Lin v. Solta Medical, Inc.

Background

The court considered a joint letter brief describing discovery disputes between Hsin Lin and Solta Medical, Inc. The court explained that discovery may cover nonprivileged information relevant to a claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case. The party resisting discovery bears the burden of supporting its objections.

RFP 41

The disputes concerned three issues: how to search for communications about the device, how far back the search should reach, and whether Solta had to identify the employees whose emails would be searched.

The court had previously ordered that discovery be limited to materials concerning the model or generation of the device involved in the complaint, rather than every device bearing the Thermage name. To implement that limitation, the court ordered that “CPT” or another unique product identifier, such as a model number, must appear somewhere in a document for the document to be returned as a search result. The court also suggested that the parties consider email-threading technology, which returns all emails in a chain when one email is found.

The court ordered the search to cover communications from 2014 through the present. It found that searching back to 2009 would be excessive and that a search beginning in 2014 was sufficient. The court noted that Lin had previously been willing to limit the request to communications from January 1, 2015, through the present, and that Solta agreed to the 2014 start date.

The issue concerning the employees whose emails would be searched was moot because Solta’s portion of the joint letter included that list. The court then entered the discovery order.

Disposition

The court resolved the discovery disputes as described above and ordered the parties to use the specified search limits. The order was signed by Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton on January 11, 2024.