L.H. v. Schwarzenegger, No. CIV 5-06-2042 LKK GGH, 2008 WL 2073958 (E.D. Cal. 2008), is a class action lawsuit filed by juvenile parolees who allege that the parole revocation process in California violates due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.  In several motions to compel discovery, the plaintiff juvenile parolees argued that the defendants delayed production of documents to the detriment of their case.  As a result, the plaintiffs sought sanctions for defendants' failure to produce all the documents previously ordered by the court, such as databases/logs.

            In response to the plaintiffs' request for sanctions resulting from the defendants' failure to produce all of the documents, the defendants argued that they substantially complied with the order by producing over 55,000 documents and that the individual who responds to discovery requests was very busy responding to numerous court orders and that she had family related health issues causing her to miss work.  While the court acknowledged the unique difficulties that can arise from governmental defendants' efforts to respond to voluminous discovery requests, the court nevertheless disapproved of the defendants' handling of the discovery requests in this case.  Specifically, the court pointed to the defendants' failure to resolve problems via discovery conferences or other available means and stated that unilaterally denying or delaying discovery was inappropriate.  Reasoning that the understaffed discovery effort nearly ensured non-compliance with the discovery order, the court found that reliance on one employee for a statewide class action lawsuit was not justified and therefore granted sanctions to the plaintiffs. 

            Additionally, plaintiffs argued that the electronic documents produced by defendants were improperly converted from their original format, which had been searchable and portable, into PDF files without those capabilities.  The court reasoned that Rule 34, which allows a responding party to produce electronically stored information in a "reasonably usable form," does not allow the responding party to convert electronically stored information from the form in which it is ordinarily maintained to a different form that makes it more difficult for the requesting party.  The court then stated that "[i]f the responding party ordinarily maintains the information it is producing in a way that makes it searchable by electronic means, the information should not be produced in a form that removes or significantly degrades that feature."  Therefore, the court held that the defendant's actions in converting the documents from the original format that was searchable and portable to one that was not searchable or portable violated Rule 34, because it created additional burdens for the requesting party that made it difficult to use the information efficiently in the litigation.