Date: 2011-04-29 Docket: 06-CV-322038PD1. Master Sproat. Link 

In an action that has been "tenaciously prosecuted and defended" (in the words of the master), one of the discovery disputes relates to electronic production. Defence counsel had delivered 19,680 documents on 4 DVDs, of which the plaintiff complained were not in the "normal" format created and used by the defendant, and of which only 887 were relevant. The defence offered to provide the electronic production for half the cost of the preparation of the Summation database. The court concludes "on the basis of the lack of timeliness in the objection and the Sedona (Canada) principles, that it is appropriate to impose upon the defendant the initial and interim costs of production pending the outcome of the action.  In my view(sic), much of the issues raised in the motion in terms of whether documents have been “dumped” or were of “peripheral” relevance will be clarified in the litigation." As to the $68K cost of the production, the court points out that the plaintiff had had no input into the search terms used to select the material originally collected or how it was culled before review.