In Rodriguez Torres, et. al. v. Government Development Bank of Puerto Rico, et. al., 2010 WL 174156 (D. Puerto Rico Jan. 20, 2010), Senior District Judge Jaime Pieras, Jr. denied plaintiffs' motion to compel and motion for sanctions holding the requested emails were not reasonably accessible because of undue cost and burden of retrieval in relation to their potential relevance.

Plaintiffs brought this action to recover damages resulting from alleged employment discrimination.  In discovery plaintiffs requested the native production of all email communications and calendar entries (both inbound and outbound) related to or referring to one of the plaintiffs.  The request implicated the collection and review of 24 Microsoft® Outlook mailboxes.

The court held the information was not reasonably accessible under FRCP 26(b)(2)(B).  Nor could plaintiffs demonstrate good cause to overcome the court's finding of undue burden.  Plaintiffs believed the emails were relevant based on a series of published articles which suggested that email encouraged senders to write unguarded, unwise, and often inappropriate comments.   The court disagreed ruling that just because email may lead to inappropriate comments is not a sufficient basis. Rather, the court determined the discovery request was an improper fishing expedition to find out if there was any evidence to support plaintiffs' claim.