Absolute Activist Value Master Fund v. Devine
Absolute Activist Value Master Fund v. Devine
Case Date: | 08/01/2019 |
Citation: | 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128263 |
Court Type: | Federal District |
Court: | Middle District of Florida (M.D. Fla.) |
Judge: | Federal Magistrate Judge: John E. Steele |
Issues: | Whether e-discovery costs for copying and preserving data in a more convenient format and for the management of the data by a hired company are allowable. |
Resolution: | No, the court did not allow the costs to be collected. The court determined that there are 3 allowable categories for e-discovery costs: (1) the cost of “imaging” hard drives containing ESI and processing that single-file “image” to extract individual documents with their original properties and metadata intact; (2) the cost of organizing the extracted documents into a database and then indexing, decrypting, de-duplicating, filtering, analyzing, searching and reviewing those documents to determine which are responsive; and (3) the cost of copying responsive documents onto DVDs or the like for delivery to the requesting party. Converting and preserving data must be limited to data ingestion or extraction as a substitute to physical copies. The convenience costs are not allowed as they are outside the limitation. Further, costs accrued for management by the hired company do not fall within the three categories. |
Relevant Documents: | Defendant’s Motion for Award of Costs and Fees (Doc. 713) Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motion For Award of Costs and Fees (Doc. 732) Defendant’s Reply in Support of Her Motion for Award of Costs and Fees (Doc. 750) |
E-Discovery Issues: | Motion to Review Costs |
E-discovery Tags: | Costs |
E-discovery subjects: | Database, Electronically stored information |