NY Judge Laments E-Discovery ‘Fiasco’
A New York federal judge has summed up the problems with electronic discovery in an opinion ordering PSEG Power New York Inc. to produce 3,000 e-mails and 211,000 pages of electronic materials in coherent form.
Magistrate Judge Randolph F. Treece of Albany labeled the e-discovery problems a “fiasco” that caused expense and delay, the New York Law Journal reports. Due to a glitch, the e-mails were produced but many of the attachments “became irretrievably separated during the discovery production process,” the judge said.
The judge ordered defendant PSEG Power New York Inc. to recombine the materials at its own expense.
“With the rapid and sweeping advent of electronic discovery, the litigation landscape has been radically altered in terms of scope, mechanism, cost and perplexity,” Treece wrote in his Sept. 7 opinion (PDF posted by the New York Law Journal). “This landscape may be littered with more casualties than successes and the discovery imbroglio in this case is a prime example of this observation.
“For nearly six months, the parties and the court have been grappling with an electronic discovery monstrosity with the hope that it could be corralled and definitively resolved, thereby obviating the need for motion practice. Alas, attempts to resolve the issue in lieu of briefs fell woefully beyond the parties’ grasp.”
