Date: 1991-02-20. Lane, J. | Link

The defendants seek a further and better affidavit of documents from the plaintiffs. The defendants argue Schedules A and B to the plaintiff’s affidavit of documents is inadequate because of the format. The documents were not numbered individually, but were grouped by bundles which were numbered. The court found that “[t]he sheer quantity of documents in many modern litigations demands a precise identification system for swift and certain retrieval of documents in examinations for discovery and trial. Such a system should also enable counsel to be certain that a document produced at trial has indeed been previously produced. It must enable counsel examining a collection of the opposite party's documents to be satisfied that he has the whole collection as described in Schedule A. A modern rule as to identifying documents cannot ignore the computer and its need for a unique identifier for every item to be retrieved. Unless very extensive details about each document are entered in Schedule A, an alpha-numeric or numeric identifier is necessary.” The plaintiffs were ordered to identify each document with a unique number.