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Special Committee on Discovery and Case Management in Federal Litigation

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Special Committee on Discovery and Case Management in Federal Litigation REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON DISCOVERY AND CASE MANAGEMENT IN FEDERAL LITIGATION OF THE NEW YORK STATE BAR ASSOCIATION APPROVED BY THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES ON JUNE 23, 2012 - 2 - THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS CHAIR Samuel F. Abernethy, Esq. Menaker & Herrmann LLP, NYC MEMBERS Gregory K. Arenson, Esq. Lawrence I. Fox, Esq. Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP, NYC McDermott Will & Emery LLP, NYC Hon. William G. Bauer Christopher B. Hitchcock, Esq. Woods Oviatt Gilman LLP, Rochester Hitchcock & Cummings LLP, NYC Robert L. Becker, Esq. Michael Robert Huttenlocher, Jr. Esq. Raff & Becker, LLP, NYC McDermott Will & Emery LLP, NYC James Michael Bergin, Esq. Hon. Frank Maas Morrison & Foerster LLP, NYC US District Court, S.D.N.Y. Melissa A. Crane, Esq. Michael A. Oropallo, Esq. Appellate Division: First Department, NYC Hiscock & Barclay LLP, Syracuse Heath J. Szymczak, Esq. Jaeckle Fleishmann & Mugel, LLP, Buffalo SECRETARY Yasmin Rashid Zainulbhai, Esq. Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, NYC TABLE OF CONTENTS Page No. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 7 Part I – PRESERVATION AND SPOLIATION.......................................................................... 11 A. BACKGROUND .................................................................................................. 13 1. Historical Overview ..................................................................................... 13 2. Source of the Duty to Preserve .................................................................... 14 3. The Rules Enabling Act ............................................................................... 16 B. CURRENT STATE OF THE LAW ..................................................................... 18 1. Triggering the Duty...................................................................................... 18 2. Relevance ..................................................................................................... 22 3. Scope of the Duty......................................................................................... 23 C. ELEMENTS OF A SPOLIATION CLAIM ......................................................... 31 1. Relevant Information ................................................................................... 31 2. Prejudice ...................................................................................................... 32 3. Rebuttable Presumptions ............................................................................. 33 4. Culpable State of Mind ................................................................................ 35 D. REMEDIES AND SANCTIONS FOR SPOLIATION ........................................ 37 E. RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................................................... 46 Part II – EARLY CASE MANAGEMENT .................................................................................. 50 Part III – MANDATORY INITIAL DISCLOSURE .................................................................... 58 A. INITIAL DISCLOSURE UNDER THE FEDERAL RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE ....................................................................................................... 60 B. ACADEMIC TREATMENT OF RULE 26(a)(1) ................................................ 64 i C. EMPIRICAL DATA AND PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO RULE 26(a)(1) ................................................................................................................. 65 1. ACTL/IAALS .............................................................................................. 66 2. Center For Constitutional Litigation ............................................................ 66 3. ABA Litigation Section ............................................................................... 67 D. STATE MANDATED INITIAL DISCLOSURE RULES ................................... 68 1. Arizona ......................................................................................................... 68 2. Illinois .......................................................................................................... 69 3. Texas ............................................................................................................ 69 E. RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................................................... 70 Part IV – PRIVILEGE LOG ......................................................................................................... 73 A. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 73 B. GUIDELINES ....................................................................................................... 78 Guideline 1 ............................................................................................................ 78 Guideline 2 ............................................................................................................ 79 Guideline 3 ............................................................................................................ 82 Guideline 4 ............................................................................................................ 89 Guideline 5 ............................................................................................................ 89 Guideline 6 ............................................................................................................ 90 Guideline 7 ............................................................................................................ 91 Guideline 8 ............................................................................................................ 92 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 94 Appendix A ................................................................................................................... 95 Appendix B ................................................................................................................. 109 Appendix C ................................................................................................................. 117 ii REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON DISCOVERY AND CASE MANAGEMENT IN FEDERAL LITIGATION OF THE NEW YORK STATE BAR ASSOCIATION Executive Summary The Special Committee on Discovery and Case Management in Federal Litigation (the “Committee”) was tasked with examining the perceived delays and expense of litigation in federal court and to make recommendations to reduce both. After looking at empirical data and perusing the ample literature, both scholarly and practical, on the causes of delays and expense and on remedies, including the significant and useful group of materials assembled for the May 2010 conference at Duke Law School (the “Duke Conference”) sponsored by the Civil Rules Advisory Committee of the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States (“Advisory Committee”), the Committee decided to focus on, and make recommendations regarding four aspects of litigation. The report is divided into four parts that coincide with those recommendations. 1 Part I The first part addresses the absence of rules about preservation and spoliation in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. After analyzing the current case law concerning when and what information is to be preserved, the scope of that duty, and finally the elements of a spoliation claim, the report proposes new Rules 26(h) and 37(g) to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure1. Proposed Rule 26(h)(1) would create a duty to preserve when (a) “a person becomes aware of facts or circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to expect to be a party to an action, or (b) a subpoena is received by a non-party.” Proposed Rule 26(h)(2) describes the scope of the duty to preserve and introduces the concept of proportionality, requiring that the person with the duty to preserve must take reasonable actions under the circumstances. The factors to be considered in determining the reasonable measure to be undertaken include the importance of the material to the resolution of the issues, the importance of the issues at stake, the amount in controversy, the expense and burden of preservation, and the parties’ resources. Proposed Rule 26(h)(3) defines the termination of the duty of preservation, in circumstances when no action has been commenced, to be when facts and circumstances lead a reasonable person to expect not to be a party to an action, and, when an action has been commenced, at the termination of the party’s or non-party’s involvement. 1 All references to “Rules” are to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure unless otherwise noted. 2 Finally, proposed Rule 26(h)(4) requires that documents, whether electronically stored or otherwise, be kept in a form as close to the original without material loss of accessibility. The Committee proposes a new Rule 37(g) to provide for sanctions for violation of preservation duties, suggesting in subsection (1) nine possible remedies ranging from dismissal of the action to allowing further discovery, but requiring the court to impose the “least severe remedy or sanction to redress the violation . .” The factors to be considered in determining the appropriate
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