Source: https://e-discoveryteamtraining.com/section-one/sec-1-mod-l/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 10:17:42+00:00

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Diving Deeper Into Cooperation and Judge Grimm’s Mancia v. Mayflower.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul W. Grimm‘s 30-page opinion in Mancia v. Mayflower Textile Services Co. (written when he was a Magistrate Judge) requires careful study, not only to understand the doctrine of Cooperation, but also the rules governing discovery.
Mayflower shows that far from being a Utopian ideal, the cooperative approach to discovery promoted by Sedona is already mandated by the law.
This is an important module to gain greater understanding on these key topics. It is also a module where you get to vote and see how other students have voted on select polls.
Although I agree with Judge Grimm and his conclusions in Mayflower, I contend that for e-discovery there are additional practical, economic grounds for cooperation not applicable to other types of discovery. These additional grounds pertain to the unique nature of digital data, especially its overwhelming volume and complexity. Even if the law did not require cooperative e-discovery, and Judge Grimm shows here that it does for all types of discovery, the parties would still be well advised to adopt this approach. The alternative simply does not work for e-discovery, and even if it did, it would be too risky and expensive to carry out. Judge Grimm did not explore these additional digital specific issues in Mayflower, but that is to be expected because the underlying issues in this case were all paper-centric, and this was, after all, an opinion in a real law suit, not a law review article (although it certainly reads like one, and I mean that as a compliment!).
Is Rule 26(g) the Least Understood, Most Violated Discovery Rule?
This common misunderstanding and common violation also explains why the Zubulake duty is so frequently breached by attorneys. The requirement in Rule 26(g) for outside counsel to make a reasonable inquiry is one of the primary legal grounds for Judge Scheindlin’s Zubulake duty. Judge Scheindlin, and most other federal judges, specifically require outside counsel to interview custodians and IT personnel to understand where ESI is stored. They have in effect determined that this is a minimum reasonable inquiry required whenever electronic evidence is involved in a case, and counsel of record cannot sign a discovery response without having first done so.
The facts and circumstances in Mayflower do not really matter that much; suffice it to say that the attorneys on both sides did not understand or follow Rule 26(g) and instead engaged in knee-jerk discovery requests and objections. They did not make reasonable inquiries of the facts before promulgating or responding to discovery and did not make an adequate effort to collaborate. The opinion points out what they did wrong, including the plaintiff’s unrestrained, over-broad requests and the defendants meaningless boiler-plate responses. It also told them what they had to do now to correct the situation. But Mayflower was written as a message and instruction for the entire Bar, not just the two law firms involved in this case. That is why this is an important opinion. The conduct of the attorneys in Mayflower, as Judge Grimm takes pains to point out, is quite typical and in no way unique to this case.
26(g) Signing Disclosures and Discovery Requests, Responses, and Objections.
(1) Signature Required; Effect of Signature.
Other parties have no duty to act on an unsigned disclosure, request, response, or objection until it is signed, and the court must strike it unless a signature is promptly supplied after the omission is called to the attorney’s or party’s attention.
(3) Sanction for Improper Certification.
As you can see, the rule not only requires the attorney of record to certify after a reasonable inquiry that the disclosure is complete and correct, but also that the discovery is not made for an improper purpose such as to needlessly increase the cost of litigation and is not unduly burdensome or expensive considering the value of the case. The last requirement of proportionality mirrors the requirements of Rule 26(b)(2)(C) and is a key provision to e-discovery.
Judge Grimm takes the Bar to task for not understanding or following either the letter or spirit of this rule, and I agree with him. But he stops short of an open examination of the role of the judiciary and is, of course, somewhat constrained by his position from overt criticism of his fellow judges. Still, the implication seems clear that judges are part of the problem too. Rule 26(g) was written and designed for mandatory enforcement by the imposition of sanctions. Yet, in reality, as Judge Grimm himself says, Rule 26(g) is the least followed of discovery rules. This is because sanctions have not been automatically and consistently imposed by the judiciary as the rule intended. If they had, the Bar would not have ignored the rule. The imposition of sanctions has, for the most part, been reserved for extreme cases, and indeed, even in Mayflower, Judge Grimm did not impose monetary sanctions.
Concern about discovery abuse has led to widespread recognition that there is a need for more aggressive judicial control and supervision. ACF Industries, Inc. v. EEOC, 439 U.S. 1081 (1979) (certiorari denied) (Powell, J., dissenting). Sanctions to deter discovery abuse would be more effective if they were diligently applied “not merely to penalize those whose conduct may be deemed to warrant such a sanction, but to deter those who might be tempted to such conduct in the absence of such a deterrent.” National Hockey League v. Metropolitan Hockey Club, 427 U.S. 639, 643 (1976). See also Note, The Emerging Deterrence Orientation in the Imposition of Discovery Sanctions, 91 Harv. L. Rev. 1033 (1978). Thus the premise of Rule 26(g) is that imposing sanctions on attorneys who fail to meet the rule’s standards will significantly reduce abuse by imposing disadvantages therefor.
Because of the asserted reluctance to impose sanctions on attorneys who abuse the discovery rules, see Brazil, Civil Discovery: Lawyers’ Views of its Effectiveness, Principal Problems and Abuses, American Bar Foundation (1980); Ellington, A Study of Sanctions for Discovery Abuse, Department of Justice (1979), Rule 26(g) makes explicit the authority judges now have to impose appropriate sanctions and requires them to use it. This authority derives from Rule 37, 28 U.S.C. § 1927, and the court’s inherent power. See Roadway Express, Inc., v. Piper, 447 U.S. 752 (1980); Martin v. Bell Helicopter Co., 85 F.R.D. 654, 661-62 (D. Col. 1980); Note, Sanctions Imposed by Courts on Attorneys Who Abuse the Judicial Process, 44 U.Chi.L.Rev. 619 (1977). The new rule mandates that sanctions be imposed on attorneys who fail to meet the standards established in the first portion of Rule 26(g).
Education of attorneys as Judge Grimm has done in Mayflower is only part of the solution. The stick of sanctions must also be imposed for the words to be credible.
Rule 26(g) charges those responsible for the success or failure of pretrial discovery-the trial judge and the lawyers for the adverse parties-with approaching the process properly: discovery must be initiated and responded to responsibly, in accordance with the letter and spirit of the discovery rules, to achieve a proper purpose (i.e., not to harass, unnecessarily delay, or impose needless expense), and be proportional to what is at issue in the litigation, and if it is not, the judge is expected to impose appropriate sanctions to punish and deter.
Judge Grimm also considered the argument that Rule 26(g) and cooperative discovery are doomed to failure, and should not be enforced by the judiciary, because it is contrary to our basic adversarial system of dispute resolution. I have also considered this ethical issue in Lawyers Behaving Badly: Understanding Unprofessional Conduct in e-Discovery where I noted the imbalance between ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.3 on diligence, and Rules 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 on expediting litigation, candor, and fairness.
voluntary and understanding co-operation in the maintenance of its fundamental processes and forms.
It is chiefly for the lawyer that the term “due process” takes on tangible meaning, for whom it indicates what is allowable and what is not, who realizes what a ruinous cost is incurred when its demands are disregarded. For the lawyer the insidious dangers contained in the notion that “the end justifies the means” is not a matter of abstract philosophic conviction, but of direct professional experience.
Amen, Professor Fuller! As a lawyer with numerous direct professional experiences with uncooperative opposing counsel, I can vouch for his assertion. Anyone who has been in the business for decades will tell the same tale. When opposing counsel ignores the rules and plays hide the ball, due process is lost and the price of justice skyrockets.
A lawyer who seeks excessive discovery given what is at stake in the litigation, or who makes boilerplate objections to discovery requests without particularizing their basis, or who is evasive or incomplete in responding to discovery, or pursues discovery in order to make the cost for his or her adversary so great that the case settles to avoid the transaction costs, or who delays the completion of discovery to prolong the litigation in order to achieve a tactical advantage, or who engages in any of the myriad forms of discovery abuse that are so commonplace is, as Professor Fuller observes, hindering the adjudication process, and making the task of the “deciding tribunal not easier, but more difficult,” and violating his or her duty of loyalty to the “procedures and institutions” the adversary system is intended to serve.
[A lawyer shall not,] in pretrial procedure, make a frivolous discovery request or fail to make reasonably diligent effort to comply with a legally proper discovery request by an opposing party.
Any attorney . . . who so multiplies the proceedings in any case unreasonably and vexatiously may be required by the court to satisfy personally the excess costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees reasonably incurred because of such conduct.
Network Computing Servs. Corp. v. CISCO Sys., Inc., 223 F.R.D. 392 (D.S.C. 2004). In Network Computing Servs., the court discussed problems caused by failures of counsel and parties to approach discovery more cooperatively and professionally, stating, “The discovery beast has yet to be tamed,” 223 F.R.D. at 395 (quoting Patrick E. Higginbotham, So Why Do We Call Them Trial Courts?, 55 SMU L. Rev. 1405, 1417 (2002)), and taking note of United States District Judge Wayne Alley’s caustic observation that “[i]f there is a hell to which disputatious, uncivil, vituperative lawyers go, let it be one in which the damned are eternally locked in discovery disputes with other lawyers of equally repugnant attributes.” Id. (quoting Krueger v. Pelican Prod. Corp., C/A No. 87-2385-A, slip op. (W.D. Okla. Feb. 24, 1989)). The district court judge affirmed the recommendation of a magistrate judge that sanctions for discovery abuse were appropriate, and instead of imposing a monetary sanction, ordered that the jury would be informed of the misconduct. Id. at 395-401.
Our system of justice can no longer afford to continue to play with the pursuit of truth in civil discovery as if it were a game of hide and seek. The discovery aspects of litigation should be removed entirely from the adversarial game model. It is not only required by the rules and the code of ethics, but in the realm of electronic discovery at least, the alternative is extreme costs that could bankrupt any company.
Lawyers need to better understand the processes to realize how it is in their clients’ best interests to cooperate on discovery, especially expensive e-discovery. We should save the contentious arguments for interpretation of the facts, what the law is, and how the law applies to these facts. Take the hand you are dealt and make the most of it.
This means we need a much more active judiciary than we have had in the past. It is not enough to simply tell lawyers to go away and work things out by yourself. This has been tried now for decades and has not worked, to the point that many are ready to leave the civil system entirely and embrace alternative dispute resolution.
The over-zealous advocates continue to take advantage of the lax judicial attitude. When out of sight of the judges, they push the edge as far as they dare, which is pretty far when they know that even intentional rule violations seldom result in hard cash sanctions. If called to task, they obfuscate, come up with a million excuses, blame the other guy, and sometimes just plain lie. Take a hard look at Qualcomm v. Broadcom (examined later in this course) for one very public example. These kind of lawyers make it difficult for judges to figure out the truth, and so all too often, nothing happens, and they get away with it. All this does is encourage more bad behavior. Judges need to take the time to figure it out. Discovery is important and needs an active bench to function properly. If judges do not enforce the rules and punish violations with sanctions, a large number of attorneys will see this as a green light for business as usual. We can no longer afford that.
MANDATORY READING ASSIGNMENTS. Read some or all of the many cases cited here, except for Qualcomm, which you can defer for now. It is perfectly acceptable to skim the parts of an opinion that do not pertain to discovery, but be sure you understand the facts of the discovery dispute. Also, at least skim all of Rule 26 Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and all of the Official Commentaries to the Rule. Pay special attention to these sub-provisions: Rule 26(f), 26(g), and 26(b), especially 26(b)(1) and 26(b)(2)(B). The new rules in 26(b)(1) (revised 2015) on proportionality are especially critical today. We will go into them in detail in later classes, so for now, you can just skim the rules. You will come back time and again to study them carefully (or should).
EXERCISE.Which of the many cases that you have just read that seems to you to have been wrongly decided and why. Also, what is your guess as to why Rule 26(b)(2)(B) was enacted in 2006?
NON-MANDATORY SUGGESTED ADDITIONAL READING. Go one level deeper and read some of the major cases cited to in the assigned cases. This is always a good idea for the exceptional student with time who wants to go deeper into a legal topic.

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