between [Walgreen] and Whitlock" (Doc. Request 8) and "all email from Whitlock's Walgreen's email account" (Doc. Request 9) were overbroad. Rather than being tailored to ascertaining whether Walgreen disciplined Ms. Whitlock for (allegedly) disclosing Ms. Touhy's condition – the information Ms. Touhy says she wanted to discover – these requests cast a much wider net, encompassing much information irrelevant to that stated purpose, of a potentially personal nature, or protected by attorney-client privilege. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(1); Herbert, 441 U.S. at 177; Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 598 (1998) ("Rule 26 vests the trial judge with broad discretion to tailor discovery narrowly"); Manual for Complex Litigation § 11.443, at 75 (encouraging courts to "forbid sweeping requests" and to "direct counsel to frame requests for production of the fewest documents possible"). Further, the burdens and costs associated with electronic discovery, such as those seeking "all email," are by now well known, and district courts are properly encouraged to weigh the expected benefits and burdens posed by particular discovery requests (electronic and otherwise) to ensure that collateral discovery disputes do not displace trial on the merits as the primary focus of the parties' attention. [1]
Finally, we agree with the district court that Document Request 6, seeking from Walgreen "all documents . . . that refer to, mention or relate in any way to
- ↑ See, e.g., Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(B) & (C); The Sedona Conference, The Sedona Principles: Second Edition (2007); Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, Navigating the Hazards of E-Discovery (2007).
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