -- irrespective

12 of the label.

13 So one of my concerns from that perspective is

14 looking at curative measures, and as I read the rule --

15 and if I'm misreading it, tell me -- there is no

16 requirement for prejudice or harm for a curative measure

17 to be imposed, and there is no consideration of

18 relevance or materiality of the information lost before

19 a curative measure could be imposed.

20 So we will take a situation where you believe

21 you have preserved information from key players, but all

22 of a sudden you are aware of someone else who may have

23 relevant information. The information is lost. And as

24 I read it curative measures could be imposed in that

25 scenario.

1 that loss, or backup tapes have to be restored, are you

2 saying that curative measures like restoring backup

3 tapes, paying for the cost of the ten depositions that I

4 have to take because you lost information, should not be

5 borne by you unless I can show willfulness and bad

6 faith?

7 MR. PUISZIS: Well, I'm not saying

8 willfulness and bad faith. I think there has to be some

9 standard, not substantial harm or prejudice like you

10 have in (b)(2) -- I'm sorry -- in (b)(1).

11 But there has to be at least a threshold

12 showing of some harm or prejudice, because then

13 otherwise we are just preserving information for the

14 purposes of preserving information.

15 We know the case law out there says you don't

16 have to preserve every piece of information. So if you

17 understand that we don't have to preserve every piece of

18 information, or every piece of paper, and there isn't

19 some type of threshold showing that the evidence that

20 was lost was somehow relevant or material to one of the

21 issues in the case, and it somehow harmed the opponent,

22 I don't believe I should be sanctioned for that.

23 HON. CAMPBELL: Well, but don't you

24 think a judge would ask those questions before imposing

25 on you the cost, why is it relevant, why do you need it?

1 Because, again, there is no requirement of

2 prejudicial harm, and there is no consideration of

3 relevancy or materiality of the information lost.

4 I do think in terms of (b)(2) factors, I agree

5 with the comment, the one from the ABA about taking

6 out whether or not you consulted with the lawyer who

7 sent in the preservation letter, because frequently they

8 are overbroad, they ask for everything under the sun,

9 and they're really not worth responding to, because with

10 that type -- you're not going to have a collaborative

11 discussion, because they want everything, and they're

12 going to accuse you of not properly preserving relative

13 evidence if you don't turn everything over to them.

14 So I see my red light is on. I'll be glad to

15 take any questions.

16 HON. CAMPBELL: Mr. Puiszis, I would

17 like to ask you about your example, and then go on to

18 curative measures.

19 If I were litigating against you, and you,

20 under our current rule negligently lose some significant

21 portion of discovery that in all likelihood would

22 contain information relevant to my client, but I can't

23 show, and I can't argue that I can show, willfulness and

24 bad faith, is it your view that I should -- and let's

25 say I have to do ten additional depositions because of

1 MR. PUISZIS: Well, I don't see it

2 written in the rule, your Honor.

3 And while I would trust your Honor's judgment,

4 I can't say I would do that universally throughout the

5 country.

6 HON. CAMPBELL: Parker and then Paul.

7 MR. FOLSE: The proposed language on

8 curative measures authorizes certain curative measures

9 to be ordered if a party failed to preserve discoverable

10 information.

11 And discoverable information, I think, would

12 refer back to Rule 26(b)(1), which requires -- talks

13 about information that is relevant to the claim or

14 defense in the case.

15 So doesn't that at least import the notion of

16 the information being relevant to a claim or defense?

17 And the second point is, isn't the notion of

18 some showing of harm implicit in the very word

19 "curative"?

20 MR. PUISZIS: Not necessarily. And I

21 would ask that if we agree that it's going to tie back

22 into Rule 26, why not make it explicit rather than

23 implicit?

24 What's the danger or the damage or the harm of

25 saying that in order to have curative measures the
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1 information lost has to be relevant or material to

2 the -- one of the issues or defenses in the litigation?

3 HON. GRIMM: Well, I'll followup on your

4 comments with regard to whether recklessness should be

5 part of the definition of bad faith.

6 You don't have any quarrel with the proposition

7 that bad faith may have to be inferred circumstantially

8 with the totality of the circumstances, do you?

9 MR. PUISZIS: No.

10 HON. GRIMM: Do you agree that reckless

11 behavior can be relevant to the totality of the

12 circumstances?

13 MR. PUISZIS: Well, I think it's how you

14 define recklessness, and what the reckless conduct

15 amounts to.

16 As a broad proposition, I would have to

17 disagree. I could not concede that point with your

18 Honor. Because --

19 HON. GRIMM: So it's relevant if it's

20 reckless. That should not even be -- when the Court

21 sets out to decide whether someone has acted in bad

22 faith, and there is not an email where somewhere says

23 let's get rid of those videotapes because they will kill

24 us if we go to trial, then when you're trying to figure

25 out in the absence of that kind of evidence what

1 MR. PUISZIS: Uh-oh.

2 HON. SUTTON: I want to offer a

3 perspective that maybe will help a little bit.

4 Of course, records are relevant to bad faith.

5 Of course, good faith and lots of good things

6 that the defendant did is relevant.

7 So I guess I'm struggling with this.

8 Every single thing that was done is relevant to

9 bad faith, including something that happened to the

10 records, but it doesn't mean the recklessness proves,

11 establishes for sure bad faith. But all the good things

12 the defendant did, and all the bad things the defendant

13 did are relevant. I just think it's yes or no.

14 MR. PUISZIS: I don't believe it's a yes

15 or no, because I go back to what the Seventh Circuit

16 says that constitutes bad faith, which is the crucial

17 purposes is the reasonable destruction.

18 HON. SUTTON: Don't you want to be able

19 to put in evidence the good things that the defendant

20 did?

21 MR. PUISZIS: Of course, I do.

22 HON. SUTTON: Okay. If you can put in

23 all the good things, the utterly non-negligent, the

24 utterly nonreckless things, why couldn't you both put in

25 the negligent reckless things as part of totality to

1 happened and whether or not there was a decision made to

2 destroy evidence, the fact that someone may have behaved

3 recklessly is, in your mind, categorically irrelevant to

4 the question? Is that what you are saying?

5 MR. PUISZIS: Well, if you go with the

6 definition that the failure of exercising reasonable

7 care in the face of a known danger constitutes

8 recklessness, I think we're right back into the

9 residential funding standard.

10 HON. GRIMM: I would like to see the

11 source of the authority that you have that failure to

12 exercise due care constitutes recklessness.

13 MR. PUISZIS: In the face of a known

14 danger, that's a commonly understood definition of

15 recklessness that I have seen in my practice, your

16 Honor.

17 HON. GRIMM: Thank you.

18 MR. PUISZIS: That's why I said if you

19 are going to include "recklessness," include a

20 definition.

21 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you very much for

22 your comments, Mr. Puiszis.

23 Megan Jones.

24 Mr. Puiszis, come back to the lectern. There

25 is a question. There is a question.

1 show bad faith?

2 MR. PUISZIS: I'm not arguing that the

3 plaintiff couldn't. I'm arguing the standard by which

4 after all of the evidence is introduced and presented to

5 your Honor, what is the appropriate standard for

6 determining whether or not curative measures should be

7 imposed?

8 Is it a quasi and negligent standard, is it the

9 failure to exercise reasonable care in the face of a

10 known danger?

11 HON. SUTTON: Okay.

12 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you very much for

13 that clarification.

14 Mr. Jones, thanks for allowing us to interrupt

15 you.

16 MS. JONES: My name is Megan Jones. I'm

17 a partner at Hausfeld LLP, which is co-lead counsel for

18 plaintiffs in over 30 antitrust class actions on behalf

19 of plaintiffs.

20 I'm here to testify on behalf of COSAL, which

21 is a membership of class action law firms who primarily

22 represent plaintiffs in class actions.

23 I come to you today not as a scholar of the

24 civil rules, but as a practitioner. I use them. I have

25 been a member of Sedona Conference since 2007, and even
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1 there I'm on the practical RFP committee, which deals

2 with interaction of vendors with lawyers.

3 My career spans 14 years, and it's about as old

4 as a 9th grader, about 14 -- you know, ninth grade.

5 It's about as old as the ESI. It's from that unique

6 vantage point that I testify today.

7 I graduated from law school in 1999, and I

8 actually took notes on paper. I checked an email about

9 once a week, and I was the first class in my law school

10 that had training on electronic research instead of

11 books.

12 One of my first jobs as an associate in 2000

13 was supervising the paralegal who actually had an ink

14 pad and a stamp and stamped the word "confidential" on

15 documents.

16 I can now press a button and have that word

17 populate millions of pages in less than ten years.

18 In 2001 to 2004 my primary case involved

19 electronic discovery, and what that meant in 2001 is

20 that I sent the vendor down to North Carolina, and I had

21 them image the 700 boxes of paper and bring it back up

22 to D.C. By the end of that case in 2004 the technology

23 existed that I could actually search those documents,

24 but it didn't in 2001. In less than three years the

25 technology evolved that quickly in one case.

1 that it is cheaper to take discovery because we have

2 more tools and we have figured it out, we spent more

3 time in the lab, and we have actually figured out how to

4 do this, perhaps it's premature to put the limits into

5 play.

6 Because as you have heard from other people

7 here today, and I'm here as an adversary for my

8 membership, limits are meaningful. They affect

9 negotiations.

10 Rules should not be enacted with the

11 presumption that, oh, we can get around them, because

12 that's not always the case.

13 Case in point is the seven-hour deposition

14 limits. Much the same argument was made when we imposed

15 the seven hours. Oh, if you need it, you can get more

16 time. That is not the case in practice.

17 A case in point is foreign language depositions

18 where it literally takes twice as long.

19 What is your name?

20 Chinese interpreter. Chinese answer. English.

21 The typical accommodation for a foreign

22 language deposition, two hours. I get two hours more

23 time. I get a nine-hour deposition instead of seven.

24 So this is besides the fact that there are

25 often three groups of plaintiffs fighting for those

1 In our members' experience in class action

2 lawyers, who are in enormous complex litigation, ESI

3 really became a part of our cases less than ten years

4 ago, and our members' concern is that some of the

5 proposed rules changes do not necessarily encompass the

6 fact that what technology created, technology can solve,

7 and it is on its way to solving.

8 But as a point of reference, by 2014 mobile

9 connected devices would feed the number of people on

10 earth. Phones and tablets outnumber us, both, pretty

11 soon.

12 And taking less discovery seems like a blunt

13 instrument sometimes in order to streamline this highway

14 to do discovery, and that's our concern with some of

15 these changes.

16 Let's assume that in my -- like in my case,

17 major innovations that streamline discovery occur in

18 three years. In the case I mentioned earlier, it took

19 three years from paper to electronic searching. It

20 happened that fast.

21 And I wonder if we can all envision being back

22 here in three years saying we actually need to raise the

23 limits of discovery because it's easier now.

24 I don't think so.

25 If you can't, you can't envision that scenario

1 seven or nine hours.

2 And because these limits are meaningful, I also

3 believe that the proposed rule changes may have some

4 unintended effects, which I will briefly outline today,

5 but will followup with written comments.

6 I think that from our prospective these rules

7 changes show that discovery needs will increase, while

8 the amount of discovery provided decreases.

9 What I mean by that is that the proposed rule

10 changes could increase the need for discovery of what is

11 proportionality.

12 What is the amount of controversy?

13 You can imagine telling -- an advocate fighting

14 over that.

15 What is the burden?

16 What is the issue of importance?

17 What is the importance of the issues at stake?

18 What is willfulness?

19 Was there bad faith?

20 While simultaneously producing the amount of

21 discovery available, less depositions, less

22 interrogatories, less RFAs, unless I'm negotiating where

23 I get a judge to side with me.

24 It seems like not only is the bull's eye

25 getting smaller, you get less discovery. But we also
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1 have less arrows to shoot at the bull's eye.

2 So it could be a significant one, two punch, in

3 that we have these additional burdens that we need to

4 get discovery, but we have less discovery to prove that

5 we need the discovery.

6 Why -- and I also think the intended effect, I

7 think we have come a long way in cooperation, and it

8 could have a deterrent effect on that.

9 For example, why would someone voluntarily

10 provide me the names of their employees, the dates that

11 they worked, and their job description when they could

12 make me burn a fourth of my interrogatories on this

13 question? It may have an impact by limiting the

14 cooperation.

15 I also think insertion of proportionality to

16 the scope of Rule 26(b)(1), it is intended to narrow the

17 scope. The problem is how.

18 The amount in controversy, the importance of

19 the issues at stake, the parties' resources, all of that

20 is provided to the Court.

21 But imagine the following scenario.

22 Plaintiffs state they want discovery that cost

23 $50,000, but our case is worth 50 million, so it's

24 proportional.

25 Defendant states that long-term contracts

1 this time-to-time communication was actually 25 times,

2 and it actually was for price increases ahead of

3 schedule to this person.

4 Now imagine that those emails weren't

5 preserved, and all I had are the interrogatories from

6 time to time, and this witness' memory.

7 Where do I go from here? How do I prove

8 substantial prejudice when I don't what I have lost?

9 I can hear the defense bar pulling back their

10 chair and saying the word "fishing expedition" when I

11 say I want depositions of the IT structure and his

12 secretary and his coworkers to see what I lost because I

13 don't know.

14 And how do I answer the question from the Court

15 when they say, Ms. Jones, what are you after?

16 I don't really have an explanation other than I

17 want to see if I lost something.

18 You can imagine I might not always win that

19 argument, and that's my concern.

20 I commend the committee for its hard work, its

21 willingness to hear from diverse members of the bar, and

22 all of the stakeholders in this process. I think the

23 committee has moved the needle just by proposing these

24 changes. It has started a conversation.

25 My members are going to submit, you know,

1 actually moot most of my case, and that my alleged

2 conspiracy only really applies to 5 percent of their

3 customers, and their sales is $100,000.

4 Well, now I want discovery of those contracts

5 before the Court rules on the papers. Defendants want

6 discovery of my damage assessment, and we're off to the

7 races.

8 I just wonder how this is going to play out if

9 every discovery request becomes a mini trial on the

10 merits or class certification.

11 It could be -- this could have a significant

12 lag on the time from completion of our case. It could

13 take eight months before the documents are produced, we

14 review them, and we're back to the Court with a record

15 upon which a decision like that could be made.

16 The last example that I will raise is the

17 proposed rule changes to Rule 37(e)(1)(b) 1 and 2. I

18 question how that would work in practice.

19 I'm an antitrust lawyer, I focus on cartels.

20 And an example is I have an employee who in an

21 interrogatory has disclosed to me he had from time to

22 time talked to a competitor.

23 And it was not until -- that's all the

24 information I got. It wasn't until his deposition that

25 I confronted him with his documents that I found out

1 practical solutions that we think will help move this

2 along.

3 Judge Francis' suggested language is an

4 excellent example of how this has generated discussion.

5 And on behalf of COSAL members I want to

6 telegraph loudly that the plaintiff's bar is willing to

7 talk about change in discovery that is more effective,

8 less costly, and reduces unnecessary advocacy, because

9 we're paying for it too.

10 Most of our members are contingency law firms,

11 and every deposition we take, every document we review

12 is coming from our pocket as well.

13 Thank you very much for your time.

14 HON. CAMPBELL: Bob.

15 DEAN KLONOFF: Did I understand you to

16 say that in your large class actions you're being held

17 to the current limitations?

18 Because we have heard a lot of testimony from

19 people that in big class actions the parties either work

20 together, or the Court is very liberal in granting

21 excess discovery.

22 MS. JONES: I will say that I'm -- as a

23 general rule the answer is, no, I am not held to the

24 limits.

25 However, 2013 was a banner year for me in that
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1 I did have a case where the defendants stuck to their

2 guns and we got ten per party.

3 So I think everything is part of a negotiation,

4 and where the ceiling is matters. So when I'm asking

5 to -- for more than the limit on depositions, I have to

6 give up something else. I think it's a factor of the

7 negotiations.

8 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

9 very much, Ms. Jones.

10 Professor Hubbard.

11 And we will all take a break after Professor

12 Hubbard.

13 PROF. HUBBARD: All that stands between

14 you --

15 HON. CAMPBELL: That's not what I meant.

16 We are going to pay very close attention.

17 (Laughter.)

18 PROF. HUBBARD: Good afternoon. It is an

19 honor to be here.

20 My name is William Hubbard. I'm an assistant

21 professor at the University of Chicago Law School where

22 I teach civil procedure. I have a background in private

23 practice, and I'm trained as an economist as well.

24 At a mini conference here in Dallas in

25 September of 2011 I presented to the discovery

1 in the United States.

2 I also conducted extensive in-depth interviews

3 and collected litigation matter level data sets on the

4 extent of litigation hold activity from a subset of

5 companies.

6 A more complete summary of my findings appears

7 in the handout that I just distributed to you.

8 I will now highlight three main findings.

9 First, preservation obligations are not just a

10 problem for big corporations. Nearly 80 percent of the

11 companies reported a great extent, or a moderate extent,

12 of preservation problems. And for categories of claims

13 like employment discrimination where cases for smaller

14 companies and cases for larger companies tend to look

15 the most similar, the answers of smaller and larger

16 companies looked indistinguishable from each other.

17 Why is this?

18 Unlike other stages of the discovery process,

19 preservation requires extensive activity that are

20 internal to the company.

21 Yet smaller companies do not have full-time

22 in-house legal IT or discovery staff.

23 In fact, 17 of the companies in the survey do

24 not have any litigation attorneys in-house at all.

25 Nor can smaller companies afford the high fixed

1 subcommittee results from the pilot phase of my

2 Preservation Cost Survey.

3 The Preservation Cost Survey is the first, and

4 to date, only empirical study of the nature and cost of

5 preservation activities, a cross-section of companies.

6 The full survey is now complete, and I will discuss my

7 results today.

8 I will also submit a written final report on

9 the Preservation Cost Survey before the end of the

10 public comment period.

11 The Preservation Cost Survey was commissioned

12 by a group of large companies called the Civil Justice

13 Reform Group, and to be clear, I've been compensated for

14 my time spent designing, implementing and completing the

15 Preservation Cost Survey.

16 No one other than myself, however, has directed

17 the survey, nor has anyone other than myself had access

18 to the data.

19 The data was provided by individual companies

20 subject to assurances of strict anonymity, and today I

21 speak only on my own behalf.

22 One hundred twenty-six companies completed

23 detailed surveys.

24 The respondents range in size of company with

25 as few as 18 employees to some of the largest companies

1 cost of technological solutions to preservation

2 challenges.

3 For example, among the smallest companies in

4 this survey, only one out of 31 has an automated system

5 for tracking litigation holds.

6 In contrast, among the largest companies, 14

7 out of 17 do.

8 Smaller companies which have fewer cases simply

9 do not have the economies of scale to justify expensive

10 but often effective investments like these.

11 As a consequence, I believe that smaller

12 companies are, in this respect, more vulnerable to the

13 risk of sanctions in the context of preservation.

14 Second, a small fraction of litigation matters

15 generate a disproportionate share of preservation cost.

16 From the companies from which I gathered data,

17 5 percent of matters account for more than 60 percent of

18 all litigation holds. So 5 percent of matters account

19 for more than 60 percent of all litigation holds issued.

20 I emphasize this because a rules change that

21 may end up affecting perhaps a small share of cases may

22 nonetheless impact a disproportionate share of all

23 preservation activities.

24 Third, most preserved data is never collected

25 and reviewed. On average across all surveys respondents
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1 a little less than half of all preserved data is ever

2 collected, processed and reviewed. Among larger

3 companies the share is even smaller.

4 This suggests that reducing what some people

5 today, and in the comments, have referred to as over

6 preservation, may not have an adverse impact on the

7 scope of production, on the scope of documents that are

8 produced or used in litigation.

9 Thank you for the opportunity to discuss my

10 research, and I would welcome any questions that you may

11 have.

12 PROF. MARCUS: From your research for

13 your extensive familiarity with what we have been doing,

14 can you tell us if there is any way to know, first,

15 whether adopting a rule like the one we have proposed

16 would change what you described?

17 And second, how much of what you have described

18 might have to happen anyway because of regulatory or

19 other preservation requirements?

20 PROF. HUBBARD: So let me begin by saying

21 that in my own view the rules that have been proposed by

22 this committee are -- reflects to my eyes a deliberate

23 and modest step in terms of changes to the rules.

24 And, of course, my empirical study focuses

25 almost exclusively on preservation rather than other

1 figures. I notice you are not a signatory to the Rule

2 84 protective letter from law professors.

3 Did you have that opportunity, and did you

4 decide not to sign it?

5 PROF. HUBBARD: I actually don't even

6 recall if I was asked to sign it or not.

7 HON. PRATTER: It's a form.

8 PROF. HUBBARD: Yeah. I actually don't

9 have any -- I feel I don't have any intellectual stake

10 in that decision. In my practice experience I never

11 used the forms.

12 HON. PRATTER: Are you aware of anybody

13 who ever has?

14 (Laughter.)

15 PROF. HUBBARD: No, your Honor.

16 HON. CAMPBELL: We're not either.

17 Elizabeth.

18 MS. CABRASER: I just had a very basic

19 question. Perhaps I missed it in your summary.

20 How does this differentiate between information

21 preserved for potential litigation or regulatory

22 activity, and information preserved in the normal

23 course?

24 In other words, is the first baseline?

25 PROF. HUBBARD: That's a great question.

1 aspect of the discovery process.

2 PROF. MARCUS: I meant 37(e) and only

3 37(e).

4 PROF. HUBBARD: Right. And I would say

5 that as a modest step in terms of clarifying the nature

6 of sanctions, you would expect there to be small but

7 potentially meaningful reductions in the scope of what

8 some people call over preservation.

9 I think some of the people who have spoken here

10 today have indicated that they may be very cautious

11 before changing their practices because they want to see

12 how courts interpret what is not a strict set of

13 guidelines.

14 So I would say that this looks like a modest

15 step. The cost reductions I would expect to be modest.

16 At the same time, any concerns about

17 detrimental effects in terms of the downside of these

18 changes, I think is going to be almost nil precisely

19 because we have a situation where the scope of

20 preservation is so much broader than the scope of

21 whatever even gets looked at by the producing party, let

22 alone after being subject to review gets looked at, and

23 perhaps eventually used by the requesting party.

24 HON. CAMPBELL: Gene.

25 HON. PRATTER: You said it teaches

1 Actually I neglected to respond to that aspect of

2 Professor Marcus' question.

3 The survey here does not -- does not in most

4 respects distinguish between those two types of

5 preservation. I think realistically it is accurate to

6 say that most of what is being preserved today is going

7 to be preserved anyway regardless -- regardless of what

8 the preservation standard is.

9 You know, you could change the rule and say

10 sanctions will never be issued, and the realty will be

11 most of everything that's being preserved today will be

12 preserved anyway, because there are other overlapping

13 obligations to preserve.

14 And, frankly, there are business reasons to

15 retain records for business purposes for sometimes

16 years, many years on end.

17 So the question here is not about to the core

18 records of the company, or the core records that are

19 subject to the statutory retention requirements.

20 Rather, we're talking about the data

21 information that's at the margin of what's being

22 preserved.

23 And the question is to what extent is that data

24 at the margins going to be affected by changes in

25 preservation obligations.
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1 So I think in terms of the total level of

2 preservation, a lot of that is going to be preserved --

3 going to be preserved anyway.

4 The question here really is outside that core

5 of documents and data, you know, what is and what should

6 be preserved or not preserved?

7 MR. BARKETT: So where do you put

8 day-to-day emails in that categorization?

9 HON. HUBBARD: Well, I think that would

10 depend both upon the business. Some businesses have

11 requirements to archive their emails under federal

12 statutes. Others do not. I think it also depends on

13 the needs of the particular business.

14 My survey -- to be clear, my survey did not ask

15 companies about -- to distinguish between documents that

16 are being preserved subject to other obligations -- and

17 preservation obligations themselves.

18 Rather, the questions focused on the extent of

19 litigation hold activity, and the distribution across

20 cases, which reflected a lot of cases where there just

21 aren't a lot of holds, and a few cases where there are a

22 lot. And subjective reports of the extent of

23 preservation burdens.

24 And the subjective reports, while of course

25 they should be taken with a grain of salt, because I

1 I think we need to keep this moving so that we get

2 everybody on at a reasonable time.

3 So, Mr. Sullivan, we start with you next.

4 MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you, your Honor. It

5 is an honor to be here. I appreciate the work this

6 committee is doing very diligently, because this, as we

7 all know, is extremely important to our profession.

8 Maybe that's where I should start, just give you a

9 little background.

10 So I am John Sullivan. I have been practicing

11 law as a trial lawyer for 27 years. I started at

12 Fulbright & Jaworski in their trial department in 1987,

13 and we had a litigation training program. I was under

14 the tutelage of some really great trial lawyers, and had

15 the fortunate -- good fortune to get experience trying

16 cases first, second chair, but then doing a lot of tort

17 and insurance defense work.

18 Then just kind of moving as that became more --

19 moving into commercial, IT and really all types of

20 litigation toward the end of my career at Fulbright, and

21 I switched -- and I'll tell you about that in just a

22 second -- but I was doing pharmaceutical defense work

23 for some of the big companies. But I saw a lot of MDL,

24 and a lot of huge amounts of discovery associated with

25 that.

1 can't independently verify, you know, if a company says

2 I have a great extent of problems, whether that's true

3 or not.

4 The subjective reports, I think in a sense,

5 better captures that marginal effect of preservation

6 obligations, because the obligations that companies are

7 complying with anyway aren't going to be perceived as a

8 problem associated with preservation. It might be a

9 problem associated with some statutory obligation that's

10 separate from the preservation obligation.

11 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

12 very much for your comments, Professor.

13 We will take a break until ten minutes after

14 3:00.

15 (Brief recess.)

16 HON. CAMPBELL: We still have a long way

17 to go. We have 18. If we take ten minutes each that's

18 three hours, so that will push us past the 6:00 hour,

19 even being on schedule.

20 What I plan to do is an hour and a half, two

21 hours in, take a two-minute break for everybody to stand

22 and stretch, but not take another long break.

23 That means that if you-all need -- anybody on

24 the committee or in the room needs to take a break and

25 step out, just go ahead and do it as we move along. But

1 The entire law firm was just dedicated to just

2 dealing with preservation and processing the documents

3 and, you know, organizing the ESI. Then feeding it

4 around the team to prepare witnesses for depositions.

5 Then while I was doing that, though, I was

6 still doing commercial cases, wrongful death cases. So

7 quite a variety.

8 I left Fulbright in 2007, and joined a

9 colleague of mine at a smaller litigation oil and gas

10 boutique firm called Walk Beckwith Thomas Henry &

11 Sullivan. I practiced there for six years, and that was

12 a great experience.

13 The great thing there, is I was able to do a

14 lot of -- the trial work I had kind of done when I first

15 started my practice that -- and I won't go into detail

16 why -- I was able to have a broader type of trial

17 practice, but there I was doing some plaintiff's work as

18 well. So I got to see, you know, the discovery burden

19 on both sides of the docket, so to speak, and the

20 preservation burden on both sides of the docket, and how

21 it could be essentially exploited if you were the

22 plaintiff, and how difficult it was oftentimes if you

23 were the defendant.

24 Then most recently I moved over to the law firm

25 of K&L Gates, it was about three months ago, and I am in
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1 their commercial dispute, so just kind of getting my

2 legs under me there. And then I had this opportunity to

3 come and speak before you on the proposed rule changes.

4 I guess my motivation for making myself

5 available to come before you is, I really, you know,

6 feel like this is my profession, and always has been, to

7 be a trial lawyer, but sadly -- it's not only because of

8 rules, but it may have a lot to do with it -- we don't

9 even call ourselves that anymore. I mean, it's not even

10 encouraged to really call yourself a trial lawyer.

11 Now you're a commercial dispute lawyer, and you

12 do maybe some trial work if it goes that direction, but

13 now it's arbitrations or ADR. The business people are

14 putting arbitration clauses in everything because of the

15 expense associated with discovery. It's just keeping

16 clients out of the courthouse.

17 When they do get into the courthouse, and I

18 have seen it on both sides, including mom or pop shops I

19 have represented where they have such a burden that it's

20 just -- they're going to settle the case long before the

21 merits are ever decided because it's such a burden.

22 They might even go out of business.

23 I have one client in particular that sold heavy

24 metal high pressure vessels to be used in the Gulf, and

25 they could not afford to defend the case just because of

1 us back to where we want to be, or go a long way toward

2 that.

3 The Rule 37(e)(1)(i) that the committee has

4 already heard a lot about, it really needs to be

5 tightened up so that it can't be used by some courts to

6 still punish the defendant, which would then have the

7 ill effect of causing defendants still to have to over

8 preserve -- just kind of carte blanche over preserve all

9 their documents at great expense, the way it is right

10 now.

11 There should be a methodical way that they can

12 deal with preservation without the risk of being

13 sanctioned just because of a willful -- if you have the

14 conjunction "or," then you could have a judge follow the

15 rule and say, well, you intended to get rid of this

16 group of documents, and therefore, you know, I'm able to

17 sanction you for that.

18 But if you add the conjunction "and,"

19 obviously, it cures the problem.

20 Or if you define "willful" to have some

21 scienter, some bad faith component to it, some intention

22 to deprive a plaintiff, or a would-be plaintiff from

23 relevant information that a claim could result. But I

24 think just adding the conjunction is probably the

25 easiest thing.

1 the associated discovery pressure.

2 Then I was on a big oil and gas case on the

3 flip side of that, and we were able to exploit pressure

4 on the defendant -- corporate defendant because they had

5 failed to preserve -- you know, I don't know if it was

6 intentional or unintentional, but they had failed to

7 preserve what we thought could be relevant information

8 that -- you know, in that situation I saw they had to

9 squirm. They got out of it. It was a very good judge.

10 So I guess what I would -- first of all,

11 compliment this committee for coming up with these

12 proposed rules which I think are going to invite people

13 back into the courthouses, the federal courthouses of

14 the United States of America where, you know, 50 years

15 ago, even when I started practicing 28 years ago there

16 were great trial lawyers. And people felt good about

17 getting into a forum and having a jury and a judge

18 decide it.

19 Now it's really litigation and paper shoving

20 and ESI and over preservation and the risk of sanctions

21 that is really affecting everyone.

22 So that's my motivation.

23 The two things that -- I know I don't have too

24 much time, but I want to talk about -- I think the rules

25 are great. It should be adopted. I think it will get

1 Then I would just commend the Court for doing

2 what it's doing on Rule 26(b)(1), which is to have a

3 tighter standard there, instead of the hugely open-ended

4 standard we have always had. Which if you are a

5 plaintiff you can always say, you know, if it's relevant

6 or it could reasonably lead to discovery of admissible

7 evidence, well, that's everything. And that, of course,

8 just leads to over preservation.

9 Frankly, even the plaintiff lawyers I know and

10 talk to, they don't like that. It's not the fun part of

11 practicing law.

12 The fun part of practicing law is getting into

13 the courtroom and trying the cases. And if the clients

14 want to settle it during the trial because of the

15 merits, and the way that's coming out before the jury or

16 the judge, so be it, but it shouldn't be because of the

17 paper and the electronic discovery obligations.

18 So with that, I'll rest and let the committee

19 ask questions, if you have any.

20 HON. CAMPBELL: Solomon.

21 HON. OLIVER: There would be more trials

22 if the rules were changed consistently with what we

23 propose. I am just curious as to why you think that.

24 I mean, there are a lot of possible options.

25 You could have more summary judgment motions, you could
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1 have more voluntary dismissals, you could have more

2 settlements even at lower rates if you follow the logic

3 some people talked about.

4 So why is it that you think that trials will

5 increase, and that will be the norm?

6 And if it becomes the norm, will that be enough

7 time for judges to manage cases?

8 MR. SULLIVAN: I think the answer to that

9 is, yes, the judges will have time to manage the cases,

10 because they won't be wasting a lot of time on the

11 peripheral discovery motions, and that sort of thing.

12 But your earlier point, sir, I do think that

13 will lead to more dispositive motions as well, summary

14 judgment motions so you can get to the dispositive

15 motion on the merits without having to spend, you know,

16 a half million dollars, or a million dollars in

17 discovery.

18 That's fine too.

19 You know, my point is not only that we have

20 trials. The point is that the litigants have a

21 confidence in the system that the system is going to

22 fairly determine the merits of the dispute, and not have

23 the thing resolved on a collateral issue, which is, you

24 know, paper and ESI.

25 Now, obviously, if someone is intentionally

1 Similar to what we have just heard from

2 Mr. Sullivan, my experience as a trial lawyer has caused

3 me to develop a deep belief in the integrity and the

4 fundamental fairness of the American jury to determine

5 the merits of legal claims and defenses.

6 The jury trial has been and must continue to be

7 the background bone of our justice system where parties

8 with legitimate and viable claims and defenses are

9 deterred or prevented all together from reaching a jury,

10 or resolution on the merits by other means, as a result

11 of the expense or burden of the discovery process, or

12 because of the cloud of pending motions for sanctions

13 that may be dubious in nature, the integrity of the

14 system suffers. We all suffer.

15 I'm here today to express support in general

16 for the proposed amendments. Overall I believe they are

17 likely to sharpen the focus of the discovery process on

18 the real needs of the parties, allowing both sides to

19 develop their relevant evidence required to present the

20 case to the jury, while reducing, at least to some

21 extent, excessive costs and burdens relating to

22 discovery.

23 Mr. Chairman, I do have concerns about the

24 details of the proposed amendments to Rule 37(e).

25 Implementation of uniform standards identifying

1 hiding the ball, that would fall under 37(e) under the

2 right definition, and they could be sanctioned

3 appropriately.

4 But other than that, you know, we need to

5 encourage people to use our courts again. We have got

6 good judges. We just need rules that allow the judges

7 to do what they want to do, and what the litigants want

8 to do.

9 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

10 very much for those comments, Mr. Sullivan.

11 MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you.

12 HON. CAMPBELL: We will hear next from

13 Lee Mickus or Mickus. I apologize for the

14 mispronunciation.

15 MR. MICKUS: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman

16 and the committee.

17 My name is Lee Mickus. I'm an attorney from --

18 a litigator from Denver where I practice with the firm

19 of Snell & Wilmer. My practice primarily involves

20 defense of automobile manufacturers in product liability

21 suits during the discovery and trial phases. My

22 practice has taken me to courts all across the country,

23 both in the federal system, as well as in the state

24 courts.

25 I'm here today on my own behalf.

1 sanctionable conduct will go far to narrow the filing of

2 motions for sanctions to just those cases where truly

3 problematic actions have occurred.

4 However, use of the word "willful" in Rule

5 37(e)(1)(b)(1) as a stand-alone basis for imposing

6 sanctions, I believe is inconsistent with that goal of

7 having a uniform standard.

8 Courts have demonstrated that "willful" is a

9 standard subject to tremendously widely and varying

10 interpretation, and as such, that word is simply too

11 nebulous to consistently identify conduct involving the

12 degree of culpability justifying sanctions.

13 I'll give you just one example of a complete

14 disconnect in the interpretation of "willfulness" from

15 my field of automotive product litigation that I think

16 is right in the core of what the committee is

17 considering.

18 This committee's report accompanying the

19 publication of proposed rules identifies and interprets

20 the Silvestri versus General Motors case as imposing

21 sanctions, quote, "in the absence of a finding of

22 willfulness."

23 Fair enough.

24 In contrast, District Judge Brown, from the

25 District of Oregon in the Erlandson versus Ford Motor
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1 Company case, another products liability case in which

2 the vehicle in question was destroyed before or during

3 litigation. In that ruling from the Erlandson case on a

4 motion for sanctions Judge Brown described that very

5 same Silvestri case in this way.

6 Quote, "Plaintiff's failure to preserve the

7 allegedly defective vehicle was determined to be

8 willful."

9 So even the committee and a sitting federal

10 judge have a divergent view of whether or not that same

11 case demonstrates willfulness. Obviously, a completely

12 divergent reading.

13 These varying interpretations of whether those

14 very same facts constitute or did not constitute

15 willfulness indicates to me that using that as a

16 stand-alone standard risks imposing sanctions for simple

17 negligent conduct in a failure to preserve. This is

18 also likely to invite additional motions for sanctions,

19 and will lead to inconsistent rulings on that standard,

20 and detract from the goal of developing a uniform

21 standard of what conduct should be sanctioned.

22 Given the enormous breadth that has been used

23 to interpret the willfulness standard, I would urge the

24 committee to simply drop the word "willfulness" entirely

25 from a proposed rule.

1 irreparably deprived standard as proposed would

2 eventually sweep far beyond the very narrow

3 circumstances of Silvestri and Flury.

4 The proposed rule would set up a home run

5 situation that I think is absolutely going to invite

6 motions for sanction in any case in which it comes to

7 light that relevant and significant evidence has gone

8 missing.

9 Irreparably can be interpreted as simply

10 meaning that the evidence is just gone, and the

11 importance of evidence to a lawsuit is always subject to

12 characterization and argument.

13 That open door presented by the irreparably

14 deprived proposal can only lead to more motions and

15 inconsistent results.

16 The committee notes suggested this proposal

17 would apply only in very rare instances, and Silvestri

18 itself describes its fact base as involving peculiar

19 circumstances.

20 This narrow band of unusual cases intended to

21 be addressed by this provision in (b)(2), I don't

22 believe justifies its own -- having its own rule.

23 The district courts have other means to address

24 the cases involving these kinds of circumstances.

25 Perhaps by invoking the curative measures provision to

1 Alternatively, I think using the "and" as

2 opposed to "or" would get us there, but as Judge Diamond

3 pointed out earlier, going that direction, I'm not sure

4 "willfulness" adds anything to the bad faith that would

5 be part of that standard.

6 But dropping that, or going to an "and" would

7 reduce the ambiguity, and will clearly establish the

8 necessary degree of culpability justifying the

9 imposition of sanctions.

10 Mr. Chairman, I also have concerns about the

11 language proposed in Rule 37(e)(1)(b)(2). I understand

12 that this provision is intended to preserve the line of

13 cases represented by Silvestri as well as the Flury

14 verus Daimler Chrysler case. Both of those were product

15 liability cases where dismissal sanctions were entered

16 after allegedly defective vehicles were destroyed.

17 Such treatment of core evidence, to be sure, is

18 very troubling and problematic. And as an automotive

19 product liability defense attorney, I encounter that

20 situation on a -- unfortunately too regular basis.

21 In fact, I'm handling a case right now in the

22 state court involving those circumstances. So you may

23 find it surprising to hear me urge the committee to drop

24 proposed Rule 37(e)(1)(b)(2).

25 I urge that because I believe that the

1 do things like limit expert testimony, limit other

2 evidence based upon the missing article, in this case

3 the vehicle, potentially or by allowing the jury to hear

4 and consider the circumstances under which the evidence

5 went missing, and make their own determination as to the

6 significance of that evidence going gone.

7 Lots of other possible remedies exist, and in

8 my experience district court judges are particularly

9 adept at grafting remedies to address circumstances --

10 to address peculiar circumstances that may arise out of

11 a particular case.

12 But in my view the disadvantages conveyed by

13 the uncertainty and the potential expensiveness of this

14 irreparably deprived standard outweighs the need for

15 this proposed rule.

16 Although, I do have concerns about the

17 provisions that I discussed in Rule 37(e), I would like

18 to end my remarks by again recognizing that I believe

19 the proposed amendments as a whole will better the

20 litigation process, and allow its focus on the merits of

21 the claims and defenses, and better enable the justice

22 system to resolve cases on the merits.

23 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

24 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

25 Peter.
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1 MR. KEISLER: I would like to ask a

2 question about the willfulness and the bad faith.

3 It's a question of how the rule should be in

4 the following scenario.

5 Imagine the head of a small unionized business,

6 suggest a size that as a general matter here he or she

7 doesn't want to implement the kinds of protocol that I'm

8 sure all of your clients implement, couldn't hold and

9 take care of things.

10 Not a specific intent to deprive any particular

11 party of anything, just a general intent that this whole

12 thing is too expensive.

13 And so cases come up, and if one had to show

14 that that business owner had a specific intent to

15 deprive a particular plaintiff of information, one

16 probably couldn't meet that standard, but certainly what

17 they have done is more than negligence, not really gross

18 negligence either, it's something else. It's

19 recklessness maybe, but not everyone likes that either.

20 Do you think that kind of failure should be

21 sanctionable within the bifurcation that 37(e) has

22 between curative measures and sanctions?

23 MR. MICKUS: It should.

24 MR. KEISLER: Is there -- do any of the

25 existing words capture that? Is there a different word,

1 made that you would not have a quarrel with the judge

2 allowing plaintiff's counsel to introduce evidence at

3 trial to show the circumstances under which they tried

4 to get the evidence, but it wasn't available.

5 The defendant would then offer the evidence as

6 to what they did to try to preserve it or what they did

7 or why it was nonproportional or wasn't relevant or was

8 an accident or an act of God, or whatever it may have

9 been, and for the judge to just give what's oftentimes

10 referred to as missing evidence instruction, that would

11 not be a problem in your eyes, would it?

12 MR. MICKUS: That would not be a problem

13 in my eyes.

14 In fact, I have encountered judges doing

15 exactly that in a number of cases, and I think the

16 quality of justice meted out in those cases has been

17 appropriate.

18 HON. GRIMM: So you would not look at

19 that -- what I'm calling the missing witness

20 instruction, as a sanction as opposed to the adverse

21 inference sanction that is predicated upon a showing of

22 bad faith under (b)(1).

23 Is that right?

24 MR. MICKUS: If I'm following and

25 understanding what you are characterizing as the missing

1 a definition of "willfulness" or "bad faith" that would

2 or should capture that?

3 MR. MICKUS: I believe that

4 description -- that circumstance you're describing

5 preferably falls below the level of out and out

6 sanctionable conduct.

7 That being said, is that a circumstance the

8 district court can address through recognizing what has

9 gone missing, perhaps by letting the jury consider the

10 conduct of the corporate officer in that instance, and

11 allowing discussion of the types of materials that were

12 not preserved under that circumstance, I guess that's

13 how I would see that coming down.

14 HON. GRIMM: I would like to follow that

15 line, if I could, sir.

16 MR. MICKUS: Sure.

17 HON. GRIMM: As currently stated in

18 (b)(1) the sanctions that would include an adverse

19 inference instruction can only be given on a showing of

20 substantial prejudice, plus as currently is drafted

21 "willful" or "bad faith."

22 If we follow your suggestion and we eliminate

23 "willful," and if the type of conduct that the last

24 question is focused is something that falls below

25 sanctions, then I take it from the comments you just

1 witness instruction appropriately, yeah, I would

2 characterize that more as a curative measure type deal.

3 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Mr. Mickus.

4 We need to move along.

5 Donald Lough or Lough.

6 MR. LOUGH: Good afternoon.

7 I'm Donald Lough. I'm an assistant general

8 counsel for Ford Motor Company. I manage our product

9 liability, class action, asbestos, discovery practice.

10 I speak here today on behalf of approximately

11 200,000 men and women who work at Ford Motor Company. I

12 also keep in mind I have a very heavy responsibility to

13 several hundred thousand other families that are

14 retirees, shareholders, dealers and suppliers who rely

15 on us for their livelihoods.

16 Because of the nature and scope of our

17 business, we have about 10,000 new disputes each year at

18 Ford Motor Company, and several hundred thousand since

19 1980 when the committee first amended Rule 26 to deal

20 with the problem of over discovery.

21 Like every business, we need to have a fair and

22 efficient system for resolving those disputes. We

23 believe very much in our jury system. We think it can

24 be fair and efficient. And like many of the speakers

25 here today, we really trust juries to do the right
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1 thing, to be fair and impartial.

2 We have tried well over a thousand cases to

3 jury verdicts in the last 20 years. We wish it was

4 more. We think that number should be a multiple of what

5 it is.

6 Discovery is a very important part of the

7 process. It's necessary to having jury trials, but

8 discovery should be a way of getting cases ready for

9 trial.

10 Unfortunately, too often discovery causes

11 delays, drives up costs, and actually impedes trials.

12 Proof that discovery is a problem today can be

13 found in the opposition comments to the proposed rules.

14 They describe a status quo where relevance is not the

15 standard, where proportionality is not the norm, and

16 where parties routinely presume the worst in their

17 opponents and file contentious motions just as a matter

18 of course.

19 Ford's experience is consistent with that

20 description, and with the data submitted by Professor

21 Hubbard and Lawyers for Civil Justice.

22 It's quite common for us to preserve, collect

23 and produce millions of pages of documents in a typical

24 case to see only a few dozen marked as exhibits at

25 trial.

1 the proposed revisions, many of them state incorrectly

2 that the reasonably calculated language is the core

3 standard of relevance, as opposed to an explanation

4 about the difference between relevance and admissibility

5 for discoverability purposes.

6 Many of the comments in opposition have

7 characterized proportionality as something new, when it

8 appears expressly in Rule 26 already.

9 So the comments show that the relevance of

10 proportionality requirements of Rule 26 are ignored or

11 misapplied, and are in great need of strengthening and

12 enforcement.

13 The proposed changes to Rule 26 will strengthen

14 the existing requirements. Some have already made these

15 concepts go too far, because they're too vague, and they

16 shift the burden.

17 Well, our experience in cost sharing

18 jurisdictions is quite the opposite. When we are able

19 to present a bill to our adversaries for their fair

20 share of the cost of discovery, they very quickly can

21 make a decision about what they need, and what they

22 don't.

23 We also find that the documents used at trial

24 very rarely go beyond the core documents that we

25 produced with no objection whatsoever at the outset of

1 We also expend disproportionate resources

2 opposing discovery motions that seek to keep us from

3 juries through sanctions that limit evidence, that

4 strike witnesses, and even strike pleadings in some

5 cases.

6 We are very proud of our record. We have been

7 sanctioned very rarely. Almost at a Six Sigma rate.

8 Achieving that performance does very little to

9 advance the merits of our cases. Yet every year diverts

10 tens of million of dollars of resources away from our

11 business, and that's money that could be much better

12 spent doing research into automotive safety, paying

13 employee benefits, and the like.

14 The root of this over discovery problem is the

15 reasonable calculated clause in Rule 26. The advisory

16 committee has made prior attempts to encourage district

17 courts to rein in discovery. Those attempts have failed

18 because district judges are reluctant to curtail

19 discovery, and the parties really have no incentive to

20 limit their requests.

21 The problem continues today because the

22 reasonably calculated clause is misconstrued, and the

23 (b)(2) limitations are not implemented with the vigor

24 that was contemplated by this committee.

25 When you look at the comments and opposition to

1 the case. So this idea that there is more discovery

2 that needs to be done, and you don't know what you don't

3 know, it just doesn't hold water in reality.

4 In the thousands of cases that we have very,

5 very rarely does anything beyond the core discovery ever

6 get used at a trial.

7 But we do find that courts too often delay the

8 most critical relevance decisions until it's too late.

9 We often have to produce excessive discovery, the Court

10 punts on the relevance issue, then at trial time we talk

11 about relevance, and all those documents that we

12 produced were excluded. Nothing can be more wasteful

13 than that.

14 The burden of proof is a nonissue. Discovery

15 motions do not get decided on a burden of proof. In

16 practice courts very fairly, as the rules contemplate,

17 request both parties to discuss proportionality.

18 Discovery disputes tend to get decided in a

19 format where the rules of evidence are not strictly

20 enforced in a much more informal environment.

21 But in any event, the proposed provisions say

22 nothing about shifting or changing the burden of proof

23 as it exists today under the rules.

24 Rule 1 asks us to aspire to this just, speedy

25 and inexpensive resolution of disputes. I think
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1 implicit is that is on the merits.

2 The proposed amendment will facilitate more

3 resolutions on the merits, whether it's by summary

4 judgment or through trial.

5 Parties will still have the evidence that they

6 need to prepare their claims and defenses for trial.

7 They can redirect their energy from wasteful discovery

8 motions to trial preparation. Courts can redirect their

9 energy from managing excessive discovery to ruling on

10 motions in limine, motions for summary judgment and

11 really getting cases ready for trial.

12 Cases will be more likely to settle based on

13 the merits of the case rather than a lopsided ability to

14 impose costs.

15 The time from commencement to disposition will

16 probably shorten, and our civil justice system will

17 become known for trials on the merits, and not trial by

18 ordeal.

19 It's even quite possible that cases will start

20 returning to our civil justice system, and we'll see

21 fewer cases being diverted off to arbitration.

22 During the initial breaking period I do think

23 there will be some more discovery motions, but once it

24 becomes clear what the rules are, and that they will be

25 enforced, the parties will have no incentive to move off

1 that when I'm finally noticed I'm going to unleash a

2 torrent of motions practice.

3 Why am I so misunderstood?

4 (Laughter.)

5 MR. KETELTAS: I think document

6 proportionality is misunderstood. The comments that

7 incorrectly suggest that this committee is proposing to

8 alter obligations that exist today are the best evidence

9 that the proposed changes are needed.

10 This morning one commenter stated his fear that

11 the train had already left the station.

12 I have a different fear.

13 The train left the station eight years ago, and

14 a lot of people seemed to miss it. I think it's time to

15 put those people back on the train.

16 In my practice I see a recurring scenario. An

17 antitrust consumer employment class action with 100 or

18 more custodians under legal hold. Data sources just as

19 numerous. And there are questions about the need to

20 preserve or search a variety of backup media. A

21 terabyte or more of electronic information is in play

22 routinely in these cases.

23 In looking ahead, even these complex cases are

24 likely to come down to a dozen or so key players, and a

25 handful of important issues.

1 in discovery, they will have no incentive to file

2 motions that are going to be unsuccessful. They will

3 know excessive discovery will not be permitted. We will

4 get down to the business of preparing cases for trial,

5 and I think in the long run you will see far fewer

6 discovery disputes than we have today.

7 Thank you very much, and I welcome your

8 questions.

9 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

10 (No response.)

11 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

12 very much for your comments, Mr. Lough.

13 Gilbert Keteltas, if that's the correct

14 pronunciation.

15 MR. KETELTAS: I'm Gill Keteltas. I'm a

16 commercial litigator and co-chair at Baker Hostetler

17 Discovery Advocacy and Management Team.

18 I serve on the advisory board of the Georgetown

19 Advanced Ediscovery Institute, and I contributed to the

20 Sedona Conference proportionality principles.

21 Today I speak on my own behalf.

22 If I were a proportionality under the current

23 rules I would be feeling pretty down right now. A lot

24 of people don't think I exist. Other people think I am

25 out there to deprive them of information. Others think

1 Meaningful information will be measured in a

2 few binders on counsel table, or attached to a summary

3 judgment motion. Not in gigabytes and not in terabytes.

4 You have heard predictions that the mere

5 invocation of the word "proportionality" will be used to

6 stop discovery in its tracks.

7 My experience has been different. I think that

8 that complaint presumes that proportionality is raised

9 for the first time in an objection to a discovery

10 request.

11 I think that's wrong.

12 Consider the complex commercial case. If my

13 client simply collects that data, starts processing it,

14 they have spent a few hundred thousand dollars before

15 looking at a single document.

16 I tell my clients, though, that today's

17 proportionality principles allow them a different

18 course, but it requires a commitment on their part.

19 They can't just say proportionality. They have got to

20 be willing to get into a room and talk to their

21 opponents about what matters in the case, who matters,

22 what are the topics in dispute.

23 If you want proportionality you have got to be

24 willing to have that discussion. To me, that doesn't

25 delay getting to the relevant information. It doesn't
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1 delay getting to the binders. It gets to them quicker,

2 and everyone should be pleased with that result.

3 The clients sometime say, well, what if my

4 opponents don't agree?

5 Then, of course, often I face the geographical

6 objection, it's just not how we do it around here.

7 It's important to be able to respond to this.

8 What I do is take out my rule book. I walk

9 people through Rule 26. I tell them they are required

10 to discuss and propose subjects of discovery, and

11 whether it should occur in phases.

12 I point out that requests and objections are

13 subject to and limited by the proportionality factors.

14 I'm armed with case law and the Sedona proportionality

15 principles.

16 But it's harder work than it should be to have

17 the discussion I want to have. This process hasn't

18 unleashed a title wave of emotions in my experience.

19 In fact, it's reduced the disputes among the

20 parties because of the discussion that's necessary to

21 make proportionality work.

22 In a multi-defendant antitrust class action we

23 met with sophisticated plaintiffs' lawyers on multiple

24 occasions, and discussed the issues and people that

25 mattered most, back and forth discussion. But at the

1 quite low.

2 Litigants shouldn't be deprived of the benefits

3 of proportionality simply because they have resources.

4 I appreciate the committee's work, and I hope

5 you will help my friend "proportionality" regain the

6 status you envisioned for it eight years ago.

7 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

8 MR. BARKETT: Could you respond to the

9 concern that has been expressed that folks on the

10 defense side of the table simply now object on the basis

11 of proportionality?

12 MR. KETELTAS: It will replace vague over

13 broad, burdensome, and it will just generate more

14 motions.

15 MR. BARKETT: We have heard that

16 primarily from folks that represent plaintiffs, but

17 actually we heard it more today from those that

18 represent defendants that says that's the first thing

19 they will start doing.

20 I'm wondering what your reaction is to that?

21 MR. KETELTAS: Well, in my practice the

22 word -- the use of the "cut and paste" and the "word

23 processor" put a vague objection in doesn't really get

24 me very far.

25 There is not going to be a motion, or an

1 end of the day out of a few hundred people on legal hold

2 we agreed to start with 16, and go to more if needed.

3 We only went to two more, and it wasn't because of a

4 motions practice.

5 The point is we also left room to revisit our

6 agreements as the process went forward.

7 A lot of the fight about proportionality today

8 assumes that the answer to a proportionality objection

9 or question is a yes or no answer. And I don't think

10 that assumption is right.

11 In reality a lot of proportionality issues and

12 objections will be addressed iteratively. Why don't we

13 start small and get bigger? Maybe we don't know the

14 answer today. We can work through it.

15 I do, however, suggest one change to the list

16 of proportionality factors. The resources of the

17 parties seems to me to be an outlier in that list, and

18 it's unclear how it would or should be weighed when

19 discovery is not important to resolving the matters in

20 dispute, or when the expense and burden outweigh likely

21 benefit.

22 It also doesn't appear to allow consideration

23 of the resources of a law firm that is financing an

24 action, and has a significant stake in that action, but

25 has a couple of named plaintiffs whose resources are

1 opposition to a motion, I presume, unless I have met and

2 conferred about the various proportionality factors.

3 If there is, I have read case law from some of

4 you that would send me back to have that discussion with

5 the other side. And then I have got to decide if it's a

6 motion I want to pursue, and I'm not going to pursue a

7 motion that I don't think I have got a good chance of

8 winning.

9 The other thing is I think Rule 26(g)

10 disciplines the behavior you're talking about.

11 You know, I can't just say the word

12 "proportionality" for the fun of it. In theory I'm

13 supposed to have looked into whether that is a

14 reasonable objection.

15 I'm also supposed to have looked into whether

16 it's being posed for a proper purpose, or in fact is

17 simply there to delay or to prevent somebody from

18 getting the meaningful information.

19 So I don't think the objection you have

20 identified is a reason to do away with proportionality

21 provisions. I think there are other ways to deal with

22 them.

23 HON. CAMPBELL: From your last comment,

24 would you omit resources of the parties from the list,

25 or would you rewrite it?
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1 MR. KETELTAS: Well, I would omit it,

2 because I don't think it focuses on what all the other

3 factors focus on, which is the discovery and the reason

4 for it.

5 Simply, you could have a different answer. If

6 all the other factors were identical, you could have a

7 different answer depending on the resources of the

8 party, and I don't know where you're going to draw that

9 line.

10 HON. CAMPBELL: Peter.

11 MR. KEISLER: But is it really possible

12 if one of the things you're considering is the burden to

13 meaningfully assess the burden on the party without

14 thinking about its -- the extent of its resources?

15 MR. KETELTAS: I think -- I don't think

16 that that's a fair assumption, because -- you know, you

17 look at a party's litigation budget. You don't just

18 look at this company makes a lot of money. Then you're

19 taking money away from shareholders to have the

20 litigation process.

21 The burden versus the benefit weighs the burden

22 of conducting that particular discovery activity versus

23 the benefit of that discovery activity.

24 If it's a $50,000 burden, we don't say, you

25 know, even though there is very limited benefit, because

1 The litigation section is made up of plaintiff

2 and defense lawyers, tort and business lawyers,

3 attorneys and judges, and yes, even democrats and

4 republicans. I thus urge your careful review of that

5 three- or four-page letter.

6 I would like to turn next to an example of

7 discovery in action. I offer asbestos exposure

8 litigation, a now mature litigation which began in our

9 federal courts in the middle 1970s when documents first

10 came to light showing that some members of the asbestos

11 industry had actual knowledge since the 1930s of the

12 serious health hazards for people who are exposed to

13 asbestos, and yet those corporations chose not to

14 disclose those risks.

15 Years, actually decades of discovery and

16 discovery battles have brought to light the fact that

17 concealment of this knowledge, again, that asbestos

18 exposure causes illness in people for decades. Have

19 caused illness and death affecting hundreds of thousands

20 of individuals and families. Hundreds of thousands of

21 Americans out of the millions who were exposed to

22 asbestos during the '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s.

23 Steadfast persistent discovery of corporate

24 documents, including minutes of meetings, witness

25 depositions by notice or subpoena, corporate medical

1 this party has 50,000 or more, let's make them do it.

2 I think there are other ways to discipline,

3 again, that particular problem.

4 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

5 for your comments, Mr. Keteltas.

6 David Rosen.

7 MR. ROSEN: Thank you and good afternoon.

8 I'm David Rosen. I have been practicing over

9 30 years, always on behalf of plaintiffs in toxic

10 exposure, environmental and employment cases.

11 I'm with Rose Klein & Marias in Los Angeles,

12 which has been representing plaintiffs and claimants in

13 all manner of tort and worker compensations claims since

14 the 1930s.

15 I want to thank the committee and the chair for

16 your hard work, and for your willingness to consider

17 varying experiences and varying viewpoints.

18 I would like to call to the committee's

19 attention especially the letter from the Los Angeles

20 County Bar Association Litigation Section dated

21 January 15th of this year. I participated in drafting

22 that letter, and I cite it now because this is, I

23 believe, one of the few submissions to the committee

24 that is completely bipartisan, or from a completely

25 bipartisan group.

1 libraries, and simply discovery of all matter, yes,

2 reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of

3 admissible evidence, has resulted in the removal of

4 asbestos from the market where it had become, by the

5 way, unnecessary but remained profitable. And fair and

6 just compensation to those damaged by historic

7 concealment.

8 The proposals -- the committee's proposals

9 before us today, as more fully set forth in the many

10 letters that you have received from all corners, would

11 have prevented the truth from being disclosed, would

12 chill the ability of our civil justice system to root

13 out this type of institutional and cultural conduct.

14 After all, many cases settle, not because of

15 discovery costs, but because of what is revealed in

16 discovery.

17 Now, I would like to turn to the preverbal

18 elephant in the room, and it's not me.

19 I understand that it's the view of some on the

20 committee that the proposed rule changes do not actually

21 change the standards for discovery, and I accept that

22 this is a good faith reading or good faith view of some,

23 but not all counsel are reasonable.

24 The federal trial judiciary across this country

25 consists of many, many bench officers, not all of whom
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1 bring to the decision making good faith, detailed

2 analysis, unfettered by political, economic and social

3 agendas.

4 Thus, these proposed changes, most notably the

5 highlighting of proportionality in Rule 26(b), and the

6 limits on enforcement of misconduct as to electronically

7 stored information in 37(e) would create, in my view, a

8 path for protection of corporate interest at the expense

9 of the rights of individuals damaged by corporate

10 malfeasance.

11 Trial is important, but trial and dispositive

12 motions on the evidence is critical.

13 Yes, document preservation, searching and

14 production generate costs and high hourly attorney fees,

15 but so too does being fired illegally, being injured in

16 an exploding Ford Pinto or contracting cancer because

17 you were continuously exposed to a carcinogen about

18 which the actually knowledgeable supplier of the

19 carcinogen concealed its knowledge of the health risk to

20 you.

21 Thank you very much for your time.

22 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

23 (No response.)

24 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

25 very much for your comments, Mr. Rosen.

1 Twenty years ago I co-wrote this book. Also,

2 1994, 20 years ago. It's called Full Disclosure. I

3 think West Thomson Publishing still carries it, but it's

4 dated, but it's about how in product safety cases, toxic

5 tort cases, employment discrimination cases, these sorts

6 of cases, they wouldn't even exist without the discovery

7 scheme that we're talking about amending today. They

8 couldn't exist.

9 The book talks about two kinds of discovery

10 abuse, overuse and evasion. And as Professor Miller has

11 discussed with the committee and provided in his

12 comments, the rule changes over time focused on cutting

13 overuse of discovery. But over time that has been at

14 the expense of aiding those who seek to evade discovery.

15 And seeking to evade discovery is a real thing,

16 and something I need to talk to you about and express my

17 views on today.

18 Now, I submitted written comments co-authored

19 with Paul Bland at Public Justice, on behalf of Public

20 Justice. Public Justice is a public interest law firm

21 devoted to keeping courts meaningfully open to regular

22 people seeking justice.

23 That provides a lot of details on a lot of the

24 specific provisions, and I don't mean to repeat those,

25 but I did want to discuss kind of a contrary view to

1 Stuart Ollanik.

2 MR. OLLANIK: Good afternoon. And thank

3 you to the committee for your hard work in dealing with

4 these difficult issues.

5 My name is Stuart Ollanik, and since 1990 I

6 have been representing badly hurt people in products

7 safety actions. Mostly car design cases.

8 I have come across some of the people who are

9 in the room today who testified.

10 I got into this work after the tragic loss of

11 two of my own family members at a young age showed me

12 how devastating injuries in car accidents can be.

13 Now, since 1990 the automotive industry has

14 made a lot of progress in safety.

15 SUVs are staple now.

16 Car roofs strength has doubled.

17 Better restraints cut accidents forces

18 experienced by accidents in half.

19 Death rates have come down 10,000 each year.

20 Injury rates proportionally so.

21 This is due to the good auto engineers, but

22 it's also due to discovery processes that bring to light

23 product dangers and fixes. That's why we have safer

24 SUVs and safer roofs and safer restraints, at least in a

25 measure.

1 some of the views that we have heard today. Big picture

2 views that are known to people who litigate on behalf of

3 individuals hurt by the misconduct of larger and more

4 powerful entities, who really need the discovery rules,

5 or we will not get facts we need to prove our cases.

6 Big picture thought one, these cases -- and

7 there has been a lot written on this -- involved an

8 asymmetry of wealth and assets. A rational plaintiff's

9 lawyer does not try to bring a major company like Ford,

10 who we have just heard from, to its knees by wearing it

11 down financially. Hasn't ever worked for me. Doesn't

12 work for anyone.

13 Second, empirical data show discovery is

14 proportional to needs and value in most cases.

15 Big picture issue three, and this may be the

16 most important point that I have to make today. I think

17 it is. Discovery costs are driven by the costs of

18 avoiding discovery, not the cost of making discovery.

19 That's the experience people like me see in

20 case after case. Cases such as when -- where one

21 defendant refused and spent thousands and thousands of

22 dollars before the magistrate and the federal judge

23 fighting discovery of books of information that had

24 already been produced in other cases that details its

25 views on rollover safety.
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1 At least three instances that I have known of

2 where they fought discovery of foreign testing of

3 similar products. Arguing it was due to cost. Same

4 thing about prototypes. Same thing about other designs.

5 Then when you finally get through and get the

6 documents, you see it wasn't about cost at all. It's

7 testing that showed that in another country they tested

8 the similar product and it failed. In prototype, they

9 tested it and it failed.

10 In other models they tested them, and what did

11 they find?

12 That their product was not as safe.

13 Changing Rule 37 will create disincentives to

14 preserve damaging evidence by making the risk of

15 sanctions remote, eviscerating its deterrent effect.

16 If changes are needed to effect the over

17 preservation problem, I think those need to be better

18 tailored to that problem per the comments of Judge

19 Francis.

20 Finally, and most importantly, Rule 26(b). It

21 stood for decades for the principle that discovery gives

22 every man access to relevant information, not just the

23 wealthy and powerful, as was the case in this country

24 before these Federal Rules of 1936.

25 Let's not backslide. Let's not go back and

1 you could only get documents upon motion and a showing

2 of good cause.

3 MR. OLLANIK: No, I like our

4 self-executing system much better. It's less burdensome

5 from the Courts.

6 I should say that I like the current proposed

7 change to Rule 34 that requires parties -- if you are

8 going to withhold something under the color of an

9 objection, simply state what it is so that everyone

10 knows what's going on.

11 MR. BARKETT: The point I make, though,

12 the original language on the scope of discovery was

13 related to depositions, and we now live in a very

14 different world. And that's why I was just curious as

15 to whether -- condescendingly you were actually trying

16 to go back to the way the original Rule 34 was written.

17 MR. OLLANIK: Rule 26(b) is really the

18 focus of what I am talking about where we have 60

19 year-old language that's been clearly interpreted --

20 MR. BARKETT: We scrapped originally --

21 Rule 26(b) originally just related to depositions. It

22 didn't relate -- it's now been expanded, but there's a

23 long history here. I just wanted to know where you

24 stand.

25 MR. OLLANIK: I'm sure you know the

1 limit Rule 26 to all the truth you can afford at a low

2 price, or all the truth you -- all the truth you can get

3 at a low price, or all the truth you can afford.

4 Proportionality is too subject to manipulation,

5 and if we make the burden -- the plaintiff explain both

6 the cost and the discovery and -- the cost of the

7 defendant making the discovery, and the value of what

8 it's going to show. The plaintiff just doesn't have

9 that information available to him. It's too easy for

10 defendants to manipulate, misrepresent, inflate those

11 costs, and hide very important relevant truths, and

12 that's what we're trying to get at here from seeing the

13 light of day.

14 Thank you.

15 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

16 MR. BARKETT: You mentioned don't

17 backslide from -- I understood you to say from the

18 original rules.

19 MR. OLLANIK: The intent of the original

20 rules. I know it's been amended a number of times.

21 MR. BARKETT: Are you a supporter of --

22 that we go back to the original Rule 34?

23 MR. OLLANIK: I'm not sure what that said

24 in 1936 that's different.

25 MR. BARKETT: Well, it said in 1938 that

1 history better than me.

2 HON. CAMPBELL: Other comments or

3 questions?

4 (No response.)

5 HON. CAMPBELL: Mr. Ollanik, thank you

6 very much.

7 Bernard Alexander.

8 MR. ALEXANDER: Good afternoon. Thank

9 you, Mr. Chairmen and the committee.

10 My name is Bernard Alexander. I'm at the firm

11 of Alexander Krakow & Glick in Santa Monica.

12 I am the president of the California Employment

13 Lawyers Association, and a group of approximately 1,200

14 individuals that represent plaintiffs in employment

15 cases. I have been practicing for approximately 28

16 years. I practice in both state and federal court.

17 I am going to be talking to you basically about

18 the consequences of the ratcheting down of discovery

19 with regard to depositions and requests for admissions.

20 Briefly, with regard to discovery, the purpose

21 of discovery is to figure out what the case is about.

22 When a case comes in the door we know a little

23 information, but we need additional information to

24 assess the liability, the damages issues and prospects

25 of a settlement.
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1 Then the next issue is discoveries to allows us

2 the ability to oppose a motion for summary judgment.

1 people.

2 If you start with the base of, let's say, five

3 Then ultimately to get to trial.

4 I heard someone say that we all like to go

5 trial. I love going to trial, but I would like to be

6 able to prove my case when I get that.

7 In order to be able to get there, I have to be

8 able to beat the motion for summary judgment.

9 Now, with regard to request for admissions it's

10 ironic that with regard to those, which allow us to pare

11 down the case, we end up being limited to 25.

12 I have never had an instance where I have

13 served a motion -- I'm sorry -- a request for admissions

14 where there has been an issue where they have gone to

15 the judge and asked for the judge to cut the number of

16 requests for admissions. That's one of the ways that we

17 whittle down the case, and we can try a case.

18 With regard to interrogatories, reducing the

19 number of interrogatories is also kind of intuitive to

20 me, because when we serve interrogatories, oftentimes

21 that does give us some information, but as a practical

22 matter, because it's filtered through counsel, it's

23 generally not very informative, but somewhat

24 informative.

25 So really what it boils down to is we get most

3 depositions, the problem is when you are negotiating

4 with the other side that base acts to keep the number

5 down.

6 Typically, with the number now at ten

7 depositions, that tends to work out, and I can negotiate

8 with the attorney on the other side and get what I need.

9 But that base is what helps me to get to where I need.

10 And that purse string that occurs is possible now with

11 the ten.

12 But when you reduce it to five, and it means

13 that there are other things that we have to horse trade

14 in order to get to what we need.

15 It's seldom the case that there is direct

16 evidence of discrimination, and it's seldom the case

17 that I can prove motivating factor based on anything

18 that I get in writing. So written discovery is very

19 important.

20 In most -- in all of my cases, and most of the

21 cases of my colleagues that I represent, we work on a

22 contingency basis. So there is no incentive to overwork

23 the case, to have excessive discovery.

24 Really, the fact is we need the discovery in

25 order to prove -- meet our burden of proof.

1 of our information from depositions, because depositions

2 give you the opportunity to actually deal with the

3 individuals who are making the decision.

1

2 to.

3

There was another comment that I wanted to get

The rules are not really for the circumstances

4 So when you propose -- and the proposal is to

5 reduce the number of depositions from seven -- I'm

6 sorry -- from ten to five, and from seven hours to six

7 hours, that's very significant.

8 Because in our cases, employment cases, we have

9 to prove a motivating factor. And typically in our

10 cases there is not direct evidence of discrimination.

11 It is always -- most always indirect evidence of

12 discrimination.

13 One of my colleagues, one of the individuals

14 earlier was asked a question about how many depositions

15 do they generally take.

16 In the cases that settle, five depositions is

17 probably plenty. But in the cases that don't settle, we

18 have to prove motivating factor, we have to prove

19 pretense.

20 Typically, in my cases, and I have tried

21 approximately 35 cases to trial, typically in my cases

22 I'm going to take at least a dozen depositions, because

23 you take the HR person, you take the decision maker, you

24 take the supervisor, you take the ex-supervisor. By the

25 time you add up that list it turns out to be a lot of

4 where you have an attorney on the other side that's

5 cooperating. In the cases where I have counsel that are

6 cooperating on the other side, it is not difficult at

7 all to get to what I need.

8 In the cases where the attorney on the other

9 side is someone that I don't have dealings with, or

10 something like that, oftentimes the rules are the only

11 thing I have to help.

12 The rules allow a minimum. When the rules

13 shift so that the other side has more to bargain with, I

14 have to bargain away other things.

15 So I would ask the committee to consider the

16 consequence of the people that are low-income earners,

17 which are people that I represent oftentimes, who don't

18 have the ability to come into court and already know the

19 facts, already know who the decision makers are.

20 With regard to those cases, which is what we

21 typically deal with in employment cases, we need to do

22 initial discovery to figure out who the witnesses are,

23 where the evidence is, and then we need to do followup

24 discovery to figure out all the details.

25 Someone said that where there is thousands of
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1 documents that are produced as a result of discovery,

2 but only a small handful come into trial, well, that is

3 the way discovery is supposed to work. You are supposed

4 to get all that information, shift through it, figure

5 out what is important, and then present that nugget of

6 information to the jury.

7 But if you don't have an opportunity to get

8 that universe of documents, and then whittle it down,

9 the consequences, when you go to trial you are asking

10 questions for the first time of witnesses that you have

11 never had that opportunity.

12 Or perhaps you don't have the opportunity to go

13 to trial, because you don't have the admissible evidence

14 that you need in order to oppose a motion for summary

15 judgment.

16 One final comment.

17 Oftentimes the individuals that you need this

18 information from are employees of the employer.

19 When they are employees you don't have the

20 ability to get a declaration from them, or to get

21 information you need in order to oppose the motion for

22 summary judgment.

23 So these depositions that we are asking for

24 that they are whittling down are essential in employment

25 discrimination cases, because sometimes in order to get

1 dispositive, but most of the time they are not.

2 In my practice, in a case that doesn't settle,

3 the depositions are the key.

4 PROF. MARCUS: You have spoken mainly

5 about numerical limitations, and I infer from that

6 perhaps that if those are not changed, you are much less

7 concerned about the proportionality change in 26(b)(1)

8 than about numerical limitations.

9 MR. ALEXANDER: Well, in terms of the --

10 in terms of the numbers, I was talking about the number

11 of depositions, but the hours are important too.

12 PROF. MARCUS: No, I would -- yeah,

13 that's a numerical limitation.

14 I'm asking whether I'm correct in understanding

15 that that is your major concern, and the Rule 26(b)(1)

16 change is not a similarly major concern?

17 MR. ALEXANDER: Well, if I could, I tried

18 to focus on the other issues, but proportionality is an

19 issue.

20 In most of my cases proportionality does come

21 up when we are asking for a lot of information. The

22 defendant does raise that issue. It is already

23 addressed.

24 PROF. MARCUS: The current rule already

25 puts it front and center.

1 to those witnesses, you literally do have to take the

2 deposition.

3 Those may be depositions -- I have oftentimes

4 taken ten depositions in a day, one hour at a time, to

5 get to 20, 25 deponents, because I don't need seven

6 hours, I need one hour with multiple people.

7 Thank you very much.

8 If you have any questions.

9 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

10 John.

11 HON. KOELTL: Well, you had mentioned

that

12 interrogatories are not generally informative, and there

13 are some views that interrogatories are often drafted by

14 lawyers, to be answered by lawyers.

15 Do you have any resistance to lowering the

16 number of interrogatories?

17 MR. ALEXANDER: I'm sorry. I probably

18 overstated it.

19 It's not that they're useless, it's just they

20 don't quite get to the essence of what we're after.

21 They kind of provide -- they narrow the issues, they

22 narrow the scope, they provide some information, but

23 they're an initial step. So the interrogatories are

24 helpful, but they aren't dispositive.

25 Requests for admissions come closer to being

1 MR. ALEXANDER: Exactly. The current

2 rule, I think, is ample to serve its purpose.

3 I think that the shift that the committee is

4 making to move it to the forefront has a consequence of

5 letting the defendant say, now, look, proportionality is

6 a big deal.

7 In my cases, at the beginning of the case I

8 don't know enough information oftentimes to be able to

9 address why I need this information in detail. I don't

10 know what a smoking gun is, or a needle in a haystack,

11 so I need to get the discovery first.

12 I often gets objections of vague, what have

13 you. Proportionality is just another arrow on the

14 defense side that's going to defeat my ability to move

15 forward.

16 I think that -- I think the current rule -- I

17 have heard proportionality, it is addressed, judges

18 address it if it's that burgeoning issue, but I don't

19 believe that it's an issue that is necessary and

20 helpful. I think it's harmful to the plaintiff,

21 particularly in contingency suits.

22 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

23 very much, Mr. Alexander.

24 Conor Crowley.

25 MR. CROWLEY: Good afternoon.
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1 Conor Crowley, Crowley Law Office.

2 I have been litigating since 1999. I now have

3 a law firm that works exclusively advising corporations

4 and law firms on ediscovery and other aspects of

5 information and governance. So I serve as ediscovery

6 counsel, I serve as special master, I serve as an expert

7 witness, so I know from where I speak.

8 However, I'm not here today to speak on my own

9 behalf, or on the behalf of any clients. I'm here to

10 speak in my capacity as the chair of the Sedona

11 Conference Working Group on Electronic Document

12 Retention and Production.

13 We have made a number of submissions to the

14 committee, so let me clarify that those submissions do

15 not necessarily represent the consensus of the entirety

16 of the Working Group.

17 They do, however, represent a consensus of the

18 drafting team that put them together, and the steering

19 committee of the Sedona Conference Working Group on

20 Electronic Document Retention and Production.

21 Individual steering committee members may have

22 different viewpoints with respect to some of those, and

23 they will articulate those, and have done so over the

24 course of the various hearings.

25 Given the limited time, I'm going to try to

1 what has turned into a giant loophole with respect to

2 recently contemplated lead to discovering admissible

3 evidence.

4 With respect to preservation on discovery scope

5 and limits, we think that the amendments to Rule 26

6 should explicitly address preservation. Failing to do

7 so is going to continue the problems we have seen with

8 respect to preservation burdens.

9 Preservation, thus -- a reference to

10 preservation should be added to both the preamble to

11 Rule 26(b)(2)(c) and to Rule 26(b)(2)(c) Roman I.

12 I should also make clear that the Courts are

13 empowered to limit preservation under 26(b)(2)(c) Roman

14 III. I think that it's important that preservation be

15 addressed in the same fashion.

16 With respect to protective orders, and I think

17 this is something that perhaps has not been fully

18 considered, under 26(c), I think we should have a

19 specified term for "preservation" at the beginning of

20 26(c)(1)(b).

21 We should also have the words, "limiting the

22 scope of preservation," inserted in 26(c)(1)(d).

23 Now, moving on to Rule 37(e).

24 We appreciate the intent of the committee with

25 respect to the proposed amendments to Rule 37(e).

1 focus on the high points here.

2 First, with respect to Rule 16, we think it's a

3 tremendous -- the proposed changes are a tremendous step

4 in the right direction. However, we think there are

5 some additional changes that should be made.

6 For example, with respect to Rule 16(a), it

7 should improve preservation.

8 With respect to Rule 16(b)(3), privacy issues

9 should be included in there.

10 Privacy, we have more and more rules and

11 regulations domestically addressing privacy. It is an

12 increasing issue in the context of electronic discovery,

13 and should be addressed squarely.

14 We fully endorse the committee's proposal for

15 Rule 16(b)(3)(v), Roman V, with respect to encouraging

16 courts and parties to meet in federal court before

17 filing discovery motions. We think that improves

18 efficiency, and reduces the burdens on the Courts.

19 For the same reasons we recommend committee

20 notes Rule 16(b) include language to the effect that

21 judicial intervention is appropriate only after the

22 parties meet and confer with faith.

23 With respect to Rule 26, we endorse the

24 narrowing of the scope of discovery to any matter that

25 is relevant to a party's claim or defenses, eliminating

1 However, we believe that the bifurcation of

2 sanctions and curative measures does not achieve the

3 committee's stated goal of a uniform national standard.

4 That's also some of the problems that we have seen.

5 There is two reasons for this.

6 The first is that in practical terms the

7 consequences of curative measure and sanctions may not

8 be that dissimilar, both with respect to that particular

9 litigation, and with respect to the consequences for the

10 attorney that's actually dealing with this.

11 So we would suggest that the committee look at

12 our submission language from October 3, 2012 that begins

13 with the preface, "that absent exceptional

14 circumstances, a court may not sanction a party for

15 failing to preserve documents, ESI or tangible things

16 relevant to any party's claims or defenses if the party

17 acted in good faith."

18 We think that's where you begin.

19 Also, important to note, that when courts do

20 use Rule 37, use those remedies absent exceptional

21 circumstances, they should be required to first find

22 that the party to be sanctioned fails to act in good

23 faith, the requesting party was prejudiced.

24 Now, with respect to the willful and bad faith

25 standard, we think that that is likely to lead to
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1 increased motion practice.

2 "Willful" was in a certain context previously

3 taken out of the rules because it is so subject to a

4 broad variety of interpretations. We believe the same

5 problem exists with respect to "bad faith."

6 We think the appropriate standard is rather the

7 absence of good faith. I believe that that is the

8 standard to be actually employed here.

9 We would also note that if the committee is

10 unwilling to go with the absence of good faith standard,

11 and is sticking with "willful bad faith," or "willful

12 and bad faith," that there should be a finding required

13 that the alleged spoliating party acted with a specific

14 intent to deprive the opposing party of material

15 evidence, while that the claims entered by the matter

16 was prior to the imposition of sanctions and/or any

17 curative measures that would be tantamount to a

18 sanction.

19 With respect to defining substantial prejudice,

20 we believe the rules should make clear that substantial

21 prejudice means that a party has been materially

22 hindered in presenting or defending its claims in the

23 case.

24 Thus, in summation, our proposal provides that

25 the Court may only impose a sanction if the party

1 in the litigation.

2 With respect to the list of sanctions, we

3 believe the list of sanctions should be more

4 comprehensive, and should apply culpability requirements

5 subject to the absent exceptional circumstances --

6 exceptional circumstances language that we prepared and

7 proposed.

8 It should include a direction that courts

9 choose the least severe sanction necessary to remedy the

10 preservation failure, and be proportional to, A, the

11 failure to preserve; and B, the degree of prejudice

12 suffered.

13 Further, a court should only be able to invoke

14 the most severe sanctions for the failure to preserve

15 was intentional.

16 We want it to be also known that we don't agree

17 that a preservation letter is a factor that should be

18 considered. It's going to result in preservation

19 letters being sent in every possible case.

20 Receipt of a preservation letter is not

21 necessarily coterminous with the trigger of the

22 obligation to preserve, which is problem one.

23 Receipt does not actually indicate that there

24 is actually an obligation to preserve information,

25 problem number two, and it could lead to such letters

1 seeking sanctions has established, A, the party against

2 whom sanctions are sought did not act in good faith; B,

3 relevant information was lost; C, no alternative sources

4 exist for the lost information; D, the party seeking

5 sanctions is materially prejudiced in its ability to

6 prove or respond to the claims and defenses; and E,

7 considering all the circumstances the sanctions for

8 motion was timely.

9 We also note that this should not limit the

10 Court's ability to attempt to remedy or cure problems

11 using the tools available under Rule 26 or Rule 16.

12 Those are still available to courts. We just think that

13 it's misplaced to curative and cured measures and

14 sanctions in Rule 37(e).

15 With respect to 37(e)(1)(b) Roman II, we think

16 that "meaningful opportunity" is simply too vague a

17 standard, and again, subject to multiple

18 interpretations, will likely increase motions practice.

19 So we would suggest that you consider that

20 going with a different standard than "meaningful

21 opportunity."

22 We would suggest that the committee, if you

23 decide to retain 37(e)(1)(b) Roman II, that it should

24 apply only for the party that has been irreparably

25 deprived of the ability to present or defend its claims

1 being sent as gamesmanship.

2 With respect to 37(e)(2)(b), as proposed it

3 could be interpreted too narrowly with respect to the

4 reasonableness of effort with respect to specific

5 information.

6 Thus, we propose a broader standard so that the

7 consideration is whether a party made reasonable efforts

8 to preserve information relevant to claims and defenses,

9 including whether the party timely notified the key

10 facility's obligation to preserve rather than focusing

11 on the failure to preserve specific information.

12 The list of factors should include whether the

13 party intentionally destroyed information that it knew

14 was likely to be relevant to claims or defenses.

15 We also think it important that the meaning of

16 the term "discoverable information" be clarified. As

17 was noticed earlier, cross-referenced to indicate that

18 discoverable information is now the subject to the scope

19 limitation relevant to a party's claims or defenses.

20 I will pause for questions.

21 HON. CAMPBELL: Only a pause?

22 All right. Thank you.

23 Questions.

24 MR. BARKETT: Is there anything that you

25 said that isn't in your written statement?
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1 MR. CROWLEY: I think what I intended to

2 do here was to highlight the high points in our written

3 submissions to ensure that the --

4 PROF. MARCUS: I read them quite

5 carefully.

6 Am I correct in interpreting what you said to

7 mean that you would prefer that the effective date of

8 any changes be put off at least a year or two so that

9 what you have endorsed can be published for comment, and

10 go through the whole cycle again?

11 MR. CROWLEY: I think that's a very

12 interesting question, Judge Marcus (sic).

13 I would suggest, if I may, that what we are

14 attempting to do is not to change the meaning of what

15 you -- or the intent of what you propose, but rather --

16 PROF. MARCUS: I'm not saying necessarily

17 that sort of a republication would be required. I'm

18 asking you if the conclusion is this change can be made

19 only with republication? You're saying it's worth it.

20 MR. CROWLEY: That's a tough question,

21 because I don't --

22 PROF. MARCUS: Yes, it is.

23 MR. CROWLEY: I think that I disagree

24 with the preface.

25 I don't know that republication is required.

1 That is a mistake.

2 If I push the button, I did it intentionally

3 even though I didn't mean to do what I was doing. So I

4 mean I didn't mean the consequences. I didn't mean for

5 that deletion to occur. It is an error, it's a mistake,

6 but it's not in bad faith.

7 The way the rule is proposed right now a

8 mistake can result in the same kind of sanction that a

9 bad faith action can. So without any definition, at

10 least it has to be an "and" rather than an "or."

11 If you have "and" rather than "or," you may

12 have a mistake, you may have an intentional act that was

13 done in bad faith, maybe that's sanctionable, but it

14 can't be just a willful act with an unintended

15 consequence.

16 I think we have to think about these rules, of

17 course, are geared to everybody, and there are a lot of

18 litigants out there that are mom and pop trucking

19 companies who upload data to SnapDish, and plaintiffs do

20 too, and then the rest of the photos are gone, or they

21 get rid of an old Blackberry and get a new iPhone and

22 don't preserve the SIM card without thinking about the

23 consequences.

24 Well, that's an intentional act. Those are mom

25 and pop folks who don't have in-house counsel to advise

1 If we were talking about (c) change in the way the

2 committee views this, certainly we're not.

3 What we're talking about is different language

4 designed to achieve more precisely the goals of the

5 language that was proposed by the committee.

6 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you very much for

7 your comments, Mr. Crowley.

8 Neva Lusk.

9 MS. LUSK: Good afternoon.

10 I'm Neva Lusk with the Charleston, West

11 Virginia offices of Spilman Thomas & Battle. I am a

12 civil litigator, and have been so for a couple of

13 decades. And before those two I was an assistant

14 prosecuting attorney for about a decade. So I bring

15 that graphing of experiences with me today.

16 You -- the committee has heard a lot of

17 comments about Rule 37(e). That is my topic today. So

18 I know that you have heard several, and thus, I will be

19 brief.

20 The way the rule is currently proposed, of

21 course, "willful or bad faith," and I want to first

22 think about the word "willful," which in a lot of

23 circumstances is simply an intentional act, so an

24 intentional act without necessarily intentional

25 consequences.

1 them all the time, or they purposefully replace their

2 computer system.

3 So I think we have to -- we have to do

4 something about "willful or bad faith." And the first

5 proposal will be, of course, to make it "willful and bad

6 faith."

7 If not, then let's define "willful."

8 I would suggest to you that the Sedona

9 Conference definition is the way to go. Which, of

10 course you know, is, "acting with a specific intent to

11 deprive the opposing party of material evidence relevant

12 to the claims or defenses."

13 Judge Grimm, earlier you asked about reckless

14 disregard, and I would submit to you that reckless

15 disregard should not be -- should not be suggested as an

16 alternative. I believe it's subsumed in the rest of the

17 rule. I think the Court is going to consider the

18 totality of the circumstances.

19 If it considers the totality of the

20 circumstances, it's going to consider whether or not

21 actions were reasonable, whether or not actions were

22 done with reckless disregard. So I believe that the

23 reckless disregard criteria is subsumed in what we

24 already have, and it shouldn't be highlighted and made a

25 particular focus.
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1 I think that's all my comments. Do you have

2 questions?

3 HON. GRIMM: I just want to make sure I

4 follow your point.

5 It's not irrelevant, just like as Judge Sutton

6 said, if you did something good, then you would want the

7 Court to know about all the good things you did when you

8 made your decision to try to -- and something happened

9 by accident.

10 Similarly, anything that wasn't -- whether it

11 was anything from negligence all the way up to

12 intentional conduct, that's all grist for the mill.

13 It's not irrelevant, you just have to come to the

14 conclusion of the totality of the circumstances that a

15 person should be chargeable with the knowledge that what

16 they were doing was to deprive someone else of evidence.

17 Is that right?

18 MS. LUSK: Yes, sir.

19 JUDGE GRIMM: So you said the intentional

20 action, I may point at the gun at you, it's loaded and

21 fully triggered, not intend to kill you, but if that

22 happens you would agree that was a reckless disregard of

23 the consequence of pointing the gun. So it's willful,

24 but there is more to it than that, even though I may

25 say, geez, I don't want to hurt anybody, when I take it

1 relevant and material information.

2 MR. FOLSE: Right. But I guess my

3 question is why should we make -- why should we treat

4 that situation any differently from someone who does

5 have a desire to deprive an opposing party of

6 discoverable information?

7 MS. LUSK: Because there should be an

8 intent if there is going to be a sanction. I think that

9 is the point. If you're going to have a sanction, it

10 needs to be such bad conduct that you do have an intent.

11 HON. CAMPBELL: Solomon.

12 JUDGE OLIVER: With all due respect to

13 Judge Grimm and Judge Sutton, what I think about as

14 willfulness, sometimes I think about it in terms of the

15 alternative to willfulness. So I don't normally think

16 of -- when I'm thinking of willfulness and whether it

17 was intentional, for example, I won't think about, well,

18 were they negligent, or whether they were reckless.

19 I mean, I may consider all their conduct, but I

20 would not label it all as I am going through it. I

21 would be trying to determine whether something is

22 willful or not.

23 So I think of -- I would think of reckless as

24 an alternative, but something else with relatively high

25 standards. So you can't prove willingness, but you can

1 under those reckless conditions, that's relevant to the

2 decision about whether or not it was done with intent to

3 cause the harm, right?

4 MS. LUSK: That's right.

5 HON. GRIMM: Thank you.

6 HON. CAMPBELL: Parker and then Solomon.

7 MR. FOLSE: I would like to pose to you

8 the same hypothetical that Peter posed to an earlier

9 witness today.

10 A situation where a party who has discoverable

11 information intentionally allows the deletion, or stops

12 the preservation of evidence, knowing that it allows

13 deletion, not out of some specific intent, or even

14 knowledge that the information is now going to be lost,

15 is to use the Sedona proposal, relevant and material to

16 the ability of an opposing party to present the case.

17 It's nevertheless a very conscious deliberate decision,

18 perhaps to save money, and destroys evidence as a result

19 of it.

20 How would you deal with that situation, and why

21 should it be dealt with differently than in terms of

22 whether or not sanctions are available to someone who

23 acts in bad faith.

24 MS. LUSK: Because that person doesn't

25 have the specific intent to deprive another party of

1 prove reckless conduct. So I would see it as assumed

2 willfulness, when I see it, as an alternative standard.

3 That's the way I would look at it. So --

4 MS. LUSK: Well, I think it's also

5 included, and the Court has to -- you have the factors

6 for the Court to consider, and (b) is the reasonableness

7 of the party's efforts to preserve the information. And

8 it goes there too, I think.

9 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you very much for

10 your comments, Ms. Lusk.

11 While Susan Rotkis is coming to the lectern,

12 everybody stand up.

13 (Brief pause in the proceedings.)

14 HON. CAMPBELL: Everybody have a seat.

15 MS. ROTKIS: Susan Rotkis. I go by

16 Susie.

17 I'm an attorney in a seven-member law firm in

18 Newport News in Alexandria, Virginia. All we do is

19 litigate on behalf of consumers. And we are almost

20 exclusively in federal court where we feel comfortable,

21 but the Eastern District of Virginia is our home. But

22 we will be happy to go to any federal court where

23 consumers need us.

24 We represent consumers individually, and we

25 also have quite a large class action practice. Because
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1 we are a small firm, we collaborate with other class

2 action law firms to prosecute those class actions.

3 The founder of my firm was going to be here

4 today. I understand he can't be here, but he's on the

5 board of directors of the National Association of

6 Consumer Advocates. We're all members of the National

7 Association of Consumer Advocates. We're all active in

8 our association.

9 Our association has some pretty stringent

10 guidelines for plaintiff's attorneys and for class

11 action attorneys. So we don't have financial stakes in

12 the outcome of our class action cases.

13 Those, I think, aspersions that are cast on

14 class action lawyers, you know, I take professionally

15 very seriously, and I want to make sure that I get that

16 out there out front.

17 We have by far the largest docket in the

18 Eastern District of Virginia, and not just plaintiff's

19 firm. Our seven-member firm has more cases than any

20 other law firm in the Eastern District of Virginia on an

21 annual basis.

22 The reason for that is we file a lot of

23 lawsuits. There aren't a lot of consumer protection

24 attorneys in Virginia, we are good at what we do, and

25 there is also an endless supply of consumers with really

1 The addition of the proportionality analysis

2 adds five factors to the scope of discovery, and I do

3 think that it's going to be a threshold for plaintiffs

4 to propound discovery. They're going to have to fight

5 that battle on the front end.

6 In consumer cases the factors are going to be

7 disproportionate every time. Congress recognized that

8 when they enacted this law the amount in controversy and

9 the expense of litigation are going to be

10 disproportionate.

11 To address that reality Congress established a

12 statutory scheme that created statutory damages and fee

13 shifting. So private attorneys general, like me and the

14 attorneys of my firm, can take the little consumer cases

15 that aren't going to pay a consumer very much, but we

16 can still make a living while helping people.

17 For the most part we prosecute under the Fair

18 Credit Reporting Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices

19 Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

20 My husband is an ex-prosecutor, ex-Justice

21 Department and Assistant U.S. Attorney, and I come home

22 and I tell him about my cases, and he says, how are

23 these not a crime?

24 And it's true. Would you think about

25 curtailing the ability of a law enforcement officer to

1 good federal cases. And some of them have tried for

2 month, if not years, to have their rights vindicated by

3 communicating directly with the organization that has

4 violated their rights, going to the regulatory agencies,

5 the financial services regulatory agencies, the SEC, and

6 now the CFPB, and they haven't been able to get

7 anywhere.

8 Congress predicted when it passed the

9 Comprehensive Consumer Protection Statute 40 years ago

10 automation has led to grave violations and consequences

11 for consumers whose information has been traded on the

12 open market, unregulated, is inaccurate, is reported in

13 a derogatory way, is often mixed with the other

14 consumers, and subject to theft.

15 I know it's going to be a big shock. We oppose

16 the rules amendments. We oppose the changes

17 specifically to the proportionality standard in Rule 26.

18 That change is viewed by us as generally

19 one-sided, and transparently in favor of the very

20 organizations that already hold all the cards, all the

21 evidence, all the information, and all the power in

22 consumer litigation.

23 The proposed changes are going to affect every

24 consumer's ability to have his or her case fairly and

25 fully considered before a court and before fact finders.

1 investigate the wrongdoer?

2 Well, maybe you would, and there are

3 constitutional provisions there that -- and case law

4 that guides us in that respect.

5 The issues that are of importance, our clients

6 have suffered from violations that only the defendant

7 has the evidence in their possession.

8 For instance, if I have a financial services

9 client, they may have their bank statements and proof of

10 payments, but the policies of the bank, the procedures

11 that they follow, but most importantly, the witnesses,

12 the people who actually handled our clients' accounts,

13 we have to talk to them.

14 And sometimes, even though in the Eastern

15 District of Virginia -- and let me tell you, the judges

16 have us on a very tight schedule, and a very short

17 leash, so we are not going to be getting phased

18 discovery. We have to phase that discovery ourselves.

19 You have heard it before, and I'll tell you

20 again, when we're working on a contingency fee, we're

21 not going to multiply discovery unnecessarily, and we

22 don't have the luxury of doing phase discovery, but we

23 do have to propound interrogatories, requests for

24 production, and interview some witnesses before we know

25 where discovery is going to go.
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1 We don't propound discovery that we can't

2 defend on a motion to compel. Every piece of discovery

3 we send out, and I see the same lawyers over and over

4 again, and I love them -- I mean, I feel like I have

5 personally trained numerous Jones Day associates, and

6 I'm very proud of them, they're very good -- but we

7 don't propound discovery that we can't defend on a

8 motion to compel. How am I going to face the judge that

9 I have to go and see day in and day out?

10 I was a law clerk to a federal magistrate judge

11 for seven years, and believe me, I saw a lot of

12 discovery disputes on that end too. I think that

13 implementing the proportionality requirement is kind of

14 insulting to the bench. Our judges, our jurists can

15 deal with these questions when they are brought on a

16 motion to compel.

17 Every single interrogatory, request for

18 production comes back to me with a boilerplate

19 objection, a general objection, I have a meet and

20 confer, they never have any authority. This drags the

21 process out.

22 Adding these proportionality requirements are

23 not going to assist us in getting to the truth of the

24 matter. Defendants rarely make substantive 26(a)(1)

25 disclosures. We haven't talked about that really at all

1 it's transparent, that the proposal on proportionality

2 lines up exclusively with people who have got all the

3 cards?

4 Well, focus in on the word "transparent."

5 MS. ROTKIS: To me, your Honor, it is

6 transparent. There hasn't been a single person from the

7 plaintiff's side -- have there been support of the

8 proportionality requirements?

9 I think most of us view it as a hurdle. Most

10 of us already encounter those hurdles. I don't have any

11 empirical evidence for you, but I will say that our

12 associations are uniformly of that opinion.

13 HON. PRATTER: So that's pretty clear.

14 (Laughter.)

15 HON. PRATTER: I'm more concerned with

16 the suggestions that the proposal is a transparent

17 lining up by the drafters of the proposal with one side.

18 MS. ROTKIS: I don't mean to attack the

19 neutrality of the forum, I sincerely don't, and I

20 apologize for that. That is a bad judgment in choice of

21 words on my part.

22 HON. CAMPBELL: John.

23 HON. KOELTL: I also in my notes made a

24 note of the same comment. Particularly after we just

25 heard from a representative of Sedona who represents

1 today.

2 Without substantive 26(a)(1) disclosures, you

1 both plaintiffs and defendants who supported the change

2 to 26(b)(1).

3 have no idea who their witnesses are, and what documents

4 they are going to rely on for their defenses. So you

5 have to do some general discovery to just discover who's

6 even involved in the case.

7 Many consumers, they come to us at their

8 darkest hour. They have been fighting for a long time

9 to correct inaccuracies on the consumer reports, federal

10 bank accounts. They have no resources except the power

11 of the Federal Consumer Protection Statutes.

12 The only reason that these Federal Consumer

13 Protection Statutes have worked is because judges have

14 gotten behind our ability to discover what those

15 defendants are doing, and liability is rarely a

16 question.

17 If they come right out with their 26(a)(1) and

18 give us the documents that we need, we would not need a

19 trial, we would not need a dispositive motion, these

20 cases would actually settle quite early.

21 That's all I have got.

22 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

23 Jean.

24 HON. PRATTER: Well, do you really

25 think -- what did you really mean when you said that

3 We have heard from the general counsel of the

4 EEOC, who supported the change to 26(b)(1).

5 We have read comments from the Justice

6 Department who represents both plaintiffs and defendants

7 who have supported the changes to Rule 26(b)(1).

8 The question for those of us who are

9 responsible for proposals to the rules is ultimately

10 whether it furthers the just, speedy and inexpensive

11 determination of every action. So we have to listen to

12 the merits of the arguments.

13 That's all.

14 HON. CAMPBELL: Peter.

15 HON. KOELTL: Just a question about how

16 you see proportionality playing out.

17 You said that when you are representing an

18 individual plaintiff you're going to have to depose

19 people who handle his or her account, that kind of

20 thing.

21 I would assume that for an individual plaintiff

22 taking the depositions of the people who handled that

23 person's account will always be considered proportional.

24 For a class action you will always be able to

25 get, you know, the broader kind of information that
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1 would relate to the treatment of members of the class.

2 Is there just a case that the gray area here

3 where the proportionality thing might play out in a way

4 that raises the most questions would be when you have an

5 individual action and you're looking beyond what relates

6 to that person's interactions with the institution, but

7 trying to show how other similarly situated people have

8 handled it, is that the scope that we are talking about

9 which is at issue?

10 MS. ROTKIS: I didn't intend that, but I

11 can see where you're going with that, because many

12 defense attorneys are always concerned when you have

13 class action attorneys deposing your employees, where is

14 that going to go?

15 HON. KOELTL: Yes. But in a nonclass

16 action, is that where the space is that you are

17 concerned about?

18 MS. ROTKIS: Well, the standard of proof

19 in many FCRA cases, for instance, is whether the

20 defendants had reasonable procedures in place to assure

21 maximum possible accuracy.

22 So I don't take any cases where the case is we

23 have to find out their policies and procedures, and how

24 they treated that person is very much how they are going

25 to treat everybody else.

1 questions. I'm not sure if I'm getting to your

2 question. So you talk to the operators who do it, you

3 talk to the people who implemented the policies.

4 Sometimes there are more esoteric questions that haven't

5 been dealt with in the law before.

6 We have a couple of cases right now, one is a

7 class action, but it had -- I guess that's not

8 responsive to your question.

9 HON. CAMPBELL: Ms. Rotkis, thank you

10 very much for your comments.

11 Dan Regard.

12 MR. REGARD: Your Honor, other members of

13 the advisory committee, thank you.

14 My name is Dan Regard. I'm the CEO of

15 iDiscovery Solutions. When you need discovery

16 consulting services we pride ourselves in influencing

17 that area and section of law and technology.

18 I'm an 18-year member of the Louisiana Bar

19 Association.

20 I'm an original member of the Sedona Conference

21 Working Group I and working Group VI.

22 But I belong to no special interest group, and

23 my work is a subject matter expert. I have worked on

24 all sides of the V, plaintiff, defendant, on behalf

25 government agencies, in front of government agencies in

1 But we have to fight this fight every single

2 time. I just, you know, sort of sitting there looking

3 at my phone, getting documents and cases, looking over

4 them, you know, this is playing out every day as I am

5 getting my ECF notices on my phone, these very issues.

6 HON. KOELTL: Just to understand, there

is

7 no really -- presumably the policies and procedures are

8 reduced to a manual, you know, the simplified situation,

9 that would be easy for you to get.

10 So there is another category of ways you would

11 have proven policies and procedures that would require

12 more expansive discovery than what I'm talking about,

13 right?

14 So what is that that you fear would be

15 considered disproportionate in an individual plaintiff

16 action, but that you nonetheless feel you need in order

17 to be able to put on a provable case.

18 MS. ROTKIS: You know, I'm trying to

19 think of an example.

20 In Equal Credit Opportunity cases oftentimes

21 there is a policy and procedure in place that doesn't

22 happen because decisions are being made on an individual

23 basis, whether somebody was current on their mortgage at

24 the time that they applied for loan modification.

25 I mean, there could be individualized

1 criminal matters, and as a special master.

2 Today I'm here as a technologist, not as a

3 jurist. As such I'm not here to advocate a particular

4 role or particular wording -- excuse me -- rule or

5 particular wording, but I am here to alert you to an

6 area of ambiguity, and to provide some support for your

7 efforts.

8 In terms of ambiguity, many commentators had

9 noted that there is an ambiguity in the use of the

10 phrase, quote, "willful or in bad faith," under the

11 proposed language for 37(e)(1)(b) Roman numeral I.

12 From a constructionism and grammatical point,

13 use of the conjunctive "or" has been highlighted by the

14 comments of those submitted to the committee directly

15 and indirectly.

16 However, there is also another type of

17 ambiguity. The interpretation of "willfulness" as a

18 technologically empowered action. This argument is the

19 following.

20 All automated systems are purposely set up, or

21 are purposely configured, and therefore if an automated

22 system deletes information, is that willful?

23 There are several aspects of the technology I

24 will highlight. I want to focus on data cashes, data

25 movement, system shortcuts and cloud computing.
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1 Data movement. When data is moved, it is not

2 moved. Rather it is copied and then deleted.

3 Therefore, every time data is moved it is

4 deleted.

5 No, it is not destroyed, because it now exists

6 in the new location, but it is deleted from the old

7 location, and this concept alone has befuddled many

8 jurists.

9 So the question is when original data is

10 deleted from the original location, is that willful?

11 Data caches. Data caches move data in a way

12 that makes our computers appear faster. Small portions

13 of data are stored close to where you are using that

14 data to improve response time. That means that data is

15 being stored somewhere, and when the need is gone, it is

16 deleted.

17 There is the word again. "Deleted." Not

18 destroyed, in the main location, at least.

19 Caching is so effective it is used everywhere.

20 When you browse a website on the Internet, dozens, if

21 not hundreds of cashes are created for each page that

22 you view. The result is data is being copied in

23 potentially hundreds of locations each time you go to

24 that page. Some are short-lived. Others, not much.

25 Most of them are stretched out along a very

1 recovery tapes, is that willful?

2 My recommendation to the committee is they take

3 serious the comments to address the language of

4 37(e)(1)(b)(1), and find a way to clarify the use of the

5 word "willful," either by striking the word, by changing

6 the word "or" to the word "and," by defining the word

7 "willful," by referencing the current language of 37(e)

8 with respect to "system, processees," or by clarifying

9 the language of "willful" via examples.

10 With my remaining time I would like to

11 encourage the committee to continue its work on these

12 rules. There has been some commentary that the rules

13 are not necessary -- the rule changes rather.

14 I disagree, but for different reasons. My

15 reasons are forward-looking, not backward looking.

16 Normally the law follows the emergence of

17 problems and common law solutions. As a result, our

18 codified laws land with problems.

19 But respect to the rapid development of the

20 Internet I would suggest the problem is already here,

21 which is why we're here today, and it's only the

22 beginning of the problem.

23 As a technologist I am already seeing things

24 such as the emergence of the Internet of things. This

25 refers to the connecting of objects rather than people

1 long connection of Internet computers that feed you the

2 information from its source to your computer. Some of

3 them are stored in your computer itself, whether you

4 know it or not. If these temporary cashes are deleted,

5 is that willful?

6 Cloud computing. More concerning is

7 technological use of cloud computing. This is resulting

8 great economies of sale, but also an attenuation of

9 control of computer centers, including file storage

10 centers, databases and disaster recovery systems.

11 Meaning it becomes exponentially more difficult

12 to talk to these backup tapes or stop the maintenances

13 of databases when you are renting capacity rather than

14 running a center yourself. This may result in different

15 rules depending on who is utilizing the system for the

16 willfulness of a computerized program.

17 If a company owns their datacenter and

18 configures their system to delete disaster recovery

19 tapes after 30 days, this could lead to a situation

20 where willfulness is construed against them. But if

21 they rent their datacenter which has identical capacity,

22 they didn't make the configuration, are they also held

23 to the same standard?

24 If you have a Twitter account and if you are

25 sued and Twitter does not stop recycling disaster

1 to the Internet in an interactive data tracking manner.

2 According to Gardener there will be nearly 26

3 billion devices on the Internet by the year 2020. This

4 will result in terabytes of data per person. Most of

5 that data will contain location, date and time

6 information. Data vibes of this magnitude will affect

7 everyone, defendants, plaintiffs and agencies alike.

8 Finally, I want to address the idea that

9 technology will solve the problems created by

10 technology.

11 Perhaps eventually, but not in a timely

12 fashion. Our best data tools today are dealing with

13 date vibes that are five or ten years old. The lag time

14 will not go away. The solution will always trail behind

15 the problem.

16 I believe that my company has expertise to work

17 around some of these issues, I hope we do, but I know

18 that the tools and the expertise is not evenly

19 distributed.

20 Therefore, given the rapid growth of data in

21 the world and the time required to make these types of

22 rule changes, I support the committee's work and

23 recommend that you move forward with anything that would

24 address the cost, scope and proportionality of

25 discovery. If not for the problems we have today, then
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1 for the challenges we will have tomorrow.

2 Thank you.

3 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

4 (No response.)

5 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

6 very much for those comments, Mr. Regard.

7 John Martin.

8 MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

9 I'm the other John Martin.

10 I appreciate the committee's work, and the

11 opportunity to be heard today.

12 I'm a partner with the law firm of Nelson

13 Mullins Riley & Scarborough. I work out of our

14 Columbia, South Carolina office. I manage and am

15 responsible for our firm's electronic discovery

16 practice, and in that practice we have 30

17 professionals -- over 30 professionals who fight in

18 these trenches every day, both in a counseling and in an

19 advocacy role for our clients. And also the operational

20 side of the discovery where the rubber meets the road,

21 the preservation and collection and production like what

22 we're talking about today.

23 While I generally support the -- by the way, my

24 opinions that I express today are purely my own, not of

25 my firm, or of our clients -- and I am generally

1 get a lot of litigation. Their IT department was

2 planning a migration from Window 7 to Windows 8 that

3 involves some technical details.

4 That migration is now on hold permanently until

5 we can get some meaningful feedback from the plaintiffs

6 in that litigation about the information that they need

7 to prosecute their case, and through their own need to

8 get it proper.

9 So we're dealing with a real problem on the

10 preservation front, and I am very thankful for the

11 committee's attempts to address that.

12 But because of the explosion of the data that

13 Mr. Regard mentioned, unchecked fear driven over

14 preservation is simply not sustainable.

15 I agree that the notion -- I agree that the

16 notion that technology will solve this issue is

17 aspirational at best. I know that others will speak to

18 that later today.

19 I want to focus in on Rule 37(e) for a couple

20 of minutes.

21 One, I agree. I support the amendments

22 overall. I agree that we -- that the standard of

23 "willful" could be interpreted to encompass almost any

24 degree of action or inaction. And thus, favor the use

25 of "and" rather than "or" for a combined standard there.

1 supportive of the rules, and appreciate the extreme

2 amount of work that has gone into it from this committee

3 and others to put that package forth.

4 In my role as counsel to corporations across a

5 number of industry sectors which spans pharmaceutical,

6 health care, manufacturing and other sectors, I

7 routinely see clients who come to me, and many of whom

8 are still in what I consider a preservation paralysis

9 mode.

10 It may be a health care company that feels like

11 they have no choice but to maintain a warehouse of over

12 a half million backup tapes at the cost of a million

13 dollars a year, because they can't competently rule out

14 the idea that some information that is sitting somewhere

15 on their tapes may be snuffed out by one of their many

16 litigation holes.

17 I see pharmaceutical companies who will have

18 three-quarters of their products line subject to

19 essentially a perpetual global litigation hold because

20 of this string of legal actions that attach to a major

21 global product over time.

22 But we also work with smaller clients. Just in

23 the last two days I was on the phone with a client of

24 less than a thousand employees who are dealing with

25 litigation that was filed about a year ago. They don't

1 The result of the current state of the rules is

2 a gotcha game that is frequently -- it's not only at our

3 corporate clients, but also at their in-house and

4 outside counsel, and that results in -- results in

5 additional over preservation.

6 The reality is in the litigation that we see

7 there is little realistic incentive for requesting

8 parties to narrow their requests or tailor their

9 demands. That forces both in-house and outside counsel,

10 such as myself, into a defensive process mode rather

11 than analysis of claim mode, which leads to, again, more

12 over preservation, and distracts from the type of

13 dialogue and reflection that is needed to either resolve

14 claims, or to get them to trial.

15 Finally, in my last bit of time I want to point

16 out what may be an unintended consequence in Rule

17 37(e)(1) and 37(e)(2)(a), both in the curative measures

18 language, and in the factors to be considered language.

19 There are general references to conduct in

20 litigation as opposed to conduct in the litigation.

21 This is why I think this is potentially important.

22 We have seen recently a disturbing trend where

23 requesting parties are seeking discovery into prior

24 litigation holds that our client at issue in completely

25 separate legal matters, but may have had some overlap
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1 with data sources that could be at issue in the instant

2 litigation.

3 Completely different historical litigation,

1

2 litigation.

3

PROF. MARCUS: Well, a series is the

MR. MARTIN: A series could be the

4 privileged communications instructing holds maybe as far

5 back as a decade, but seeking discovery into those prior

6 hold directives.

7 Thus, the intent of the strategy is to

8 piggyback on the prior litigation hold directive to

9 shift the preservation trigger to some point far long

10 before the current case. That is a disturbing trend.

11 My concern is without adding the word "the" in

12 front of litigation in 37(e)(1) and 37(e)(2)(a), it

13 could kill that trend which we are seeing, and many of

14 my clients are especially concerned about it.

15 I appreciate the committee's time, and stand

16 ready for your questions.

17 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions?

18 (No response.)

19 HON. CAMPBELL: To be clear, your

20 suggestion then in 37(e)(1) would say, "If a party

21 failed to preserve discoverable information that should

22 have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of

23 the litigation."

24 MR. MARTIN: Yes, sir, that is exactly

25 right, as opposed to just "any historic litigation."

4 litigation, but a series could also not be the

5 litigation. Because you may have a product that has,

6 you know, patent litigation, early on there a contract

7 litigation with suppliers, there is then some type of

8 alleged personal injury case, and then five years later

9 there is a completely different personal injury case.

10 You can say that a series of litigation, but

11 that certainly, in my opinion, would not trigger a

12 litigation hold dating back to the first in the series.

13 My intent today isn't to ask for a trigger rule

14 from this committee. I understand that has been

15 discussed, and that ship has sailed, but I think these

16 small modifications could help prevent a gotcha game

17 that we are seeing develop quite recently.

18 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

19 very much for your comments, Mr. Martin.

20 Ashish Prasad.

21 MR. PRASAD: Good afternoon.

22 My name is Ashish Prasad. I am the founder and

23 CEO of a company called Discovery Services LLC, which

24 handles document review and electronic discovery matters

25 across the country.

1 The focus of a sanctions discussion under this

2 rule ought to be focused on the absolute litigation at

3 hand, not under an alleged preservation duty from the

4 prior litigation that has nothing to do with the instant

5 case other than the fact that perhaps it touches on the

6 same database that could need preservation for this

7 case.

8 PROF. MARCUS: A little clarification.

9 Earlier today I think there was some reference

10 to Toyota sudden acceleration cases.

11 What's involved in that litigation --

12 MR. MARTIN: I was not here for that

13 testimony.

14 PROF. MARCUS: You have heard of the

15 cases?

16 MR. MARTIN: Yes. I'm familiar with the

17 case, yes.

18 PROF. MARCUS: Well, cases.

19 Is the litigation only crash number 311, or is

20 it also the 310 before that?

21 MR. MARTIN: That's going to vary from

22 case to case. So in that circumstance, if you have a

23 series of product liability cases that relate to a

24 particular product, for example, and relate to the same

25 issue --

1 I founded the company five years ago when I

2 took a leave of absence from my position as a litigation

3 partner, and head of the discovery practice at Meri

4 Brown.

5 Over the course of the past decade I have spent

6 more time on ediscovery than any reasonable person would

7 ever do. I have authored two treatises, published

8 dozens of articles, taught at Northwestern Law School,

9 and basically all over the bar on topics of ediscovery.

10 The reason I'm here today is to talk about a

11 narrow issue, but an important issue. This is the issue

12 that some members of the committee brought up in

13 Phoenix, which is the issue of technology-assisted

14 review, and what is the impact of technology-assisted

15 review on discovery costs.

16 A very important issue, because document review

17 constitutes a large cost when it comes to electronic

18 discovery, and litigation in particular.

19 I would like to say it's wonderful that the

20 committee has focused in on this precise issue, because

21 I think it's a big ticket item.

22 So let me begin by explaining what I mean when

23 I say, "technology-assisted review."

24 Technology-assisted review means the use of

25 computer search tools to make the process of attorneys
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1 reviewing documents for relevance, privilege and issue

2 codes more accurate and more efficient.

3 Everyone in this room is familiar with search

4 terms and how search terms are used to cull large

5 volumes of collected data and determine what of that

6 data that's collected is going to be reviewed by

7 attorneys for purposes of determining relevance,

8 privilege or issue code responsiveness.

9 Over the past five years or so we have had a

10 new development in the area of technology-assisted

11 review, and that development is often referred to as

12 predictive coding.

13 Predictive coding is an approach to document

14 review in which a small group of very qualified

15 reviewers, usually law firm partners or counsel or

16 associates, will review a small subset of a larger

17 volume of documents.

18 The results of their coding of that small

19 subset will then be fed into a machine, and the machine

20 will extrapolate based on what those reviewers did to a

21 much larger volume of documents.

22 So since this approach to document review has

23 evolved there has been a lot of controversy in the

24 narrow circles of the bar in which I live, the

25 ediscovery circle.

1 prediction I make.

2 The first prediction -- reason for the

3 prediction is that most of the practitioners in the

4 country today are not comfortable having the machine

5 look at large volumes of documents.

6 Most of practitioners today want attorneys to

7 look at large volumes of documents so that the law firm

8 and the client can understand what the case is actually

9 about.

10 Most practitioners are very reluctant because

11 they know that the documents often contain personally

12 identifiable information, trade secrets, business

13 sensitive information.

14 So even in cases where we have predictive

15 coding available, and we can say that it will lead to a

16 reduction in review costs, more often than not the

17 clients will say we still want to do a lot of review.

18 Usually what I see, because I have many

19 predictive coding matters going on, as well as

20 nonpredictive coding matters, is that a good rule of

21 thumb is that if predictive coding is being used, one

22 will cut the review volume, and therefore, the review

23 cost by about 25 percent. It is not more than that.

24 The attorneys in our matters are still

25 insisting on reviewing all the responsive documents

1 Some people say that predictive coding is going

2 to dramatically reduce discovery cost over the next

3 decade.

4 Some people say that predictive coding is going

5 to make it unnecessary for attorneys to be hired to look

6 at large volumes of documents in large cases, because

7 the computer can do the work.

8 Other people say that predictive coding is a

9 fad and that it's the issue of the day and that

10 ultimately we will find another issue of the day and

11 attorneys will always been reviewing large volumes of

12 documents.

13 I am going to gaze into the crystal ball and

14 offer a prediction, although I hesitate to do it in the

15 company of so many well-informed people.

16 My prediction is that over the next decade the

17 advent of predictive coding will make attorney document

18 review more efficient and more accurate, and it will

19 lead to a small reduction in attorney review costs in

20 the next few years.

21 But I also predict that during that same time

22 other factors will offset that decrease in review costs,

23 and will cause discovery costs to remain where they are

24 now as a result of document review costs, or even grow.

25 There are two reasons supporting this

1 before they go out the door, all the privileged

2 documents, and even a subset of the nonresponsive

3 documents.

4 The second reason I made the prediction I did

5 is that we are seeing large increases in data volume

6 being collected every year for purposes of discovery.

7 Sometimes we're seeing 25 or 30 percent

8 year-on-year increases in how much data is even being

9 collected for discovery.

10 If we're seeing those kinds of increases, it's

11 having the effect of offsetting the efficiencies that

12 we're gaining as a result of predictive coding.

13 So what I think is going to happen is that

14 technology is going to continue to improve with respect

15 to the predictive coding. It's a great development. It

16 allows us to do the reviews more quickly, have the

17 reviewers look at the more important documents, but we

18 are not seeing a meaningful reduction in discovery costs

19 absent some big change in adoption.

20 Now, one could say over time lawyers will adopt

21 to new technology, but if I have to predict, I would say

22 that's going to be many, many years away based on what I

23 have been seeing over the past five years.

24 I really appreciate being able to come to talk

25 to you on such a narrow but important topic.
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1 If anybody would like to make any comments, or

2 ask any questions, I would be delighted to talk about

3 it.

4 HON. CAMPBELL: Questions.

5 (No response.)

6 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

7 very much, Mr. Prasad.

8 MR. PRASAD: Thank you.

9 HON. CAMPBELL: While Ariana Tadler is

10 coming to the lectern, everybody stand up again for a

11 minute.

12 Not because of you, Ms. Tadler, but just to

13 stretch.

14 (Brief pause in the proceedings.)

15 HON. CAMPBELL: Okay. Let's carry on.

16 MS. TADLER: Very well then.

17 Thank you very much for letting me have the

18 opportunity to speak before you today.

19 I'm not usually wed to notes. Actually, quite

20 frankly, I do a lot of public speaking, and I usually

21 don't use notes at all, but I feel that there are so

22 many issues that are before you, and that have really

23 been jelling, that I am going to rely on them.

24 My name is Ariana Tadler. I'm a partner at

25 Milberg LLP. For the past 22 years I have focused

1 Five minutes is insufficient to possibly cover

2 the various areas that are before you, including those

3 which tend to be the most controversial.

4 I'm principally going to focus on Rule 37(e),

5 because I think it has had the longest process life, and

6 unfortunately I hear too little attention by the broader

7 bar during the formal comment period, and in recent

8 months has in fact generated a number of interesting and

9 creative suggestions that have yet to be fully vetted,

10 including from some very interesting groups, including

11 interest groups, corporations, the DOJ, and now several

12 judges who have put their own comments in.

13 More on 37(e) in a moment.

14 If I have time, I will turn to my objections to

15 the proposals governing proportionality and scope, which

16 in short, I believe are unfair insofar as the apparent

17 increased burdens to be placed on those who already have

18 increasingly stringent pleadings and burdens of proof,

19 and will inevitably lead to extensive motion practice on

20 an uneven playing field, and about that I am very, very

21 concerned.

22 Presumptive limits, I also oppose, for which

23 there has been no empirical showing to my knowledge to

24 justify change, for which I have tangible examples,

25 including in the last two weeks in cases where I would

1 principally on many areas of complex and class action

2 litigation on behalf of principally plaintiffs, although

3 I have also represented corporations on both sides of

4 the V, 90 percent of my practice is in federal court.

5 Over the last 11 years I have built a very

6 successful ediscovery practice, and so I am told, I have

7 earned a solid reputation as being knowledgeable,

8 reasonable and cooperative, in which I take great pride.

9 I served for five years as chair of the Working

10 Group 1 for the Sedona Conference governing document

11 retention and production, and I currently now serve

12 actively as the chair emeritus of that group.

13 I am also among a select group of lawyers that

14 was asked to serve to put together the Southern District

15 of New York Complex Lit Title Pilot Program.

16 I have also been an active observer of this

17 rules committee and the work that it's been doing,

18 engaging in active dialogue, reviewing the proposals as

19 they come out, also attending meetings, and I can

20 honestly attest to the hard work and the openness and

21 the transparency of this process for which I am very

22 grateful.

23 So I thank you again for the work that you have

24 done, and for the opportunity to be here.

25 The comments that I make today are my own.

1 think I would have no problem negotiating with the other

2 side in working things out.

3 I have been -- even heard in certain circles

4 among corporations that quite frankly they were not

5 urging these presumptive limits. They support them now

6 because they're here in the package, but that they were

7 not urging them as much as perhaps you have heard.

8 On the plus side, I fully support the change to

9 Rule 1, but would urge incorporation of the word from

10 corporate cooperation in the actual rule. I think that

11 makes a difference.

12 For those of us who have lived in the Sedona

13 bubble and who have lived and breathed and created the

14 concept of cooperation, it works. It really, really

15 works. It's a win, win. When we don't cooperate -- or

16 I should say when others don't cooperate, because you

17 won't find me there -- judges know it. That's when

18 they -- people can be called to be accountable.

19 I also support the amendment in Rule 26(d)(2)

20 regarding early Rule 34 requests, 34(b)(2)(a) and the

21 provisions governing responses under Rule 34(b)(2)(b).

22 As I did at the Duke Conference in 2010, and

23 since I have spoken favorably about active judicial

24 management, but don't be fooled, rules that in practice

25 will increase motion practice under the proposals will
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1 deplete, if not eliminate, the opportunity for judicial

2 management given already stressed judicial resources

3 today.

4 Rule 26's proportionality and scope of

5 presumption limits will do just that, as will Rule

6 37(e).

7 Rule 37(e) is the most complex and difficult of

8 the tasks the committee has undertaken. The issues of

9 preservation and sanctions has been the subject of

10 attention far longer than the proposed Rule 37(e).

11 Indeed, preservation was an issue in the

12 context of the Rule -- of the 2006 amendment, and it was

13 determined at that time that that issue of preservation

14 was too thorny and even untouchable.

15 So now we take it from the other side. We're

16 coming in on the other end with sanctions.

17 As late as April 2013 the committee was still

18 considering alternatives to the rules and you were still

19 hearing comments and you were wordsmithing.

20 And even before that time, before you released

21 the ultimate package, there were literally hundreds of

22 comments that were coming in, but that I understand the

23 committee wanted to wait so that it could get the

24 package out, and then consider those as well as

25 reactions to the package today.

1 that the doors to justice not be further closed.

2 I sincerely believe, as Butterfield stated at

3 the 2010 Duke Conference, that the fault lies not within

4 the rules, it lies with those who don't use, apply and

5 enforce them correctly.

6 It lies with lawyers who don't cooperate.

7 It lies with the way in which we all create and

8 manage, or choose not to manage in a reasonable and

9 defensible way, information.

10 On the subject of this proposal the divide

11 between those who represent corporations and those who

12 promote civil consumer industrial rights is not just

13 large, it's enormous, it's dark, it's ugly.

14 That in and of itself should tell us to stop

15 and rethink, and not because the process hasn't been

16 transparent. It's because people have such strong

17 feelings about this kind of rule that there is more work

18 to be done.

19 I don't support a rule on this issue. I

20 believe that the committee does feel strongly about

21 issuing a rule. I would submit to you that we're just

22 not there yet, and that there is more work to be done.

23 Even the Sedona Conference, as Conor spoke to

24 you earlier, struggled, and they are known for reaching

25 consensus, they struggled so hard, and then ultimately

1 I understand waiting. I understand why and to

2 get through and to get something out for a real full

3 transparent view, but the public comments that have been

4 submitted since August reflect a very, very vigorous

5 debate. And some of the issues are the difference

6 between curative measures and sanctions, culpability

7 standards and burdens, who bears the burden.

8 Some say it's not clear, but others believe

9 it's quite clear, and those speak in hushed tones for

10 they are waiting in the wings ready to stand before a

11 court and boldly argue, oh, wait, Rule 37(e) says it

12 right there, it's on the requesting party, that's where

13 the burden is.

14 So the party who doesn't have the information,

15 that's why she asked for it, and does not know what

16 happened to the information, or how it was destroyed or

17 why, is supposed to now have all the answers if she

18 wants justice, remedial or punitive.

19 Really? How is that supposed to work?

20 I still haven't been able to figure that out.

21 If in fact that intent had been answered and it was

22 spelled out clearly in a proposed rule, far more

23 opponents of the rule, I believe, would be clamoring at

24 the door about this very rule, imploring that the

25 burdens to right wrongs not be heard and increased, and

1 you saw a position that was put before you from the

2 steering committee.

3 The steering committee's presentation

4 specifically had a footnote. It was a disclaimer

5 because we really did not have consensus.

6 I think that too tells you something. It

7 doesn't mean stop and throw it all in the trash and walk

8 away. It means that there is just more work to be done.

9 We have heard some things today that have

10 really been very interesting. Up until now in my mind

11 there has been no empirical evidence, including based

12 upon a study that we incurred some years back.

13 We heard about some statistics. Those

14 statistics, based upon my review, did not support the

15 kind of changes that we are looking at.

16 But now today we have actually heard from

17 Professor Hubbard. Two and a half years later we're

18 hearing that he doesn't have any empirical evidence

19 about cost. Nothing more today than he had before.

20 He reports that there were detailed

21 questionnaires that were completed by 126 companies.

22 Extensive interviews conducted with only 13.

23 Detailed matter level data on litigation holds

24 were provided by six companies. Six.

25 In most litigation matters preservation scope
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1 is not broad, well over half the matters had 20 holds or

2 fewer.

3 Even Mr. Hubbard concludes that a benefit of

4 the proposed amendments is likely a modest -- or I think

5 Mr. Hubbard today also said small -- reduction in

6 preservation costs.

7 But what we don't know, and I haven't heard it,

8 is how is this rule going to solve over preservation?

9 How is it going to do that?

10 There are proponents on the corporate side who

11 believe 37(e) will provide further clarity on that

12 issue.

13 Again, there is nothing that I have seen that

14 answers that question.

15 Simply put, the rule will not alleviate over

16 preservation. The solution simply cannot be to insulate

17 producing parties, including companies, without the

18 ability and means to manage their data when consequences

19 of destroying them have been evidenced.

20 I see that my time is nearly up, so I will

21 suggest this to you.

22 I believe that we heard a lot of very

23 interesting and creative ideas and modifications.

24 We have seen some suggested modifications from

25 the DOJ.

1 in massive accident cases, pharmaceutical companies and

2 medical device and mass tort cases.

3 In the course of my practice over recent years

4 I have seen the burden, expense and gamesmanship of

5 discovery, and especially ediscovery, overwhelm the case

6 and detract from the merits and the liability issues in

7 the case.

8 So I recognize and appreciate the efforts that

9 this committee has made to try and address some of these

10 problems with these proposed changes to the rules. I'm

11 here today to voice my support for those proposed

12 changes.

13 I have some comments that I want to focus on,

14 two particular aspects of the proposed changes, Rule

15 37(e) and the presumptive limits on the number of

16 depositions and the duration of the depositions.

17 With respect to Rule 37(e) I think it's an

18 important change, because I have been provided some

19 guidance in uniformity regarding when sanctions may be

20 imposed for the failure to preserve discoverable

21 information.

22 I disagree with Ms. Tadler that this would do

23 anything to deal with the over preservation issue.

24 From my personal experience in dealing with

25 clients who are facing these large requests and

1 You have received comments now from some very,

2 very knowledgeable judges.

3 Judge Francis has given you a proposal, an

4 actual proposal. The words are there.

5 I would suggest that you take that back, and

6 that you use that as a baseline.

7 The last thing that I would want to do is to

8 add to your oh-so-not-spare time, because we are all so

9 grateful for all that you do, but in my mind we're just

10 not there yet.

11 Thank you for your time.

12 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

13 very much, Ms. Tadler.

14 Jennifer Henry.

15 MS. HENRY: Good afternoon.

16 Perhaps I should say good evening.

17 It's my pleasure to be here, and to share my

18 comments about the proposed rules that this committee

19 has so thoughtfully studied and extensively spent some

20 time considering.

21 My name is Jennifer Henry, and I'm a partner

22 with the law firm of Thompson Knight here in the

23 Dallas-Fort Worth area.

24 I have been in private practice for 22 years,

25 and my practice has primarily been representing airlines

1 obligation to preserve information, I do think that it

2 would help the problems that they face.

3 The current state of law is in flux, and it's

4 inconsistent among the different circuits. Many of my

5 clients work, however, and do business all across all

6 the circuits, or various circuits, and so they need to

7 go to the standard in which the burden, or the threshold

8 for having the sanctions, is the lowest and meet with

9 that.

10 So they live in this fear of releasing

11 information from a litigation hold. Even though there's

12 no indication that any material evidence for a

13 particular custodian may be relevant to matters, they

14 have this fear to potentially release it, even though

15 there is no willful or bad faith or specific intent to

16 deprive the other party from information, that they

17 could be subject to sanctions. This over preservation

18 of information could be incredibly expensive, and a

19 waste of resources.

20 As an example, one of my clients is an airline

21 who does business across the world, and at any one time

22 it may have litigation holds in place for a variety of

23 different cases. Not only antitrust matters or

24 government investigations, employment matters, and the

25 air disaster or air crash cases in which I'm involved
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1 with them.

2 Some of these custodians may overlap matters,

3 and when a new matter comes in for a particular

4 litigation, and that custodian is already subject to a

5 litigation hold, then under the new hold that is just

6 adding on all that additional information, because that

7 custodian has already been under a hold for a

8 significant period of time, which increases the burden

9 for this particular client in all of the preservation

10 costs that they have to incur.

11 This particular client has five full-time

12 employees whose sole duties are to identify custodians,

13 collect their materials, routinely followup on

14 litigation holds, and manage the preservation of these

15 materials. These are their duties of five full-time

16 employees. That doesn't even deal with the review of

17 the materials.

18 This is not a particularly awful company that

19 is getting into a lot of trouble. These are just the

20 average issues of doing business.

21 So I ask if whether this having five full-time

22 employees that are necessary for this company to meet

23 what it believes its obligations are under the

24 current -- with the breadth of sanctions in the

25 discovery world, whether that's a productive use of

1 only used maybe a handful in the case. So it doesn't

2 seem that it's a very efficient and productive use of

3 the discovery process.

4 These are very real problems, so I think there

5 is a real need for the guidance that's set forth in Rule

6 37(e).

7 I would, however, advocate that the committee

8 consider making two changes to the rules. The first --

9 I think Ms. Lusk spoke about, I think others have --

10 pertains to the language where it states that sanctions

11 may be appropriate if it was willful or in bad faith.

12 I believe that the word should be "and" for the

13 reasons that she explained. "Willful" can be

14 interpreted by some to be just the intentional act of

15 saying, okay, we can delete -- or add a particular

16 custodian to the auto delete, or we can put them --

17 remove them from our litigation hold, even though there

18 is no specific intent to deprive the other party of

19 material information.

20 Now, I think that that intent, the specific

21 intent is what's critical and important if you are going

22 to be imposing sanctions, which is essentially a

23 punishment, so that should be for some wrongdoing.

24 My other concern with the proposed Rule 37(e)

25 is in the subsection, the little i. So it's

1 Human Resources.

2 I would argue that with more certainty provided

3 by Rule 37(e) that maybe those numbers can be reduced,

4 and we can have a more productive use of these

5 individual's resources that would benefit society.

6 Some of the other things I have observed about

7 the electronic discovery preservation review process is

8 that the materials that are routinely preserved are for

9 numerous custodians who have nothing ultimately to do

10 with the litigation, or little connection with the case,

11 but they have been encompassed with the review or the

12 preservation of materials because they happen to be in

13 the same department, or were tangentially related.

14 I recognize that the committee in the proposed

15 rules aren't dealing with the trigger and the scope of

16 that, but to the extent the scope deals with the

17 proportionality, I think that that would be helpful.

18 Moreover, I have noticed in all of these

19 dealings with discovery that with this over preservation

20 and the demand for all of this ediscovery, you find

21 that, as some of the other witnesses have said, when you

22 get to a trial, despite the review and the production of

23 millions of pages of electronic documents, sometimes I

24 have found that the defendant -- I mean, the plaintiffs

25 have not even looked at the records, or has certainly

1 (e)(1)(b)(2) where it permits sanctions if the Court

2 finds that the party's actions irreparably deprived a

3 party of any meaningful opportunity to present or defend

4 against the claims in litigation.

5 That section has no culpability or bad faith

6 requirement either, and I think that that should be

7 considered and included with that section.

8 The other issue I want to touch on briefly is

9 the presumptive limits of depositions. I have heard

10 other -- and read comments from some of the other

11 hearings, and heard from some other individuals here

12 today complaining about the six-hour limit and the

13 limitation on the number of depositions.

14 I -- quite frankly, I disagree.

15 With respect to the time limit, I practice here

16 in Texas, and in 1999 there was a large revamping of our

17 discovery rules. One of the rules that we changed was

18 our limits on discovery and the time period and they

19 imposed a six-hour limit on depositions.

20 They also imposed a limit on the objections

21 that we could make so that we could not make any

22 speaking objections, and put forth a lot of other

23 restrictions that were to really control the misuse, and

24 make depositions hopefully more efficient.

25 During the 13 years that I have been practicing
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1 since those deposition new change rules have gone into

2 effect, it has remarkably -- I only had one instance

3 where it appeared to the parties that we needed to go

4 beyond the six-hour period, and we agreed to go beyond

5 it. The parties reached an agreement. It did not cause

6 any problems at all.

7 In fact, it kind of became a saying around, you

8 know, a good trial lawyer doesn't need any more than six

9 hours to take a deposition, take the deposition and get

10 what they need.

11 So I would argue or advocate that the six hours

12 is a fair -- and is an appropriate time in there.

13 Similarly, changing the presumptive limit on

14 the number of depositions from ten to five should also

15 not be a concern of practitioners. Because, again, it's

16 just a presumptive limit.

17 I think that by whittling it down to five, it

18 is causing and requiring the parties at the very

19 beginning to be more selective and think about do I

20 really need to take all of these depositions, and let me

21 be strategic with which depositions I'm going to take.

22 If they want to take more, then stipulations of

23 the parties, the agreement, or they still may seek leave

24 of the Court. Which, again, in my experience, any time

25 I have had a case where we needed more than the ten that

1 world and death row inmates and everyone in between as

2 both plaintiff and the defendant.

3 I'm an active member of Sedona. I teach

4 ediscovery at the University of Pennsylvania.

5 The one thing that I am most proud of is that

6 my firm is one of the first to use technology-assisted

7 review, and have done so on dozens and dozens of cases.

8 I'm a huge proponent, do not believe that this committee

9 should rely on it as a solution, as a panacea, or should

10 encourage it in the rules.

11 I'm happy to address anything and everything in

12 my written submission of January 15th, but I want to

13 talk about something new that has not been addressed

14 today, which I hope will lighten your hearts.

15 I'm only focusing on Rule 34. I think it's --

16 the amendments are under appreciated. What Rule 34 does

17 is provide communication between the parties so that we

18 can decide on what are we talking about, what are we

19 looking for. Because if you don't know what you're

20 looking for, any amount of effort will get you nowhere.

21 So where do I start?

22 Well, I start with a problem, I think, that is

23 endemic in the ediscovery world, which is we have only

24 been focusing on what the responding party needs to do.

25 I read depositions in particularized discovery

1 are currently allowed, we have been able to reach

2 agreement.

3 So with that, I would just thank the committee

4 for their work on this, and thank them for letting me

5 give my thoughts here today.

6 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

7 very much for those comments, Ms. Henry.

8 David Kessler.

9 MR. KESSLER: Good evening.

10 I would like to thank the committee for the

11 opportunity to speak today. Like everyone else, I want

12 to applaud all the hard work that you have done on the

13 proposed amendments.

14 My name is David Kessler. I'm a partner at

15 Norton Rose Fulbright where I live in Philadelphia, but

16 work in New York and Houston.

17 I am the chair of the electronic discovery

18 information practice. While I am not a dinosaur, I will

19 promise you I did graduate from high school, and I

20 occasionally have to shave.

21 I am a discovery lawyer. I work with ones and

22 zeros. My entire job is about moving data from point A

23 to point B, get data from my opponents and produce data

24 to my opponents.

25 I have worked for the largest companies in the

1 objections, but what we have failed to do, I think, is

2 focus on what the requesting parties need to do. I

3 would recommend that the committee tie these two things

4 together.

5 It makes no sense for a responding party to

6 actually spend any effort in the due diligence to make a

7 particularized objection to a request they never

8 fashioned appropriately.

9 I have gotten requests such as, please produce

10 all your databases, please produce all emails.

11 Now, those are the exception, but I would sadly

12 say that the word "all" appears in the majority of

13 requests I receive.

14 I'm going to touch on the proportionality of

15 that word later. I think that can be addressed in the

16 notes.

17 My second point is I'm very concerned with the

18 amendments to Rule 34(b)(2)(c), which think it

19 inappropriately requires the responding party to

20 identify whether or not documents are being withheld, as

21 I believe the philosophic conflict on how discovery is

22 undertaken in the rules are practically difficult to

23 implement.

24 Many objections to discovery requests do not

25 withhold any documents whatsoever, but rather limit
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1 those stems of proper scope of discovery under the

2 rules.

3 Simply put, a party does not withhold something

4 that someone -- from someone else when that someone else

5 has no right to the document.

6 For example, if a requesting party seeks all

7 emails from Mr. Jones without any limitation, a

8 responding party's objection limiting the request to

9 email of Mr. Jones relevant to the claims and defenses

10 is not withholding emails from Mr. Jones' wife saying

11 he's late for dinner. I am concerned that there will be

12 much mischief created by the current rule.

13 I note in my written submission that I propose,

14 and I think it would be a better solution, is to have

15 the responding party identify what they're looking for.

16 What am I trying to find that I'm willing to

17 produce?

18 This level of transparency will allow the

19 requesting party and the responding party to engage in a

20 conversation about what is important to the case.

21 Don't look in the negative space. Look at the

22 positive space. Look at what is distinct, and what is

23 at issue in the case. That's what we should be striving

24 for.

25 Third, on a related note, I think the committee

1 had a judge require me to produce, after I had done

2 samplings of hundreds of thousands of boxes, said, well,

3 that's nice that you found that they were responsive,

4 please turn them over so that your opposing party can

5 review them themselves, which was double troubling since

6 they were archives from the legal department.

7 Finally, in Soldamore (phonetic), which is a

8 great case and well articulated, an unintended

9 consequence of approval of the TAR process in that case

10 was that it put a chill on the use of TAR, because my

11 clients, and other companies, are afraid that they are

12 going to have to produce irrelevant documents to support

13 their use of TAR. They have decided to move away from

14 that.

15 I think that's inappropriate, and I would have

16 the committee emphasize that it's not appropriate.

17 In fact, emphasize that the new rule which

18 allows the producing party -- responding party to choose

19 between productions and inspections, that is a

20 completely discretionary choice similar to the rights

21 under the -- the organization of the production whether

22 you ordinarily maintained or by document requests.

23 I see that my time is up, so I will stop here,

24 and take any questions.

25 HON. CAMPBELL: Any questions?

1 should clarify in 26 or Rule 34, perhaps both, that the

2 Courts are not empowered to produce privileged material,

3 or that which is irrelevant or outside the scope of

1

2 quickly.

3

PROF. MARCUS: Can I ask one very

In terms of specificity of objections, it seems

4 discovery.

5 There has been a disturbing trend that courts

6 befuddled by the complexity, expense and time of

7 discovery to try to take shortcuts into space, and have

8 forced parties, either directly or indirectly, to

9 produce such data, I think simply because they

10 undervalue the harm and damage that the production can

11 cause.

12 Let me give you a few examples.

13 Recently we have seen courts say, I'm not going

14 to value the cost of your review, you no longer have to

15 review documents. Between TAR and Rule 502(d), simply

16 produce it. If you want to review it, that's your

17 fault.

18 Well, 502(d) does not solve all the problems,

19 and I will tell you that a relevant document can do

20 great damage. Not because I'm afraid of the

21 besmirchment, but because there is things like

22 redaction, privacy and other issues.

23 In the case that I am currently working in,

24 which happens to be in a state court, but relies

25 entirely on federal jurisdiction rules and procedure, I

4 to me that the permission added in this package for

5 early Rule 34 requests before the Rule 26(f) conference

6 might assist in doing that.

7 Does that seem that way to you?

8 MR. KESSLER: I'm sorry, Professor. I

9 don't think it does that.

10 The reason is when a requesting party -- first

11 of all, a requesting party has a limited number of

12 document requests. So even if the judge said, well,

13 that will not be a request, I waive it, and let that end

14 the discovery period.

15 PROF. MARCUS: I guess what I'm getting

16 at is it seems to me it might foster an interaction

17 which would achieve greater precision in the request,

18 because you have more information on the other side

19 about what it is they're trying to get, and you can talk

20 about it.

21 MR. KESSLER: Well, we could talk about

22 it, but the answer is they filed the overbroad request

23 and served it on me, I have to respond.

24 Right. Because of 26(g) I have to do due

25 diligence. If I say it's disproportionate, if I say
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1 it's beyond the possession, custody and control, if I

2 make any of my other objections, I have to take that

3 cost. There is no cost there.

4 If I fail to do it, and the judge says, well,

5 you know what, you do not comply with 26(g), you do not

6 comply with Rule 34, you waive it.

7 I am now obligated to produce all documents

8 responsive to what could be an overbroad request. It is

9 not -- what appears symmetric is actually painfully

10 asymmetric.

11 HON. CAMPBELL: Any other questions?

12 (No response.)

13 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you

14 very much, Mr. Kessler.

15 Danya Reda.

16 MS. REDA: I'm going to say good

17 afternoon, because I'm an optimist. We're in the

18 homestretch here. I think you are almost done when

19 you're on me. I think there's one more person after me,

20 so I will be try to be short and sweet.

21 I am going to echo the tremendous, continual

22 commendations you have all received, because I think

23 they are really well-deserved for your service and

24 commitment to our rules and our procedural system, and

25 particularly for the tremendous efforts you have

1 that article was taking a very close look at the

2 information, and what was called empirical data as

3 presented at the Duke Conference.

4 Most of the surveys, opinion surveys is

5 attorneys, and a major exception to that, as others have

6 said, the 2009 FJC Cliff Case Study.

7 Having been on board at that conference to --

8 from its inception to the actual conference occurrence

9 to taking a careful look at everything that was

10 presented there, and preparing an article on it, I was

11 actually baffled, respectfully baffled by the amendments

12 that we proposed coming out of that.

13 Because the empirical data that was presented

14 presents no support for the general claim that our

15 discovery system is broken, that costs are staggering,

16 and that there is a huge over discovery problem.

17 So I think your -- the proposals, although

18 carefully considered, are too narrow, and they are too

19 narrow in two respects.

20 First, they narrowly construe the problem. So

21 the problem is entirely understood as the burden that

22 can be placed upon a producing party by the requester,

23 which is certainly a thing that one can impose burdens

24 through a discovery request. That is definitely a power

25 that the rules allow.

1 expended on these amendments.

2 That said, because of that tremendous effort

3 you have expended on these amendments, I'm going to urge

4 you not to make the quite common cognitive psychological

5 error of overvaluing that sum cost.

6 What you have heard today, what you have heard

7 in the last two hearings and the written comments give

8 us pause not just about the Rule 37 proposals, but about

9 almost this entire slate of proposals.

10 The reason I think that is because these are --

11 aside from the Rule 1 amendment, and aside from the Rule

12 31 amendment, information-suppressing amendments rather

13 than information-forcing amendments.

14 To my mind, that makes no sense based on what

15 we're trying to achieve through our procedural system,

16 which is an assessment of the merits of claims, and a

17 sharing of information and a cooperative working

18 relationship between the parties that can get us closer

19 to the truth.

20 I say that as somebody who -- I teach at NYU

21 Law School, and I write about procedure. Not so long

22 ago I wrote an article specifically looking at the

23 question of cost and delay in the federal rule reform.

24 Part of that article, called The Cost and Delay

25 Narrative in Civil Justice Reform, a significant part of

1 But there is an equal and opposite power, which

2 is the power to impose costs by discovery avoidance,

3 discovery delay, discovery attrition.

4 So a really well-known problem that is perhaps

5 not as well documented as it might be, but it's not

6 reflected almost anywhere in these amendments are

7 perhaps startling and disconcerting, and actually leave

8 these proposals at the risk potentially increasing cost

9 and delay that emerges from discovery, rather than

10 decreasing it.

11 Second, I think there is a narrowness to our

12 understanding of the function of discovery.

13 Yes, it's absolutely an important part of

14 discovery function that we identify information that

15 allows claimants to litigate their rights.

16 But discovery is part of a much broader system

17 in the United States. A system that is kind of firmly

18 committed to private regulatory -- privatization of the

19 regulatory regime. I think that is why we have a

20 distinctive discovery system, and why our friends from

21 abroad are skeptical and surprised when they view our

22 discovery system.

23 They have very robust centralized governmental

24 public socialized regulation systems. And so, yeah, we

25 see there is less discovery available, because private
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1 citizens aren't being asked to play that regulatory

2 role.

3 But here we're asking private attorneys to play

4 that role, and so when we -- if you propose -- if you

5 continue forward with these amendments, I think make no

6 mistake, you will be sanctioning for less law abiding

7 conduct, more law breaking, because it will be easier --

8 it will be a rational decision to pay less attention to

9 following the -- dotting the I's and crossing the T's of

10 the letter of the law, because you are going to be less

11 accountable.

12 If I may, I believe I still have a couple

13 minutes, so two points that I just wanted to address

14 that came up in earlier discussion.

15 One is I would caution us about the

16 plaintiff-defendant understanding the polarization

17 issues of plaintiff versus defendant. I don't think

18 that actually captures it. I think what's much more

19 important is the role that a client that the attorneys

20 represent, and the type of practice.

21 So what type of fee structure is the attorney

22 working on, and therefore, do they have -- what type of

23 incentive that sets up for litigation. So is it

24 billable hour or is it donor-funded organizations or is

25 it contingency fee?

1 MS. REDA: Because I think that there is

2 a way in which those rules -- and certainly a number of

3 the rules are promulgated in conjunction with the forms.

4 HON. PRATTER: When is the last time you

5 looked at the forms? Have you ever used them?

6 MS. REDA: I never used them, but I will

7 tell you that part of my hesitation, which will be no

8 surprise, is that to me this is really not -- whatever

9 the actual intent, it signals an approval of a

10 heightened pleading standard --

11 HON. PRATTER: So the anti Twombly-Iqbal

12 camp?

13 MS. REDA: Well, it's -- right in the

14 letter discussing these amendments is the suggestion

15 this makes sense because now our pleadings standard is

16 out of whack with the form.

17 That's a problem of the Supreme Court

18 jurisprudence, and not a problem of our rules.

19 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you.

20 So is your suggestion then that we do nothing?

21 Is that what I'm hearing you say?

22 MS. REDA: I'm happy with the Rule 11

23 amendment. I'm happy with the Rule 34 amendment.

24 HON. CAMPBELL: Otherwise, do nothing?

25 MS. REDA: Otherwise, do nothing. I

1 Also, what kind of symmetries or asymmetries

2 exist in the litigation?

3 Is there -- we talk about informational

4 asymmetry laws, but actually I think resourcing symmetry

5 is just as important, and I think that's someplace where

6 we don't have enough empirical data. What affect does

7 the relative resource and informational power or

8 strength of the parties do to the way that discovery

9 unfolds, and the type of discovery practices that occur?

10 So I would love us to actually get more

11 information before we move forward.

12 HON. CAMPBELL: All right. Thank you,

13 Professor.

14 Questions?

15 HON. PRATTER: I notice you are not a

16 signator to the letter about Rule 84.

17 Not to say it's not complete here, but I wanted

18 to know if you have given it any thought whether Rule 84

19 should be preserved or could be abrogated?

20 MS. REDA: That's a great question.

21 I am -- or I am actually in Professor Coleman's

22 camp on this, and so -- and I would be very hesitant to

23 make that -- I think that that does actually render a

24 fundamental change to the structure of the rules.

25 HON. PRATTER: Why?

1 think there isn't a cost problem that we have proclaimed

2 that there is.

3 HON. CAMPBELL: Thank you, Professor.

4 Brian Sanford. Last but not least.

5 MR. SANFORD: Thank you.

6 I'm an attorney practicing here in Dallas,

7 Texas. I am president of TELA, which is the Texas

8 Employment Lawyers Association, a plaintiff's bar of

9 prominent lawyers in Texas, sister to the one who

10 testified earlier from California.

11 I have a three-person firm. I'm just an every

12 day regular attorney representing every day regular

13 people.

14 I just finished a three day -- a three and a

15 half day trial yesterday in federal court here in Dallas

16 representing someone asking for less than $15,000 in

17 overtime pay.

18 I would address the proportionality as

19 something that obviously should be considered, and is

20 being considered now, but that needs to be considered

21 over and against the fundamental principle that a court

22 should consider and decide a case as an action between

23 persons of equal standing in a community holding the

24 same or similar positions, that the law is no respect

25 for persons, all persons stand equal before the law, and
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1 are to be dealt with equally in a court of justice.

2 That, of course, I just quoted from a standard

3 jury charge in federal court, which I just tried this

4 week.

5 So the -- of course, there needs to be

6 reasonableness in discovery, but I think what the

7 earlier colleague was talking about transparency is that

8 the proportionality rule here is assuming that the costs

9 and that the problem is on the requests that are being

10 made by plaintiffs, and therefore this is going to solve

11 that problem, when that is not a real problem today.

12 So I would -- I don't think that that should be

13 something that should be changed.

14 In fact, the issue about less trials are

15 because of settlement costs related to discovery, I

16 don't think is true. I think you can make a good

17 argument for just the opposite, that plaintiffs are not

18 getting fair value for their cases because of the

19 obstruction caused by discovery fights based on rules,

20 and that an emphasis of proportionality in the rules is

21 going to cause that even more.

22 So there ought to be a study for how much

23 corporations are saving by forcing parties to settle for

24 less than fair value. Of course, part justice is no

25 justice.

1 intentional, there ought to be some sanctions.

2 You shouldn't be -- because adverse inference

3 is curative, it should be in (e)(1). I get to argue

4 that to the jury anyways as an inference. If they

5 didn't produce documents, it ought to be in a negligence

6 or reasonable standard. That's happened.

7 I'm in the Fifth Circuit. I had that. I was

8 not allowed a reasonable inference standard because I

9 couldn't show willfulness. I could argue it to the

10 jury, but it ought to be in -- it ought to be something

11 that's curative, and it ought to be allowed in there.

12 Also, you should clarify that willfulness does

13 include reckless.

14 Again, going back to just the case we tried

15 this week, under the FSLA I know that there are

16 definitions for "willfulness," but under the FSLA the

17 jury charge was, "To establish willfulness you must

18 prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the

19 defendant either knew that his conduct violated the

20 FSLA, or showed reckless disregard as to whether his

21 conduct violated the FSLA."

22 So "willingness" there, the definition includes

23 "reckless disregard." It should be clarified, and it

24 should be part of that.

25 The last thing -- I guess I have got 35

1 I would talk a little bit about -- well, just

2 along those lines, the reason that there are no -- less

3 trials is because of motion for summary judgment

4 practice, because people are forced into arbitration,

5 and because we don't have enough judges.

6 Depositions, we rarely take five to ten

7 depositions. I always bump up against the ten. Many

8 times the other side will agree. Most of the time they

9 don't. I just try to work within it. The last time I

10 tried to expand to ten, the judge -- magistrate judge

11 denied it.

12 I have got a case pending at the Fifth Circuit

13 right now where the other side in the brief is

14 complaining that I took nine depositions.

15 Those nine depositions were all either decision

16 makers or comparators. Three of them were less than an

17 hour, only one was more than half a day.

18 So this is a real issue, it's a real problem,

19 and if you give -- if you reduce it down to five, it's a

20 real problem for people that practice in my area.

21 Rule 37, I do think that -- my opinion on this

22 is why not have live tort law, you know, the reasonable

23 standard, negligence. You have a reckless standard, you

24 have intentional standard. The reasonableness standard,

25 fine. You have punitive, the reckless, and the

1 seconds. The last thing I'll say is just an example of

2 another case that I have on withholding documents.

3 I have got a case, represent a professor

4 against the university, and after taking the president's

5 deposition, only a couple weeks later he announced a

6 change in the policies on email retention, that they

7 were going to now destroy emails after a certain date.

8 About a month later in an all-employee meeting

9 he announced, and I quote, "I have been sued enough,"

10 unquote, urging employees not to save emails because,

11 quote, "all that stuff is discoverable," end quote.

12 Those are the kinds of things that we need, and

13 what is happening now is, of course, the changes in the

14 rules are going to encourage this.

15 PROF. MARCUS: Is that bad faith?

16 MR. SANFORD: I think it's bad faith, and

17 I'm going to argue it's bad faith, but what about the

18 next person down the line that --

19 PROF. MARCUS: Bad faith in connection

20 with, quote, "the litigation," unquote.

21 MR. SANFORD: Exactly. The next

22 litigation and the next litigation and the next

23 litigation.

24 So I'm taking questions.

25 HON. CAMPBELL: Any questions?
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1 (No response.)

2 HON. CAMPBELL: Mr. Sanford, thank you

3 very much.

4 Thank you to everybody else for being here.

5 We'll will be adjourned.

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1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE

2

3 CASE TITLE: Proposed Amendments to the

4 Federal Rule of Civil

5 Procedure, Judicial Conference

6 Advisory Committee on Civil

7 Rules

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9 HEARING DATE: February 7, 2014

10 LOCATION: Dallas, Texas

11

12 I hereby certify that the proceedings and

13 evidence are contained fully and accurately on

14 the tapes and notes reported by me at the

15 hearing in the above case before the

16 Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

17 Date: March 2, 2014

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S/P. Sue Engledow CSR/RPR

20 Court Reporter P.O. Box 2741

21 Red Oak, Texas 75154

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