District Court Rejects the Concept of Unilateral “Relevance Redactions” but Stresses the Importance of Discovery Confidentiality Orders to Address Commercially-Sensitive Information
In a recent decision, a Washington District Court illustrated the challenges parties face when they are in possession of responsive documents also containing highly confidential irrelevant information. The court stressed that, as a general rule, a party is not permitted to unilaterally redact information solely on the basis of relevance, and parties should consider seeking to enter into comprehensive ESI discovery protocols and discovery confidentiality orders allowing for the redaction of irrelevant information included in otherwise responsive documents, particularly where the parties will be exchanging highly confidential information in discovery. In Corker v. Costco Wholesale, plaintiffs initiated a class action suit against a number of coffee wholesalers, distributors and retailers under the Latham Act for false designation of origin. In discovery, plaintiffs sought the sale volume and pricing for the particular blend of coffee at issue sold by the defendants. Instead of producing the spreadsheet containing this information in the native excel format, one defendant first produced documents summarizing the contents of the spreadsheet and then, after plaintiffs objected to this disclosure, a 2,269-page static PDF of the spreadsheet redacting information related to coffee blends not at issue in the litigation that the defendant considered highly confidential. Plaintiffs moved to compel the production of the spreadsheet in the native form as kept in the ordinary...