Discovery Requests and Email: Should You Accept Paper Printouts?

Query: Your opponent has offered to give up the emails you've been requesting in discovery, but insists on giving you printouts as opposed to electronic data. You're tired of fighting. Should you accept your opponent's offer?

Here are a few reasons you should answer "no"--

• Paper printouts won't allow you to determine whether existing emails were altered after your discovery request;
• BCC's might not print out on paper;
• You might not get the attachments if you accept paper printouts;
• The emails may not print out in the same manner in which they appeared electronically; and
• Paper printouts are impossible to search electronically.

Source note:This post contains information from "Reasons why not to accept email printouts" (ExpertLaw.com).

Comments

[P. K. Scott]

From my own experience, reasons number 3 and 6 are critical reasons for getting electronic copies of emails when the purpose of reviewing emails is to recreate technical work to determine if what was originally done was the way it should have been done. My experience is from insurance coverage cases, but I would guess the same sort of activity would be critical for medical malpractice or product liability cases.