How Apple Successfully Recovered eDiscovery Production Costs
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Taxation of cost cases involving eDiscovery often end with the prevailing party not recovering any costs. However, in the true spirit of “think different,” Apple was able to recover $238,102.66 in costs for “the amounts associated with electronic preparation and duplication, not the intellectual effort involved in the production, such as searching or analyzing the documents.” Apple Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 132830, at *88, 91 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 19, 2014). The production work included processing documents, uploads, and document productions. Id.
Apple initially sought $1,486,475.01 in costs for the use of their online hosted repository, which uploaded and produced documents to Samsung, in the amount of $287,555.45 between two law firms, and service providers that collected and processed paper and electronic documents that were uploaded to the repository for $1,198,919.56. This amount was later reduced by $9,509.40, for a new total of $1,476,965.61. Apple, at *87-88.
A declaration provided by one of Apple’s attorneys stated the fees did not contain the intellectual effort involved in producing the discovery, but only the amounts associated with the electronic preparation and duplication. Apple, at *88. Moreover, the fees did not include costs from hosting the data, licensing fees for the software, or vendor consulting time. Id.
In the Northern District of California, Local Rule 54-3(d)(2) allows for eDiscovery costs analogous to “making copies,” but not “intellectual effort.” Id. Moreover, these costs must be connected to discovery produced to the adverse party. Apple, at *89.
The issue for the Court ultimately on what was recoverable was what was actually produced to the opposing party.
Based upon the different motions, the Court stated that Apple had produced 338,860 documents, totaling 2,944,467 pages, each document averaging 8.69 pages; however, Apple, uploaded a total of 2,101,808 documents. Apple, at *90.
The Court surmised that if the “same average page count of 8.69 for all documents that Apple produced, Apple uploaded a total of 18,264,712 pages in this litigation.” Apple, at *91.
The Court explained based on Apple’s estimation that it had “uploaded a total of 18,264,712 pages of which 2,944,467 pages were ultimately produced.” Id. As such, the Court determined that 16.12% of Apple’s eDiscovery costs were spent on productions to Samsumg.
How Apple Successfully Recovered eDiscovery Production Costs
