Massachusetts District Court Denies Plaintiffs´ Discovery Request For Certain Electronically Stored Information

The district court's decision potentially limits the scope of disputes over metadata.

On June 22, 2009, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts denied the plaintiffs' "sweeping request for metadata" in the case of Dahl, et al. v. Bain Capital Partners, LLC, et al. In this complex antitrust litigation involving many private equity firms, the plaintiffs requested that the court enter an order, in part, compelling the defendants to provide all metadata associated with e-mails and word documents that the defendants produced. Metadata is persistent, electronically stored information revealing the history of an electronic document, e.g., who created or modified a document, and when one created, sent, received or forwarded an e-mail. Producing metadata increases parties' discovery costs because it adds to the volume of information that must be processed and produced and often requires the use of specialized vendors. The plaintiffs also requested that the