J. v. City and County of San Francisco
- Cisneros
- 3:23-cv-06524
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In J.T. v. City and County of San Francisco, Judge Cisneros denied without prejudice defendants’ motion to withdraw a prior discovery order.
The ruling affected the defendants’ administrative request to withdraw the prior discovery order and set the process for the plaintiffs and defendants to address any remaining dispute about Microsoft Teams messages.
What happened
In J.T., et al. v. City and County of San Francisco, the court had ordered the defendants to provide basic information about preserving and producing Microsoft Teams messages. The defendants filed declarations about their efforts and an administrative motion asking the court to withdraw that order.
The court denied the motion without prejudice. It found that the motion exceeded the five-page limit for administrative motions and did not clearly identify what part of the earlier order the defendants wanted to avoid. The court also explained that the earlier order did not require disclosure of protected attorney-client communications.
Judge Lisa J. Cisneros said the information already provided appeared to serve the earlier order’s purpose. The court allowed the parties to meet and confer and raise any remaining discovery issues in a joint letter, without prejudice to either side’s arguments.
The detailed version
- J. v. City and County of San Francisco · No. 3:23-cv-06524
- Cisneros
- Jan. 8, 2025
Background
After a December 19, 2024 discovery-status conference, the court ordered the defendants to disclose basic information about their efforts to preserve and produce Microsoft Teams messages by January 7, 2025. The court also allowed the defendants to file an administrative motion asking to withdraw that order if they believed the requested information was not discoverable. The order established a process for addressing whether additional discovery about the Teams messages was warranted.
The defendants filed declarations addressing preservation of Teams messages and also filed the administrative motion at issue. They argued that the earlier order had been issued without full briefing or an opportunity to respond, was moot or not ripe, was disproportionate to the needs of the case, and sought attorney-client privileged communications. The defendants also stated that they had complied with the earlier order.
Ruling
Judge Lisa J. Cisneros denied the administrative motion without prejudice for two reasons. First, its substantive content exceeded the five-page limit for administrative motions under Civil Local Rule 7-11(a). Second, the defendants did not identify specific information required by the earlier order that they believed was not discoverable, or a specific part of the order from which they sought relief. Because the defendants said they had complied with the order, the court found it unclear what practical purpose withdrawing it would serve.
The court rejected the suggestion that the earlier order necessarily required disclosure of attorney-client communications. It explained that the order anticipated that some internal communications might be privileged or otherwise protected and gave the defendants an opportunity to object. The court further stated that the prior order did not compel production or disclosure of defense counsel’s attorney-client communications with individuals involved in collecting responsive Teams messages.
Teams-message information and next steps
The court found that the information the defendants had provided appeared to serve the purpose of the prior order: creating a record of which responsive Teams messages had been collected and which might have been lost. The court described information from Operations Support Administrator Johann Leung stating that San Francisco Police Department Teams messages posted to channels were not automatically deleted, while direct messages between users were automatically overwritten after 30 days. The court said the parties could meet and confer and address any unresolved issues in the joint letter due January 23, 2025. The order was without prejudice to arguments either party might make in that letter.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.