Humanmade v. SFMade

Background

The court addressed a joint letter brief concerning discovery between Plaintiff Humanmade and Defendant SFMade. The dispute involved seven proposed search terms for electronically stored information, or ESI, and Humanmade’s contention that SFMade’s interrogatory responses were deficient. The opinion states that the parties had agreed on five custodians and several search terms, but disagreed about seven terms because those terms allegedly produced too many document hits.

Humanmade argued that SFMade’s collection and production efforts had been deficient and that SFMade had not shared the hit counts for the seven disputed terms or allowed Humanmade to propose alternatives. SFMade represented that it had produced approximately 14,000 documents in two productions after hiring an electronic-discovery vendor and argued that Humanmade had been unwilling to discuss modifying the terms after searches were conducted. The parties also gave conflicting accounts of their meet-and-confer discussions and document production.

Search-Term Dispute

The court explained that discovery must concern nonprivileged information relevant to a claim or defense and must be proportional to the needs of the case. The court noted that neither party had submitted all seven disputed search terms and that the dispute was not about relevance. Instead, it concerned whether running the terms would be overly burdensome because they generated allegedly excessive numbers of irrelevant hits.

The court found that some additional search terms were directed to relevant evidence and further found that requiring SFMade to run additional, appropriately drafted terms and produce responsive ESI could be proportional to the needs of the case. Rather than simply adopting the relief requested by either side, the court ordered a process for resolving the dispute:

- By July 12, 2024, SFMade had to provide Humanmade with the hit-count statistics for each of the seven disputed terms. - By July 15, 2024, Humanmade had to provide up to seven modified terms intended to reduce overbreadth and undue burden. - By July 18, 2024, SFMade had to run the proposed modified terms, or agreed modifications, against its collected ESI database. - The parties’ lead trial counsel had to meet and confer in person or by videoconference, depending on their locations, and negotiate in good faith. - The parties had to finalize the search terms by July 22, 2024, or file a joint notice if they could not do so. - If the dispute remained unresolved, lead trial counsel and either the general counsel or chief executive officer of each party had to appear for an in-person hearing on July 23, 2024, subject to the conditions in the order. - After the terms were finalized, SFMade had to begin producing responsive documents on a rolling basis by July 26, 2024, and complete production by July 31, 2024.

The court also ordered the parties to share electronic-discovery statistics in future search-term disputes and to include people with technical knowledge of their discovery systems in the meet-and-confer process. It warned that continued inability to resolve discovery disputes reasonably could lead to additional procedures or sanctions, including monetary sanctions.

Interrogatories

Humanmade’s request for supplemental interrogatory responses was DENIED. The court held that Humanmade had not explained what the interrogatories sought, what was deficient about SFMade’s responses, or why supplementation would not duplicate depositions. Because the party seeking relief in a discovery dispute must show the need for that relief, the court found Humanmade’s brief, generalized complaint insufficient.

Conflicting Representations

The court ordered lead trial counsel for Humanmade to file a sworn declaration by July 15, 2024, explaining the bases for Humanmade’s statements about SFMade’s document production, the timing of production, SFMade’s alleged refusal to allow alternative search terms, and the supporting citation.

The court concurrently ordered SFMade’s lead trial counsel to file a sworn declaration by the same deadline explaining the bases for SFMade’s statements about Humanmade’s willingness to modify search terms, SFMade’s two productions after retaining its discovery vendor, and the approximately 14,000 documents allegedly produced.

Additional Discovery Procedures and Disposition

The court ordered privilege and clawback procedures for ESI produced under the order. If a party later asserted that produced ESI was privileged or protected, the material would be treated as inadvertently produced, with no waiver found under the procedure. SFMade would have to provide a clawback notice and, where appropriate, a redacted replacement or a slip sheet stating that the entire document was withheld. Humanmade and persons under its control would have to collect and sequester the identified material and either return or destroy it, subject to the order’s terms. The court also established procedures for challenging privilege assertions and managing confidentiality designations.

The court ordered the parties to discuss a reasonable schedule for fact-witness depositions and to file a joint discovery-management status report on July 29, 2024. It resolved Docket 63 and stated that any request to change the deadlines or procedures had to be submitted through a stipulated proposed order explaining the parties’ good-faith basis for the requested relief.