Source: https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2017/07/articles/attorney/frcp-26-discovery-proportionality/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 02:43:45+00:00

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There are thousands of blog posts written by defense lawyers about how the proportionality amendments changed everything, and I’ve grown tired of seeing these arguments pop up in Court. So, without further adieu, here’s a Plaintiff’s Guide To Rule 26’s Discovery Proportionality Standard.
This post has a lot of citations in it, and those citations have a lot of quotes, so I’ve switched over to footnote citing. Many of these citations are drawn from Duke Law Center for Judicial Studies’ “Revised Guidelines and Practices for Implementing the 2015 Discovery Amendments to Achieve Proportionality,” annotated version (June 15, 2017). Duke updates the annotations monthly, so check for the most recent version.
The burdens of persuasion were unchanged, with the requesting party bearing the burden of establishing relevance and the objecting party bearing the burden of establishing the discovery is improper.  The requesting party need only show relevance; the requesting party does not bear any burden to show proportionality. Boilerplate claims that discovery is not proportionate are insufficient. Instead, the objecting party needs to specifically show how the proposed discovery is not proportionate.
As Chief Justice Roberts wrote soon after the 2015 Amendments, “the pretrial process must provide parties with efficient access to what is needed to prove a claim or defense, but eliminate unnecessary or wasteful discovery.” As several District Courts have held, proportionality is often a question of “whether discovery production has reached a point of diminishing returns,” and about the “marginal utility” of additional discovery once the core discovery in the case has been completed. Stated another way, proportionality is a method to avoid going in circles or getting side-tracked, not an excuse for cutting corners.
Sometimes, the best proportionality analysis is the most simple one: “the sheer number of attorneys who have made appearances in the case (24 by the Court’s count) is a persuasive demonstration of the importance of the issues at stake here, the value of the case, and that the parties have significant resources available to them.” Nonetheless, let’s take a look at the case law on each proportionality factor mentioned by Rule 26(b).
The Advisory Committee Notes reiterated that “the monetary stakes are only one factor, to be balanced against other factors,” and reaffirmed the 1983 Amendments’ Note recognizing “the significance of the substantive issues, as measured in philosophic, social, or institutional terms.” Even a single severe injury from a common product can tip this factor in favor of a plaintiff.
Few cases have interpreted this factor in depth. The cases that have done so have generally involved a single plaintiff, and the question was whether the cost of the proposed discovery would exceed the amount in controversy. Moreover, courts have been quick to note that discovery in a low-damages case can still be proportionate if the litigation could vindicate other interests.
Access to information was one of the few explicit changes to the text of Rule 26(b). The Advisory Committee Notes address “information asymmetry,” where one “party may have vast amounts of information, including information that can be readily retrieved and information that is more difficult to retrieve. In practice these circumstances often mean that the burden of responding to discovery lies heavier on the party who has more information, and properly so.” Where relevant evidence is in the sole possession of the defendant, discovery is generally proportionate to the needs of the case, particularly where the evidence is held by a multi-national corporation with sophisticated access to data that they do not permit outsiders to review.
As the Advisory Committee Notes state, “consideration of the parties’ resources does not … justify unlimited discovery requests addressed to a wealthy party.” Nonetheless, the underlying purpose of this factor, must be remembered: “[t]he court must apply the standards in an even-handed manner that will prevent use of discovery to wage a war of attrition or as a device to coerce a party, whether financially weak or affluent.” Id., (emphasis added).
Corporate defendants often refer to the “burden” of discovery as if it was the sole factor underlying proportionality, but “no single factor is designed to outweigh the other factors in determining whether the discovery sought is proportional.” All discovery is inherently burdensome, and the question is whether that burden is undue in light of the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, and the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues. For example, if a defendant has “far superior access to the information,” as in this litigation, such access “necessitates a stronger showing of burden and expense” before the discovery will be disallowed. Further, even where there is a “considerable expense already incurred in defense of this case,” additional discovery can nonetheless be proportionate where a defendant has “chosen to rigorously defend th[e] action” and thereby place the plaintiff in the position of needing to do more to prevail in dispositive motion practice and at trial.
Critically, claims of undue burden must be backed by evidence quantifying the difficulty or expense. “Without offering evidence explaining the nature of the alleged burden it faces in producing the proposed discovery, [a party] has not met its burden of showing that the burden or expense … outweighs the likely benefit of such discovery.” Further, a sophisticated party cannot rely on their own decisions that have made document production difficult or expensive.
 Vaigasi v. Solow Mgmt. Corp., 2016 WL 616386, at *13 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 2016)(internal quotation omitted).
 Vaigasi v. Solow Mgmt. Corp., 2016 WL 616386, at *13 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 2016).
 The phrase “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence” was deleted.
 Henry v. Morgan’s Hotel Grp., Inc., 2016 WL 303114, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 25, 2016)(citing State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Fayda, 2015 WL 7871037, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 3, 2015)(quoting Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351 (1978))).
 Cont’l W. Insur. Co. v. Opechee Constr. Corp., 2016 WL 865232, at *1 (D.N.H. Mar. 2, 2016) (“Once a showing of relevance has been made, the objecting party bears the burden of showing that discovery request is improper.”); Carter v. H2R Rest. Holdings, LLC, 2017 WL 2439439, at *4 (N.D. Tex. June 6, 2017) (amendments “do not alter the basic allocation of the burden on the party resisting discovery”); William Powell Co. v. Nat. Indemnity Co., 2017 WL 1326504, at *5 (S.D. Ohio Apr. 11, 2017)(“the amended rule did not shift the burden of proving proportionality to the party seeking discovery”); United States ex rel. Shamesh v. CA., Inc., 2016 WL 74394, at *8 (D.D.C. Jan. 6, 2016) (“Once the relevancy of the materials being sought has been established, the objecting party then bears the burden of ‘showing why discovery should not be permitted.’”).
 Ramos v. Town of E. Hartford, 2016 WL 7340282, at *2 (D. Conn. Dec. 19, 2016) (“[t]he 2015 revision of the Federal Rules precludes the use of the type of boilerplate objections on which Defendants rely.”); Leibovitz v. The City of New York, 2017 WL 462515, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 3, 2017) (Court overruled defendant’s “general, boilerplate objections to each of plaintiff’s requests for production” because “such objections violate Fed.R.Civ.P. 34(b)(2)(B).”).
 Fischer v. Forrest, 2017 WL 773694 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 27, 2017)(“It is time, once again, to issue a discovery wake-up call to the Bar in this District” to state grounds for objecting to discovery request with specificity under Rule 34); Raab v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., 2016 WL 2587188, at *4 (S.D. W. Va. May 4, 2016) (defendant failed to provide specific objection to discovery requests); Allen-Pieroni v. Sw. Corr., LLC, 2016 WL 1750325, at *4 (N.D. Tex. May 2, 2016) (“Party seeking to resist discovery on these grounds still bears the burden of making a specific objection and showing that the discovery fail[ed] the proportionality calculation mandated by Rule 26(b) by coming forward with specific information to address.”).
 2015 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, p. 7 (emphases added).
 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Comm’n, No. A-15-CV-134-RP, 2016 WL 5922315, at *2 (W.D. Tex. Oct. 11, 2016).
 Bell v. Reading Hosp., No. CV 13-5927, 2016 WL 162991, at *3 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 14, 2016)(“It appears that the discovery conducted to date, as well as the discovery requests currently at issue, would certainly not exceed the amount of controversy in this matter.”).
 In re Suboxone (Buprenorphine Hydrochloride & Naloxone) Antitrust Litig., No. 13-MD-2445, 2016 WL 3519618, at *7 (E.D. Pa. June 28, 2016)(emphases added).
 Capetillo v. Primecare Med., Inc., 2016 WL 3551625, at *2 (E.D. Pa. June 29, 2016).
 Doe v. Trustees of Boston Coll., 2015 WL 9048225 (D. Mass. Dec. 16, 2015).
 Vay v. Huston, 2016 WL 1408116, at *6 (W.D. Pa. Apr. 11, 2016).
 Zoobuh, Inc. v. Better Broadcasting, LLC, 2017 WL 1476135, at *4–*5 (D. Utah Apr. 24, 2017) (defendant failed to provide “some quantification . . . of the material in its possession that [was] responsive” and thus failed to establish undue burden); Fish v. Kobach, 2016 WL 893787, at *1 (D. Kan. Mar. 8, 2016) (“Objections based on undue burden must be clearly supported by an affidavit or other evidentiary proof of the time or expense involved in responding to the discovery request.”); Scott Hutchison Enter., Inc. v. Cranberry Pipeline Corp., 2016 WL 5219633, at *3 (S.D. W. Va. Sept. 20, 2016) (collection of cases that require specific proof); McKinney/Pearl Rest. Partners, L.P. v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 2016 WL 98603, at *3 (N.D. Tex. Jan. 8, 2016) (party resisting discovery must show that “requested discovery was overbroad, burdensome, or oppressive by submitting affidavits or offering evidence revealing the nature of the burden.”).

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