Sandoval v. Uphold HQ Inc.
- Laura Swain
- 1:21-cv-07579
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Sandoval v. Uphold HQ, Judge Moses denied plaintiffs’ discovery application without prejudice, allowing renewal after the party discovery stay ends.
The plaintiffs and proposed class, and Uphold HQ, Inc., as the parties involved in the requested electronic-discovery discussions.
What happened
In Sandoval v. Uphold HQ Inc., the plaintiffs and proposed class asked the court to address Uphold’s refusal to discuss how electronically stored information would be searched in discovery. They said a prior court order required the parties to discuss search methods, search terms, and the people whose records would be searched.
The plaintiffs said Uphold treated the request as too late, even though fact discovery was still open for several months. They asked for a conference and an order requiring Uphold to comply with the electronic-discovery order. The opinion describes the plaintiffs’ concerns about potentially missing messages, social-media materials, and customer-complaint records, but says they were not asking the court at that point to order production of those specific categories.
Judge Barbara Moses denied the application without prejudice to renewal when the party discovery stay is lifted. The opinion does not state that the court decided whether Uphold violated the electronic-discovery order.
The detailed version
- Sandoval v. Uphold HQ Inc. · No. 1:21-cv-07579
- Laura Swain
- Sept. 16, 2022
Background
The plaintiffs and proposed class sought a discovery conference concerning electronic stored information (ESI). They asserted that Uphold HQ, Inc. had refused to meet and confer—that is, to discuss and attempt to resolve the issue with opposing counsel—about ESI search methodologies, search terms, and custodians.
The opinion states that the court entered an ESI order on May 20, 2022. That order required the parties to meet and confer about the methods, words, terms, and phrases used to identify potentially responsive ESI, and to identify the custodians and other electronic systems to be searched. The opinion also states that fact discovery was scheduled to remain open until January 13, 2023.
The plaintiffs said that, on August 1, 2022, they requested discussions about search terms and custodians and about unresolved document-production issues. According to the plaintiffs, Uphold responded that the request was untimely and would not agree to the requested discussions. The parties’ counsel held a telephone conference on August 18, 2022, but the plaintiffs said Uphold maintained that the ESI discussions were too late. The plaintiffs followed up by letter on August 19, 2022.
Arguments
The plaintiffs argued that Uphold’s refusal violated the ESI order and conflicted with the requirement that counsel cooperate during electronic discovery. They also described possible gaps in Uphold’s production, including communications on Slack, WeChat, and Telegram, social-media marketing materials, and records concerning customer complaints about the “Earn” program.
The plaintiffs expressly stated that they were not asking the court to order production of those substantive categories at that stage. Instead, they requested an ordinary ESI meet-and-confer process and asked the court to require Uphold to conduct the required searches and produce responsive documents.
Disposition
Judge Barbara Moses denied the application without prejudice to renewal when the party discovery stay is lifted. The opinion does not provide a merits determination on whether Uphold violated the ESI order, whether additional searches were required, or whether the identified categories of documents had to be produced. Because the ruling concerned discovery rather than the underlying claims, this is a procedural order.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.