Opinion
Case No. 05-72031.
September 14, 2005
For the reasons set forth on the record at a September 13, 2005 hearing, Easton's Motion to Compel Production of Documents from Innovative Hockey and to Schedule Deposition of Isaac Garcia and to Compel Inspection of the Computers of Ghassemi, Wensley, Bankoske and Morrow are hereby GRANTED, in part, and DENIED, in part, as set forth herein:
1. Defendants shall produce all documents responsive to Easton's First Request for Production of Documents which exist in the files of Innovative Hockey maintained by Ron Kunisaki, Isaac Garcia, Jarid Quatrecio, Linda Kunisaki, David Corwin, Ruben Bribiejco, Nestor Guzman or Victor Villanvueno to the extent such requests are limited by the Court's Order Granting in Part Easton's Motion to Compel dated August 15, 2005 and the agreements of the parties set forth at the August 4, 2005 hearing on Easton's Motion to Compel, as further explained and limited by Easton's discussion of the specific requests set forth at pp. 7-13 of the parties' List of Unresolved Issues Concerning Easton's Motion to Compel Production of Documents from Innovative Hockey and to Schedule Deposition of Isaac Garcia and to Compel Inspection of the Computers of Ghassemi, Wensley, Bankoske and Morrow. Such production shall be limited in time to the period between the date on which Holmes Ghassemi began employment with Warrior and July 12, 2005, except to the extent that such documents relate to the actual or possible acquisition of Innovative, in which event, the document production shall be limited to the period from November 1, 2004 through July 12, 2005. All responsive documents shall be produced by no later than twenty-one (21) days from the date of this Order.
2. Easton's request that the schedule be modified to require the deposition of Isaac Garcia at this time is denied. Defendants shall have ten (10) days from the date of this Order to move to quash such deposition if they so choose.
3. Defendants shall produce the hard drives on the Warrior computers of Messrs. Ghassemi, Wensley and Bankoske to be inspected and for responsive documents to be produced according to the following procedure:
• Plaintiffs shall select and pay an expert who will inspect the computers in question to create a `mirror image' or `snap shot' the hard drives.
• Defendants shall have the chance to object to selection of the expert. The Court will appoint the expert to carry out the inspection and copying as an officer of the court.
• The expert shall then use his or her expertise to recover from the `mirror image' of the hard drive of each computer, and to provide in any reasonably convenient form to Defendants' counsel, all available word processing documents, electronic mail messages, PowerPoint or similar presentations, spreadsheets, and other files.
• After receiving these records from the expert, Defendants' counsel shall then have to review these records for privilege and responsiveness to Plaintiff's discovery requests, and shall then supplement Defendants' response to discovery requests as appropriate.
• The expert shall sign the Protective Order in the case and shall retain it to the end of this litigation the `mirror image' copies of the hard drives and a copy of all files provided to Defendants' counsel. At the end of this litigation, the expert shall then return the mirror image copies and copies of all files to Defendant or destroy the records and confirm such destruction to the satisfaction of Defendant. The expert shall not disclose the contents of any files or documents to Plaintiff or its counsel or other persons. Because the expert will serve as an officer of the Court, disclosure of a communication the expert shall not be deemed a waiver of the attorney-client privilege or any other privilege.
4. Defendants need not produce the computer of Mr. Morrow.
IT IS SO ORDERED.