In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation

CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedDecember 22, 2017
Docket1:16-cv-08637
StatusUnknown

This text of In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation (In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation, (N.D. Ill. 2017).

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION

IN RE BROILER CHICKEN ANTITRUST Case No. 1:16-cv-08637 LITIGATION This Document Relates To: All Actions Magistrate Judge Jeffrey T. Gilbert

ORDER Early this year, the parties issued initial sets of Rule 34 requests for production of documents. The parties have since responded and objected to each other’s requests for production, and they met and conferred about those responses and objections. Then, in several status reports and letters, the parties identified and briefed certain disputes regarding the Rule 34 requests for production (and the responses and objections thereto). See [415 at 33-52; 429; 434; 506; 507; 508; 522; 523; 524; 526]. During a telephonic status hearing held on December 11, 2017, the parties stated that a few of those disputes remain outstanding and are now ripe for ruling. In this Order, the Court rules on several of those disputes. 1. Phone Record Redactions Request No. 2(e) of All Plaintiffs’ First Set of Requests for Production of Documents to All Defendants requests the phone records of each document custodian. [508 at 28].' The parties do not actually agree whether there is a dispute with respect to this request for production. Plaintiffs say Defendants Peco Foods, Inc., George’s, and Perdue “have indicated their intent to apply redactions to certain unidentified phone numbers.” Jd. at 11.7 According to Defendants, however, none of them has yet determined whether to redact phone records (or the nature or extent of any such redactions) but all of them (not just Peco, George’s, and Perdue) reserve the right to do so. Defendants do not describe the nature and extent of the redactions they are considering. The Court agrees with Defendants that the parties may not yet have reached an unresolvable impasse with respect to a particular proposed redaction. During the December 11, 2017 telephone conference, however, Plaintiffs indicated it would be helpful to have more guidance on the issue of redacting phone records. In the Court’s view, the lack of a more concrete dispute is not so limiting as to thwart the usefulness of analyzing the parties’ arguments and providing general guidance.

' Request No. 2(e) reads: “For each Document Custodian, all: bills, statements, records, and supporting Documents concerning local, long distance, and cellular telephone calls by such employees, including calls made using telephones not paid for by You (such as home office, fax, and personal telephone numbers, personal cellphones, and temporary pay-as-you go cellphones) if such telephones were used for business purposes[.]” [508 at 28]. George’s and Perdue each includes multiple corporate entities. [212, J 40-42, 58-60].

Plaintiffs argue Defendants should not be permitted to redact phone numbers from their telephone records that are irrelevant to the claims and defenses in this case for any number of reasons. Plaintiffs contend the disclosure of phone numbers contained in telephone records does not implicate privacy concerns and, in any event, the designation of the records as confidential under the Agreed Confidentiality Order [202] will provide sufficient protection since those phone numbers cannot be used for any purpose other than this litigation. Plaintiffs also assert the process of redacting phone numbers, meeting and conferring about the redactions, and then processing and analyzing redacted records will impose substantial undue burden and expense on them. In response, Defendants claim the Order regarding Production of Electronically Stored Information and Paper Documents (“ESI Protocol”) [459] contemplates the possible redaction of irrelevant information. Defendants argue that, because Plaintiffs are seeking production of records from phones used for not only business but also personal purposes, it makes sense to allow Defendants to protect their right to redact irrelevant information. On August 15, 2017, the Court entered the ESI Protocol. [459]. The ESI Protocol provides that, “[a] [p]arty may redact irrelevant information that is highly sensitive, medical, or personal information (e.g., health information or Social Security Numbers).” Jd. at 19° It perhaps is a close question whether “highly” modifies “personal” under the series-qualifier canon.’ Although “highly sensitive” and “highly personal” are common enough concepts, the same may not be said of “highly medical.” There are reasons, though, why “personal” should not be interpreted to include any and all personal information. For one, mundane personal information that does not implicate any privacy interest is unlike highly sensitive or medical information. See United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 294 (2008) (discussing the canon of noscitur a sociis). Further, the one relevant example given in the order—Social Security Numbers—is not run-of-the-mill personal information. See F.7.C. v. EDebitPay, LLC, 695 F.3d 938, 943-44 (9th Cir. 2012) (““E.g.’ signifies that the subsequent examples” are not “exhaustive” but that they “are illustrative.”). In any event, while this is an interesting riff, it does not necessarily resolve the question at hand for a number of reasons including, most importantly, because the Court does not know specifically what “highly sensitive, medical, or personal” information any Defendant wants to redact from the phone records it produces. The Court addressed the redaction of irrelevant information in phone records during a status hearing held on June 16, 2017. The Court said it “generally” does not “allow redactions for relevance.” [430 at 131]. The Court recognized that, in some instances, it may be appropriate to redact irrelevant information. Jd. The basis of such a redaction, however, would not be irrelevance, but, rather, the highly sensitive nature of the information. Jd. Moreover, the Court indicated designating information confidential, rather than redacting it, generally is “the way to go” on protecting irrelevant information of a sensitive nature. /d. at 135. The Court’s thinking has not changed. The phone numbers dialed from or received by a phone typically are not the type of sensitive information that must be redacted before records are > The Order also addresses the redaction of information contained in a document custodian’s “contacts” that is unrelated to the document custodian’s work. [459 at 16-17]. “ Under the series-qualifier canon, “a modifier at the beginning or end of a series of terms modifies all the terms.” United States v. Laraneta, 700 F.3d 983, 989 (7th Cir. 2012); see generally A. SCALIA & B GARNER, READING LAW: THE INTERPRETATION OF LEGAL TEXTS 147-151 (2012).

produced to the other side. See Corsair Special Situations Fund, L.P. v. Engineered Framing Sys., Ine., 2011 WL 3651821, at *2 (D. Md. Aug. 17, 2011) (“An individual does not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the telephone numbers that are dialed on his or her telephone.”) (quoting Booker v. Dominion Va. Power, 2010 WL 1848474, at *9 (E.D. Va. May 7, 2010)). During the status hearing on June 16, 2017, the Court indicated that, in police cases, phone numbers of family members commonly are redacted because of the serious security concerns implicated by providing those numbers to a plaintiff suing an individual police officer. [430 at 131]. This exception proves the rule, and no party has articulated such a security concern in this case.

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In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-broiler-chicken-antitrust-litigation-ilnd-2017.