Tinsley, Dwane L., United States Magistrate Judge
In a Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) action, the trial court held that defendant was not required to give plaintiff access to its automatic vehicle management system (“AVMS”) where defendant had already produced the requested ESI in paper format and there were only fourteen days remaining until the discovery deadline.
Plaintiffs brought this FLSA collective action alleging defendant failed to pay overtime to its drivers. Plaintiffs requested that the court order defendant to grant plaintiffs access to their AVMS, so that plaintiffs could have all of the data in native file format pertaining to the employees who opted in to the collective action. Defendant responded that it already produced paper compilations of AVMS information that showed when its vehicles were first turned on and turned off each day. Despite this, plaintiff claimed that certain requested data fields from the AVMS were not produced, and in order to get access to the data in native format, plaintiff requested access to the AVMS.
The court denied plaintiff’s request, holding it would be “onerous and duplicative for defendant to now produce the list of trucks and the VFTS records in native file format fourteen (14) days before the discovery deadline.”
v.
ASPLUNDH TREE EXPERT CO., Defendant
Counsel
Anthony David Nichols, Jason J. Stemple, L. David Duffield, Duffield Lovejoy & Stemple, Huntington, WV, Vincent Trivelli, Law Office of Vincent Trivelli, Morgantown, WV, for Plaintiffs.Joseph U. Leonoro, Steptoe & Johnson, Charleston, WV, Nora Clevenger Price, Steptoe & Johnson, Huntington, WV, for Defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Computer-stored data and other information responsive to a production request will not necessarily be in an appropriately labeled file. Broad database searches may be necessary, requiring safeguards against exposing confidential or irrelevant data to the opponent's scrutiny. A responsive party's screening of vast quantities of unorganized computer data for privilege prior to production can be particularly onerous in those jurisdictions in which inadvertent production of privileged data may constitute a waiver of privilege as to a particular item of information, items related to the relevant issue or the entire of data collection. (Id.)