Corker v. Costco Wholesale Corporation

District Court, W.D. Washington·Decided November 1, 2019·No. 2:19-cv-00290·Unknown

Opinion

The Honorable Robert S. Lasnik 1 2 3 4 5 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 6 AT SEATTLE 7

8 9 BRUCE CORKER d/b/a RANCHO ALOHA; Case No. 2:19-cv-00290-RSL COLEHOUR BONDERA and MELANIE 10 BONDERA, husband and wife d/b/a 11 KANALANI OHANA FARM; and ROBERT STIPULATED MOTION FOR ENTRY SMITH and CECELIA SMITH, husband and OF PROTOCOL FOR THE 12 wife d/b/a SMITHFARMS, on behalf of PRODUCTION OF ELECTRONICALLY themselves and others similarly situated, STORED INFORMATION (“ESI”) 13 Plaintiffs, 14 v. 15 16 COSTCO WHOLESALE CORPORATION, a Washington corporation; AMAZON.COM, 17 INC., a Delaware corporation; HAWAIIAN ISLES KONA COFFEE, LTD., LLC, a 18 Hawaiian limited liability company; COST PLUS/WORLD MARKET, a subsidiary of 19 BED BATH & BEYOND, a New York 20 corporation; BCC ASSETS, LLC d/b/a BOYER’S COFFEE COMPANY, INC., a 21 Colorado corporation; JAVA LLC, a Michigan limited liability company; 22 MULVADI CORPORATION, a Hawaii corporation; COPPER MOON COFFEE, 23 LLC, an Indiana limited liability company; 24 GOLD COFFEE ROASTERS, INC., a Florida corporation; CAMERON’S COFFEE 25 AND DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, a Minnesota corporation; PACIFIC COFFEE, 26 INC., a Hawaii corporation; THE KROGER CO., an Ohio corporation; WALMART INC., 1 a Delaware corporation; BED BATH & 2 BEYOND INC., a New York corporation; ALBERTSONS COMPANIES INC., a 3 Delaware Corporation; SAFEWAY INC., a Delaware Corporation; MNS LTD., a Hawaii 4 Corporation; MARMAXX OPERATING CORP. d/b/a T.J. MAXX and MARSHALLS, 5 a Delaware corporation; SPROUTS 6 FARMERS MARKET, INC. a Delaware corporation, 7 Defendants. 8 The parties1 hereby stipulate to the following provisions regarding the discovery of 9 electronically stored information (“ESI”) in this matter: 10 A. General Principles 11 1. An attorney’s zealous representation of a client is not compromised by conducting 12 discovery in a cooperative manner. The failure of counsel or the parties to litigation to cooperate 13 in facilitating and reasonably limiting discovery requests and responses raises litigation costs and 14 contributes to the risk of sanctions. 15 2. The proportionality standard set forth in Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1) must be applied 16 in each case when formulating a discovery plan. To further the application of the proportionality 17 standard in discovery, requests for production of ESI and related responses should be reasonably 18 targeted, clear, and as specific as possible. 19 B. ESI Disclosures 20 Within 14 days2 after the entry of this Order or November 14, 2019, whichever is sooner, each 21 22 1 The “parties” and “defendants” include all parties to this case and defendants, except 23 for BCC Assets, LLC d/b/a Boyer’s Coffee Company, Inc. 2 Except for (1) Kroger, who will have 30 days after the entry of this Order or December 24 2, 2019, whichever is sooner, to disclose the information required in Section B for its Harris Teeter brand; (2) Albertsons and Safeway who will have until December 9, 2019 to disclose the 25 information required in Section B; and (3) Amazon, who has 30 days after the entry of this Order 26 or December 2, 2019, whichever is sooner, to disclose the information required in Section B. 1 party shall disclose: 2 1. Custodians. Plaintiffs and distributor defendants shall disclose up to 5 custodians, 3 retailer defendants (including those with at-issue private label products) shall disclose up to 7 4 custodians. The parties shall meet and confer if either party believes additional custodians would 5 be proportionate to the needs of the litigation. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). The parties make no 6 further representations or agreements regarding custodians and whether or not they should be 7 limited or expanded. This stipulated ESI order does not create a presumptive limit on custodians 8 for any party. 9 2. Non-custodial Data Sources. A list of non-custodial data sources (e.g. shared drives, 10 servers, etc.), if any, likely to contain discoverable ESI. 11 3. Third-Party Data Sources. A list of third-party data sources, if any, likely to 12 contain discoverable ESI (e.g. third-party email and/or mobile device providers, “cloud” 13 storage, etc.) and, for each such source, the extent to which a party is (or is not) able to 14 preserve information stored in the third-party data source. 15 4. Inaccessible Data. A list of data sources, if any, likely to contain discoverable ESI 16 (by type, date, custodian, electronic system or other criteria sufficient to specifically 17 identify the data source) that a party asserts is not reasonably accessible under Fed. R. Civ. 18 P. 26(b)(2)(B). 19 C. Preservation of ESI 20 The parties acknowledge that they have a common law obligation to take reasonable and 21 proportional steps to preserve discoverable information in the party’s possession, custody or 22 control. With respect to preservation of ESI, the parties agree as follows: 23 1. Absent a showing of good cause by the requesting party, the parties shall not be 24 required to modify the procedures used by them in the ordinary course of business to back-up 25 and archive data; provided, however, that the parties shall preserve all discoverable ESI in 26 their possession, custody or control. 1 2. All parties shall supplement their disclosures in accordance with Rule 26(e) with 2 discoverable ESI responsive to a particular discovery request or mandatory disclosure where 3 that data is created after a disclosure or response is made (unless excluded under (C)(3) or 4 (D)(1)-(2) below). 5 3. Absent a showing of good cause by the requesting party, the following categories of 6 ESI need not be preserved: 7 a. Deleted, slack, fragmented, or other data only accessible by forensics. b. Random access memory (RAM), temporary files, or other ephemeral data 8 that are difficult to preserve without disabling the operating system. 9 c. On-line access data such as temporary internet files, history, cache, cookies, and the like. 10 d. Data in metadata fields that are frequently updated automatically, such as last- 11 opened dates (see also Section (E)(5)). 12 e. Back-up data that are substantially duplicative of data that are more accessible elsewhere. 13 f. Server, system or network logs. 14 g. Data remaining from systems no longer in use that is unintelligible on the systems in use. 15 h. Electronic data (e.g. email, calendars, contact data, and notes) sent to or from 16 mobile devices (e.g., iPhone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry devices), provided that a copy of all such electronic data is routinely saved elsewhere (such as on a 17 server, laptop, desktop computer, or “cloud” storage). 18 D. Privilege 19 1. With respect to privileged or work-product information generated after the filing of the 20 complaint, parties are not required to include any such information in privilege logs. 21 2. Activities undertaken in compliance with the duty to preserve information are protected 22 from disclosure and discovery under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3)(A) and (B). 23 3. The production of privileged or work-product protected documents, electronically stored 24 information ("ESI") or information is not a waiver of the privilege or protection from discovery 25 in this case or in any other federal or state proceeding. This Order shall be interpreted to provide 26 the maximum protection allowed by Federal Rule of Evidence 502(d).

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