In re Bristol Myers Squibb Securities Litigation

Citation
In re Bristol Myers Squibb Securities Litigation, 2002 WL 169201 (D.N.J. Feb. 4, 2002).

Trial Court Proceedings
The defendants sought an order requiring reimbursement for the cost of reproducing paper documents responsive to the plaintiffs' document request, as well as an order requiring the plaintiffs to pay for one-half the cost of scanning the documents onto electronic form &mdash; an amount in excess of $200,000. The plaintiffs resisted paying anything toward the cost of scanning the documents, claiming that the defendants had already scanned the documents for their own purposes.

Noting that courts have recognized that with regard to electronically stored data, "the only restriction . . . is that the producing party be protected against undue burden and expense and/or invasion of privileged matter,", the court ordered the plaintiff to pay for only the nominal costs of copying the compact discs containing the digital information and not one-half the cost of scanning as requested by the defendants. Because the plaintiffs were already paying for paper discovery, and because the defendants produced the paper copies at the same time as it did the scanning, to charge the plaintiffs for both the paper copies and the scanning would result in the plaintiffs paying for "double discovery."