*1 The Court has reviewed Sean Hitz and Jeff Riordan's (“Defendant Officers’ ”) motion to preserve cellular phone evidence. (R. 49, Def.'s Mot. to Preserve Evidence). For the following reasons, the Court grants Defendant Officers' motion.

BACKGROUND

On April 11, 2016, Defendant Sean Hitz discharged his service weapon and shot Pierre Loury. Police officers recovered a cellular phone near Loury's body and it was inventoried as Inventory Number 13664628, Item Number 7983408. On April 20, 2016, Plaintiff filed a Complaint alleging violations of § 1983 and several claims under Illinois state law. Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint on October 26, 2016.

Defendant Officers have now filed a Motion to Preserve Evidence. They claim that certain incriminating photographs have been removed from Loury's social media profiles and argue that a preservation order is necessary to preserve evidence on Loury's phone. Defendant Officers request that the Court allow an independent vendor to image Loury's cellular phone and make electronic copies of text messages, emails, voicemails, phone call logs, video files, photo files, and any social media account information on Loury's phone.

LEGAL STANDARD

“Rule 26 vests the trial judge with broad discretion” to manage discovery disputes and tailor discovery as appropriate. Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 598 (1998). Under Rule 26(b), “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any non-privileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, considering ... the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b). Further, under Rule 34(a), a party may “serve on any other party a request within the scope of Rule 26(b) to produce and permit the requesting party ... to inspect, copy, test, or sample ... any designated documents or electronically stored information.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a). The Advisory Committee Notes to this rule state, “The addition of testing and sampling ... is not meant to create a routine right of direct access to a party's electronic information system, although such access might be justified in some circumstances. Courts should guard against undue intrusiveness ...” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a) Advisory Committee Notes.

The Court also has broad discretion in determining whether to enter a preservation order. In re African-Am. Slave Descendants' Litig., No. 02 C 7764, 2003 WL 24085346, at *2 (N.D. Ill. July 15, 2003). “A motion to preserve evidence is an injunctive remedy and should issue only upon an adequate showing that equitable relief is warranted.” Id. (quotations and citations omitted). “In deciding whether to enter a preservation order, courts in this district have considered (1) whether Plaintiffs can demonstrate that Defendants will destroy necessary documentation without a preservation order; 2) whether Plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm if a preservation order is not entered; and 3) the burden imposed upon the parties by granting a preservation order.” McDaniel v. Loyola Univ. Med. Ctr., No. 13-CV-06500, 2014 WL 1775685, at *2 (N.D. Ill. May 5, 2014).

ANALYSIS

*2 Defendant Officers frame this motion as a request for a preservation order. Plaintiff, however, does not have possession of the evidence in question and thus cannot be ordered to preserve that evidence. The City of Chicago, a party in this case, currently possesses the cellular phone in question. Although the Court finds it unlikely that the City of Chicago will destroy the cellular phone, the Court orders that the City of Chicago preserve Loury's cellular phone out of an abundance of caution and because the Defendants Officers have shown that the phone may have relevant evidence that is “properly discoverable under Rule 26.” Wiginton v. Ellis, No. 02 C 6832, 2003 WL 22439865, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 27, 2003).

As Plaintiff correctly argues, however, Defendant Officers' request is more than a request to preserve evidence. Defendant Officers request permission to image Loury's cellular phone and make electronic copies of several types of electronic data maintained on the phone. This is more properly characterized as a request under Rule 26 and Rule 34 for a party to produce electronically stored information (“ESI”). The wrinkle here is that while one party, the City of Chicago, has physical control of the cellular phone, another party, Loury's estate, appears to have legal control of the cellular phone.[1] Both the City of Chicago and Loury's estate, however, are parties to this suit, so legal and physical control should present no obstacle to accessing the cellular phone.

The question, under Rule 26 and Rule 34, is then whether the phone contains “non-privileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case” and “whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b). Here, Defendant Officers have shown that the phone may contain ESI that is properly discoverable because it is relevant to issues related to damages. Surgery Ctr. at 900 N. Michigan Ave., LLC v. Am. Physicians Assurance Corp., Inc., 317 F.R.D. 620, 630–31 (N.D. Ill. 2016) (granting motion to compel discovery regarding damages). Defendant Officers are not, however, entitled to unfettered access to Loury's phone. Ye v. Cliff Veissman, Inc., No. 14-CV-01531, 2016 WL 950948, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 7, 2016).

Courts are reluctant to compel all-encompassing social media or electronic information requests unless they are limited in scope to content that is relevant to the case. In Ye, for example, the defendants, who allegedly caused the death of the plaintiff's decedent, sought to “compel the production of a full archive of Facebook accounts maintained” by the decedent, arguing that it was relevant to damages issues. Id. at *2. The court determined that the Facebook material was relevant, but found that the scope of the defendants' request was overbroad. Id. While some of the information on Facebook could be relevant to damages, the court did not allow the defendants to “inquire into every conversation and interaction the decedent ... had with anyone in the world.” Id. at *3. The court found it troubling that the request was not limited to a relevant time period or to relevant content, and denied the defendant “unfettered access to the Facebook archives of plaintiff's decedent.” Id. As a result, the court denied the defendants' motion to compel and ordered them to craft a narrower request to examine the plaintiff's social media ESI. Id. at *4. See also Higgins v. Koch Dev. Corp., No. 3:11-CV-81-RLY-WGH, 2013 WL 3366278, at *2 (S.D. Ind. July 5, 2013) (finding the production of social media content to provide evidence of emotional suffering was relevant when the request was limited in scope to information relating to the plaintiffs' “enjoyment of life, ability to engage in outdoor activities, and employment”); Appler v. Mead Johnson & Co., LLC, No. 3:14-CV-166-RLY-WGH, 2015 WL 5615038, at *3 (S.D. Ind. Sept. 24, 2015) (finding a request limited to social media content that involved plaintiff and defendant was “limited to clearly target content that [was] relevant and that [would] lead to admissible evidence.”).

*3 Here, as in Ye, there may be relevant information on Loury's cellular phone, but Defendant Officers' request is too broad. The Court finds that Defendant Officers may image the phone. The Court orders Defendant Officers to produce that forensic image to Plaintiff for review and production of any relevant ESI requested by Defendant Officers. Defendant Officers may retain a copy of the forensic image, but may not search that image unless ordered by the Court. Defendant Officers should narrowly tailor any discovery requests for ESI on the cellular phone to a reasonable time period and to specific content that may be relevant to this case. The Court trusts that the parties will meet and confer as necessary to reach an agreement on the data that will be produced. If they cannot do so, they can bring to the court what should be a more narrow and focused dispute.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court grants Defendant Officers' motion, but orders the City of Chicago to allow Defendant Officers to create a forensic image of the phone. The Court orders Defendant Officers to produce that image to Plaintiff for review and production of responsive evidence.