*1 Now before the Court are (1) a joint letter presenting a discovery dispute, in which Plaintiffs seek to compel an inspection of Defendants’ computer (Doc. No. 91), and (2) Plaintiffs’ motion for attorneys’ fees in connection with one of the parties’ earlier discovery disputes (Doc. No. 37). For the reasons set forth below, Plaintiffs’ requests are both denied.

On December 2, 2016, the Court denied Plaintiffs’ letter motion to compel an inspection of Defendants’ computer under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(3)(B)(iv), finding that Plaintiffs had not demonstrated the kind of “widespread destruction or withholding of relevant information” that would justify the burden and expense of such an inspection. (Doc. No. 72 (quoting Convolve, Inc. v. Compaq Computer Corp., 223 F.R.D. 162, 169 (S.D.N.Y. 2004).) The Court added, however, that Plaintiffs could renew their motion should they decide to conduct depositions and present adequate evidence of tampering and withholding. (Id.) On August 21, 2017, the parties submitted a joint letter in which Plaintiffs indicate their wish to renew their motion, contending that the deposition of Defendant Elizabeth Dugan (“Dugan”) “reveal[s] that Defendants did in fact withhold and tamper with electronically stored information.” (Doc. No. 91 at 1.) Defendants again oppose Plaintiffs’ request to inspect their computer.

Plaintiffs point to three “[b]ad [f]aith discovery practices revealed during Elizabeth Dugan's [d]eposition” that they maintain constitute sufficient evidence of withholding and tampering to support their motion to compel an inspection of Defendant's computer. (Id. at 2.) First, although Defendants previously informed the Court that they did not possess email addresses for the putative collective action plaintiffs (see Doc. No. 78), Dugan's deposition testimony revealed that Defendants did indeed possess such email addresses, which Dugan “generally” used to communicate with employees about their work schedules. (Doc. No. 91 at 2.) Second, the deposition testimony indicated that Dugan was in the practice of preparing weekly work schedules on Defendants’ computer, but Defendants never produced any such schedules, despite Plaintiffs’ request that they do so. (Id.) After the deposition, Defendants agreed to produce relevant work schedules, but Plaintiffs claim that they are “simply not confident that Defendants have now produced all relevant adverse documents in their possession.” (Id. at 2–3.) Finally, Plaintiffs argue that Dugan's admission that she created and produced a particular tip sheet that looks different from the ones Defendants used in the ordinary course of business – which she says she did “in an effort to explain the restaurant's tip pool operations” – demonstrates “[t]ampering and fabrication of documents in preparation [for] litigation.” (Id. at 3.)

Defendants respond as follows. First, with regard to the email addresses, Defendants apologize for having “inadvertent[ly] misrepresent[ed]” to the Court that they did not possess the putative collective action plaintiffs’ email addresses, but argue that this mistake has no bearing on the present dispute, since Plaintiffs originally requested the email addresses only for the purpose of disseminating notice of the collective action to potential opt-in plaintiffs, which they ultimately did instead by physical mail, public posting, and telephone calls. (Doc. No. 91 at 5.) Defendants add that they are willing to consent to Plaintiffs’ suggestion that the Court order an additional two-week opt-in period to allow notice to be sent once again via email. (Id.) Second, with respect to the work schedules, Defendants protest Plaintiffs’ insinuation that they unjustifiably withheld the documents, pointing out that Defendants objected to Plaintiffs’ corresponding discovery demand as vague and unduly burdensome, and that Plaintiffs never mentioned the schedules again until Dugan's deposition. (Id. at 4.) Moreover, Defendants point out, they cooperatively searched for and produced the schedules after the deposition, and since Plaintiffs do not claim that the schedules produced were altered or tampered with, they should not be allowed to “rummage through Defendants’ computers in the hope of finding” more. (Id. at 5.) Third, Defendants object to Plaintiffs’ characterization of Dugan's deposition testimony regarding the single admittedly altered tip sheet: according to Defendants, Dugan sent that document to Plaintiffs’ counsel before this case was filed in order to illustrate how Defendants ordinarily distributed tips, and she never represented that it was an original business record. (Id. at 4.) Furthermore, Dugan testified that she altered only the size and formatting, not the substance, of an original tip sheet in creating the document at issue. (Id.) Altogether, Defendants argue, Plaintiffs have once again failed to put forth evidence of the kind of widespread tampering or withholding of relevant information that would warrant an inspection of Defendants’ computer. (Id. at 3–4.)

*2 As the Court explained previously, parties may generally “obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense[.]” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). Relevance is “broadly construed ‘to encompass any matter that bears on, or that reasonably could lead to other matter that could bear on, any issue that is or may be in the case.’ ” Daval Steel Products, a Div. of Francosteel Corp. v. M/V Fakredine, 951 F.2d 1357, 1367 (2d Cir. 1991) (quoting Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351 (1978)). Within the scope of Rule 26(b), parties may request electronically stored information. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(1)(A). However, Rule 26 allows a judge to limit discovery where “the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit, considering the needs of the case, the amount in controversy, the parties’ resources, the importance of the issues at stake in the action, and the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(C)(iii). Of particular importance here, requests to inspect an opposing party's computer “are granted only under limited circumstances,” such as “when there is reason to believe that a litigant has tampered with the computer or hidden relevant materials despite demand for them in the course of the lawsuit.” Lifeng Chen v. New Trend Apparel Inc., No. 11-cv-324 (GBD) (MHD), 2012 WL 4784855, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 2, 2012); see also Calyon v. Mizuho Sec. USA Inc., No. 07-cv-02241 (RO) (DF), 2007 WL 1468889, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. May 18, 2007) (collecting cases); Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 advisory committee's note to 2006 amendment (because “[i]nspection or testing of certain types of electronically stored information or of a responding party's electronic information system may raise issues of confidentiality or privacy,” Rule 34 “is not meant to create a routine right of direct access to a party's electronic information system”). Absent a showing of “widespread destruction or withholding of relevant information,” courts are unlikely to find the burden and expense of a proposed computer inspection justified. Convolve, 223 F.R.D. at 169.

Having considered the grounds for Plaintiffs’ renewed request, the Court finds them still wanting. Dugan's deposition testimony does not suggest that Defendants deliberately or systematically withheld relevant information; all it shows is that, in light of new information about Dugan's schedule-making practice, Plaintiffs decided to renew a request for documents that Defendants had previously objected to producing, and Defendants this time dropped their objection and obliged. And while the Court finds it troubling that Defendants somehow inadvertently misrepresented the fact that they did possess employee email addresses, those addresses themselves are not relevant information under Rule 26, and that blunder alone cannot bear the weight of Plaintiffs’ otherwise unsupported suspicion that Defendants have withheld more schedules, particularly when Plaintiffs do not even identify any employees or time periods for which relevant records might be missing. See Piccone v. Town of Webster, No. 09-cv-6266, 2010 WL 3516581, at *8 (W.D.N.Y. Sept. 3, 2010) (“[A] party may not inspect the physical hard drives of a computer merely because the party wants to search for additional documents responsive to the party's document requests.”) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted); Bethea v. Comcast, 218 F.R.D. 328, 330 (D.D.C. 2003) (“[A] party's suspicion that another party has failed to respond to document requests fully and completely does not justify compelled inspection of its computer systems.”).

Evidence of tampering is likewise lacking. Dugan's deposition testimony merely confirms what Defendants represented in response to Plaintiffs’ previous request to compel inspection of their computer – that Dugan reformatted a tip sheet without changing its substance in order to make it easier to read and understand. (See Doc. No. 66 at 4 (explaining that Dugan enlarged font size and pasted information into a Word document without altering dollar amounts); Doc. No. 91 at 4 (quoting Dugan testifying that she “put [the tip sheet] on a Word doc to make it bigger, to try to explain to you how the tip thing worked”); id. (citing deposition testimony indicating that Dugan did not alter the numbers in the tip sheets).) Without endorsing Dugan's decision to modify the tip sheet before sending it, which she evidently did before the complaint was filed in this case (see id. at 3, 4), the Court finds that this single reformatted tip sheet simply does not constitute evidence of pervasive tampering with documents produced in discovery. And since Plaintiffs point to no other evidence of tampering, they have no need to “request metadata of randomized samples of tip sheets” (Doc. No. 91 at 3) in order to assure themselves that the documents were produced in the ordinary course of business.

*3 In sum, because Plaintiffs have provided no compelling evidence of “widespread destruction or withholding of relevant information,” the Court once again denies Plaintiffs’ request that they be allowed to inspect Defendants’ computer. See, e.g., Calyon, 2007 WL 1468889 at *5 (denying motion to compel inspection where plaintiff failed to show that defendant would not conduct exhaustive search for requested documents, files, and metadata); Med. Billing Consultants, Inc. v. Intelligent Med. Objects, Inc., No. 01-cv-9148, 2003 WL 1809465, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 4, 2003) (request to inspect defendants’ computer “likely to unduly burden defendants without leading to the discovery of otherwise unobtainable relevant evidence” when defendants had turned over inadvertently withheld email and there was no further evidence of withholding or tampering). The Court likewise denies Plaintiffs’ request for attorneys’ fees in connection with this letter motion. (See Doc. No. 91 at 3.)

Plaintiffs have also requested that the Court award them attorneys’ fees in connection with the parties’ first discovery dispute, which took place a year ago. (See Doc. Nos. 34, 37.) Specifically, Plaintiffs argue that an award of fees is mandatory under Rule 37(a)(5) because the Court granted in full what Plaintiffs characterize as their motion to compel production of certain documents under Rule 37(a)(3)(B)(iv). (Doc. No. 37 at 1–2.) Defendants oppose the request. (Doc. No. 47.)

As an initial matter, the Court notes that Rule 3 7(a)(5)’s fee provision is not clearly applicable here, since what Plaintiffs characterize as their motion to compel under Rule 37(a)(3)(B)(iv) is in fact a two-and-a-half page portion of a joint letter submitted by the parties in accordance with Rule 2.G of the Court's Individual Rules and Practices – a letter describing several discovery disputes that the Court then informally resolved at a pre-motion conference already scheduled to take place the same day. Indeed, the Court's Individual Rules and Practices call for a joint letter in the event of a discovery dispute for the very purpose of avoiding the time and expense associated with motion practice. For this reason alone, the Court denies Plaintiffs’ request. See La Piel, Inc. v. Richina Leather Indus. Co. Ltd., 10-cv-1050 (JFB) (ETB), 2013 WL 1315125, at *17 (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 29, 2013) (denying request for fees in connection with discovery dispute letters styled as motions).

Nonetheless, even assuming that Rule 37(a)(5) governed here, the Court would still deny Plaintiffs’ request for fees both because the Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion only in part and because Defendants were substantially justified in opposing certain of Plaintiffs’ discovery requests. Rule 37(a)(5) directs courts to award reasonable expenses and attorneys’ fees to a party who successfully moves under Rule 37(a)(3) to compel disclosure or discovery. Courts must not award fees, however, if “the opposing party's nondisclosure, response, or objection was substantially justified” or “other circumstances make an award of expenses unjust.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5)(A); see also Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 565 (1988) (“[s]ubstantially justified” means simply that there was a “genuine dispute” or that “reasonable people could differ” about the appropriateness of the contested action). And if a court grants a motion to compel only in part, whether to award fees is left to its “broad discretion.” Smith v. Conway Org., Inc., 154 F.R.D. 73, 78 (S.D.N.Y. 1994) (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5)(C); Corporation of Lloyd's v. Lloyd's U.S., 831 F.2d 33, 36 (2d Cir. 1987)).

Here, Plaintiffs sought to compel production of three categories of documents: (i) documents indicating ownership, management, and operational control of the corporate Defendant, (ii) documents evidencing periodic cash and credit card sales from 2013 to the date of the request, and (iii) all daily and weekly tip sheets from 2013 to the date of the request. (See Doc. No. 34 at 2–3.) At the pre-motion conference, the parties and the Court discussed Plaintiffs’ requests, and while the Court instructed Defendants to produce certain of the documents Plaintiffs sought, it also limited the scope of Plaintiffs’ requests in light of Defendants’ objections. Specifically,

(See Aug. 23, 2016 Transcript at 15–33.) In other words, Plaintiffs’ characterization of what transpired at the conference – that “Plaintiffs’ [m]otion to compel was granted in its entirety” – is simply inaccurate. (Doc. No. 37 at 1.) Rather, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ requests in part and denied them in part, found some of them moot, and credited certain of Defendants’ objections. An award of fees under Rule 37(a)(5) is therefore inappropriate. See, e.g., Smith v. Conway Org., Inc., 154 F.R.D. 73, 78 (S.D.N.Y. 1994) (“As the present motion was granted in part and denied in part, and as the objections raised to discovery in this case were substantially justified, no fees or costs shall be granted to either party.”); Copantitla v. Fiskardo Estiatorio, Inc., No. 09-cv-1608 (RJH) (JCF), 2010 WL 1327921, at *18 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 5, 2010) (“Because their motion has been granted in part and denied in part, and because the defendants* arguments were, on the whole, substantially justified, the plaintiffs will not be awarded their costs.”).

For the reasons set forth above, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT Plaintiffs’ motions to compel inspection of Defendants’ computer and for attorneys’ fees in connection with the parties’ earlier discovery dispute are both DENIED. If Plaintiffs wish the Court to order an additional two-week opt-in period to allow notice to be sent via email, they should submit a letter so requesting by August 25, 2017.

The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to terminate the motions pending at docket numbers 37 and 91.

SO ORDERED.