Otis v. Union Pacific Railroad Co

Filing 24

ORDER granting 23 Joint Motion for Producing Documents and Electronically Stored Information. Signed by Chief Magistrate Judge CJ Williams on 5/3/2018. (skm)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF IOWA

DAVID OTIS,
CASE NO. 3:18-cv-03009

Plaintiff,

PARTIES’ STIPULATED PROTOCOL
FOR PRODUCING DOCUMENTS AND
ELECTRONICALLY STORED
INFORMATION

v.
UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD CO.,
Defendant.

Plaintiff, David Otis, and Defendant, Union Pacific Railroad Company, by and
through their respective counsel, have jointly stipulated to the terms of Stipulated Order
Governing the Disclosure of Privileged Information, and with the Court being fully advised
as to the same, it is hereby ORDERED:
This Stipulated Protocol for Producing Documents and ESI (The “ESI Protocol”)
shall govern the production of documents and electronically stored information (“ESI”) by
the parties in the above captioned litigation. The ESI Protocol shall also govern
productions made by any third party who is subpoenaed in this action unless otherwise
agreed to by the issuing party and the third party. Accordingly, the ESI Protocol shall be
attached to any subpoena issued in this action after the date of this stipulation.
A.

Production Formats

As a general rule, the production format for all paper documents and ESI shall be
single-page Group IV TIFF files with corresponding text and load files, as set forth in detail
in Part C below (“the Default Rule”).
However, spreadsheets, databases, presentation files, audio/video files, and other
file types that do not render to image well should be produced in their Native format
(“Native Productions”).1 Native Productions shall not be produced as “values only.” They
should be produced as they are maintained, with all formulas, redlines, comments,
linkages, and metadata intact. Native Productions should include all ESI metadata fields
set forth below in the load file. It may sometimes be appropriate to produce partial data,
such as with information housed in databases containing more information than is

1

Examples of file types that should be produced in Native format include: .wav, .mpg,.xls, .xlsx,
.csv, ..dta, .dat, .cpt, .opt, .dll, .xpt,.sd2, .sav, .zsav, and .sys.

-1-

relevant to the case.2 In these instances, the parties should confer and agree on an ESI
protocol early on concerning the scope of, and methodology for, extracting the relevant
data. The contents of container files3 will be extracted and produced as individual files
with BegAttach and EndAttach field representing the family relationship.
B.

Handling of Paper Documents
Paper documents shall be scanned and produced according to the Default Rule.

C.

Default Rule: Specific Protocols for the Form of Production
The following specific protocols should be used for productions:
1. IMAGES:
 Black and White, unless color is requested or necessary to understand the
meaning
 Single Page Group IV TIFF files for black and white
 Single Page JPG files for color
 Image Resolution of 300 DPI
 With Placeholder images for files produced in Native Productions
 Retain original document orientation
 Endorsed with a unique Bates Number on each page
2. TEXT FILE SPECIFICATIONS:
 Full extracted text produced for all file types of ESI
 Produce a single text file for each document, not one text file per page
 Produce OCR text files for documents with redactions, or scanned paper
documents
 File Naming Convention: Beg Bates Number
 Documents without extracted text, as identified by the processing tool, will be
OCR’d

2

Examples of file types that may require extracted rather than complete productions include:
accdb, .accde, .dbf, .nsf, .mdb, .sas, .sas7dbat, and .sql.
3
Examples of container files include: .zip, .rar, .7z, gzip, and .zipx.
-2-

3. LOAD FILE SPECIFICATIONS:
 Images Load File: Opticon OPT file with one line per image, document
breaks, and page counts and will be named for the ProdVolume.
 Metadata Load File: Metadata will be provided in an Excel file named for the
ProdVolume. Metadata load files produced by the Defendant will be
converted to a CSV file.
 Extracted Text: Reference File Path to Text file in DAT file
 Native Files Produced: Reference File Path to Native file in DAT file
4. METADATA FIELDS FOR ALL PRODUCTIONS:
 BegBates: Beginning Bates Number
 EndBates: Ending Bates Number
 BegAttach4: First Bates Number of the first document of the family
 EndAttach: Last Bates number of the last document of the family
 Pgcount: Number of pages
 ProdVolume: Identifies production media deliverable
 Record Type: Indicates type of document (“E-Mail”, “E-Mail Attachment”, “EDoc”, etc.)
 ExtractedText: Relative file path to Extracted Text/OCR File (named per
BegBates number)
 Confidential: Confidential designation or “Yes” pursuant to any applicable
Protective Order
 Redacted: “Has Redactions” or “Yes” for redacted documents
5. METADATA FIELDS FOR ESI PRODUCTIONS:
 Filesize: Size in bytes of the native file
 MD5 Hash Value: MD5 hash value
 FileName: Original digital file name
 NativePath: Relative file path to produced Native file (named per BegBates
number)
 Title: Title field extracted from the metadata of a non-email document
 Author: Author field extracted from the metadata of a non-email document
 LastModified Date/Time: Date and time from the Modified property of a
document, representing the date and time that changes to the document were
last saved
 Last Saved By: Last Saved/Modified By property of a document,
representing the last user to save the document
 From: The sender of the email as extracted from the metadata
 To: Recipient of email as extracted from the metadata
4

The metadata field Physical Folder, a text field containing the name of a folder that a group of
individual hard copy documents are maintained in, may be provided in lieu of the BegAttach and
EndAttach fields for scanned paper documents.

-3-







CC: CC or Carbon Copy of email as extracted from the metadata
BCC: BCC or Blind Carbon Copy of the email as extracted from the
metadata
EmailSubject: Subject of an email message
Sent Date/Time: Date and time at which an email message was sent
Hidden Content: Microsoft Word and PowerPoint files will be produced with
hidden data displayed. The Load File will include a Hidden Content (Y/N) field
for such Microsoft and PowerPoint files.

IT IS SO ORDERED this 3rd day of May, 2018.

__________________________________
C.J. Williams
Chief United States Magistrate Judge
Northern District of Iowa

-4-