Iron Mountain Data Centre Germany B.V. v. WSP USA Inc.

Background

Judge Schofield referred scheduling and discovery matters to Magistrate Judge Willis. The parties submitted letters about several discovery disputes and said they would propose a new schedule after those disputes were resolved.

The first dispute concerned whether Mr. Gooderham could be noticed for a deposition under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(1). He is an employee of WSP Global, Inc., a related corporation, rather than of Defendant WSP USA Buildings, Inc. The parties agreed that he could be deposed under that rule if he qualified as a “managing agent” under the test in United States v. Afram Lines (USA), Ltd.

The second dispute concerned Defendant’s request that Plaintiff Iron Mountain and Third-Party Defendant AECOM produce their entire “Project File,” consisting of emails and documents related to construction of the data center involved in the case.

Court’s Rulings

The Court did not decide in this order whether Mr. Gooderham qualified as a managing agent. Because the parties had referred to documents and deposition testimony but had not provided those materials, the Court ordered them to submit the exhibits and letters of no more than three pages explaining their relevance. Those submissions were due by 5 p.m. on May 22, 2024.

The Court found Defendant’s request for the entire Project File overbroad and disproportionate to the needs of the case under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26. The Court also found that the possible relevance of documents to defenses that Defendant had not yet articulated was speculative. Defendant’s more limited alternative request—that Iron Mountain and AECOM identify the document custodians and search terms used to collect potentially responsive material—was GRANTED.

The Court ordered the parties to submit a joint letter proposing a timeline for identifying the custodians, collection period, search terms, volume of collected material, culling terms, and other criteria used to exclude documents from the productions. The timeline also had to allow the parties to review the production and raise relevant concerns with the Court.

The Court found valid Defendant’s concern that it could not determine whether relevant material had been produced without more detail about which portions of the project’s design and construction were at issue. But it concluded that requiring Iron Mountain to provide that detail at that stage would give Defendant information more properly addressed through expert discovery. That aspect of the alternative request was DENIED but without prejudice to refile.

After expert discovery closed, the Court stated that Defendant could seek leave to reopen fact discovery for the limited purpose of pursuing discovery about newly articulated claims. The parties were also directed to confer and propose an updated case-management plan with new dates for completing fact and expert discovery.

Effect of the Order

This was a discovery and scheduling order. It granted the limited request for information about how project documents were collected and searched, denied without prejudice the request for additional detail about the disputed project issues, deferred the managing-agent deposition question pending further submissions, and set requirements for the next discovery schedule.