Federal E-Discovery: Court Rejects Hypothetical Challenges in GDPR Dispute

Litigation partners Chris Boehning and Dan Toal’s latest Federal E-Discovery column, “Absent Document Requests, Court Rejects Hypothetical Challenges in GDPR Dispute,” appeared in the December 1 issue of the New York Law Journal. The authors discuss a recent decision by the Northern District of Georgia regarding whether a German defendant could preemptively redact personally identifying information (PII) of EU citizens from its productions based on concerns related to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

Prior to any document requests in Sowa v. Mercedes-Benz Group AG, the carmaker proposed a “layered approach” to discovery whereby it would initially redact all PII and produce unredacted versions only after the plaintiffs had demonstrated the necessity of the information. The court ultimately rejected Mercedes-Benz’s request, concluding that nothing in the GDPR required such a procedure and that adopting it would “likely open the door to additional litigation, time and expense.” In denying the defendant’s requests and the plaintiff’s demand that the defendant supplement its initial disclosures, the court repeatedly signaled that it would not resolve abstract disputes untethered to actual document requests.

Deputy chair and counsel, e-discovery, Ross Gotler and discovery and data advisory counsel Samantha Weinberg assisted in the preparation of this article.

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