Rodriguez v. Google LLC
- Richard Seeborg
- 3:20-cv-04688
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 1
In Rodriguez v. Google LLC, Judge Tse ordered Google to add 19 employees as electronic-information custodians, denied one sealing motion, and granted another in part.
The plaintiffs and Google are affected by the expanded discovery process. Google must designate 19 employees as ESI custodians, and the parties must address collection, review, production, and revised public filings. The public may access the portions of the briefs that the court did not allow to remain sealed.
What happened
In Rodriguez v. Google LLC, the plaintiffs asked to add 19 Google employees as custodians of electronically stored information relevant to the case. Google argued that the burden or expense outweighed the likely benefit.
The court found that the plaintiffs had adequately explained the employees’ relevance and that Google had not shown that the burden or expense outweighed the likely benefit. It ordered Google to designate all 19 employees as custodians, but did not decide the scope of any particular search.
Judge Tse denied the motion to seal parts of the plaintiffs’ supplemental letter brief and granted in part the motion to seal parts of the parties’ joint letter brief. The parties also had to meet and confer about handling the new custodians’ information and file revised letter briefs by December 8, 2021.
The detailed version
- Rodriguez v. Google LLC · No. 3:20-cv-04688
- Richard Seeborg
- Dec. 1, 2021
Background
The plaintiffs sought to add 19 Google employees as custodians of electronically stored information (ESI). They explained why those employees had ESI relevant to the case. Google did not convince the court that the burden or expense of adding the custodians outweighed the likely benefit.
The order addressed motions identified as Docket Nos. 154, 155, and 162. It did not evaluate the scope of any particular ESI search.
Rulings
The court ordered Google to designate the 19 employees as ESI custodians.
The court denied the motion to seal portions of the plaintiffs’ supplemental letter brief. Google was the designating party, but it did not show that publicly disclosing the confidential information would cause specific prejudice or harm.
The court granted in part the motion to seal portions of the parties’ joint letter brief. The redacted text on page one, paragraph six, line eleven could remain under seal. The court found that the required showing had not been made for the remaining material.
Next Steps
By December 8, 2021, the parties had to meet and confer about collecting, reviewing, and producing ESI from the new custodians. They also had to file versions of their letter briefs that complied with the court’s sealing rulings.
Disposition
This was a discovery and sealing order. The order required Google to add the 19 custodians, denied one sealing motion, and granted another sealing motion in part.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.