Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc v. Merck & Company Inc. et al

JOINT STIPULATION GOVERNING THE DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION
AND HARD COPY DOCUMENTS / CASE NO. 4:21-CV-05497-HSG
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GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
Samuel G. Liversidge, SBN 180578
sliversidge@gibsondunn.com
Shaun A. Mathur, SBN 311029
smathur@gibsondunn.com
Sarah M. Kushner, SBN 320077
smkushner@gibsondunn.com
333 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90071
(213) 229-7000
GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
S. Christopher Whittaker, SBN 283518
cwhittaker@gibsondunn.com
Courtney L. Spears, SBN 329521
cspears@gibsondunn.com
3161 Michelson Drive
Irvine, California 92612-4412
(949) 451-3800
Attorneys for Defendants Merck & Co.,
Inc., Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC (f/k/a
Merck Sharp & Dohme Corporation), MSP
Singapore Company LLC, Schering-Plough
Corp., and Schering Corp.
Daniel A. Sasse (State Bar No. 236234)
Tiffanie L. McDowell (State Bar No. 288946)
CROWELL & MORING LLP
3 Park Plaza, 20th Floor
Irvine, California 92614
Telephone: 949.263.8400
Facsimile: 949.263.8414
dsasse@crowell.com
tmcdowell@crowell.com
Kent A. Gardiner*
Mark M. Supko, Pro Hac Vice
CROWELL & MORING LLP
1001 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20004
Telephone: 202.624.2500
Facsimile: 202.628.5116
kgardiner@crowell.com
msupko@crowell.com
* Pro Hac Vice forthcoming
Attorneys for Plaintiff
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
OAKLAND DIVISION
KAISER FOUNDATION HEALTH PLAN,
INC.,
Plaintiff,
v.
MERCK & COMPANY, INC.; MERCK SHARP
& DOHME CORPORATION; SCHERING-
PLOUGH CORPORATION; SCHERING
CORPORATION; MSP SINGAPORE
COMPANY LLC; GLENMARK
PHARMACEUTICALS LTD.; AND
GLENMARK PHARMACEUTICALS INC.,
USA,
Defendants.
CASE NO. 4:21-cv-05497-HSG
JOINT STIPULATION GOVERNING
THE DISCOVERY OF
ELECTRONICALLY STORED
INFORMATION AND HARD COPY
DOCUMENTS; ORDER
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JOINT STIPULATION GOVERNING THE DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY
STORED INFORMATION AND HARD COPY DOCUMENTS
The parties to the above-captioned case (the “Action” or this “Litigation”), through their
counsel, have stipulated and agreed to give effect to this Joint Stipulation Governing the Discovery of
Electronically Stored Information (“ESI”) and Hard Copy Documents (“ESI Protocol” or “Protocol”),
to facilitate discovery in this Litigation.
The Parties shall make good-faith efforts to comply with and resolve any differences
concerning compliance with this ESI Protocol. If a Producing Party, notwithstanding its good-faith
efforts, cannot comply with any material aspect of this ESI Protocol or if compliance with such
material aspect would be unreasonable, such party shall inform the requesting party in writing a
reasonable time before the date of production as to why compliance with the ESI Protocol is impossible
or unreasonable. No Party may seek relief from the Court concerning compliance with the ESI Protocol
unless it has conferred in good faith with the affected Parties. All productions are subject to the
Protective Order entered by the Court in this Litigation.
I. 	SCOPE.
A. 	General. The procedures and protocols set forth in this Protocol shall govern the
production of ESI and Hard Copy Documents in this Litigation, as a supplement to the Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure, and any other applicable orders and rules, with reference to this Court’s Guidelines
for the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information (the “Guidelines”), unless the Parties agree in
writing to change them or they are changed by the Court. This ESI Protocol is intended to aid the
Parties by providing a more predictable, cost-effective, and efficient management structure for the
maintenance and production of ESI and Hard Copy Documents. Nothing in this Protocol shall
supersede the Parties’ production obligations under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
B. 	Cooperation. The Parties are aware of the importance the Court places on cooperation
in good faith throughout the matter as set forth in the Guidelines. The Parties shall meet and confer in
good faith on any issue regarding complying with any provision of this ESI Protocol, as necessary,
including any issues relating to custodians, data sources and search methodologies (e.g., search terms),
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that arise under this Protocol or otherwise. In the event the Parties cannot reach an agreement on a
disputed matter, the Parties may submit the matter to the Court.
C. 	Liaison. The parties have identified and/or will identify liaisons to each other consistent
with Section 2.05 of the Guidelines.
II. 	DEFINITIONS.
A. 	“Confidentiality Designation” means the legend affixed to Hard Copy Documents
and/or ESI or provided in the “Confidentiality” metadata field as defined by, and subject to, the terms
of the Parties’ Protective Order in the Litigation.
B. 	“Documents” shall have the same definition as set forth in Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 34(a). The term “Document” shall include Hard Copy Documents and ESI as defined herein.
C. 	“Document Family” refers to a group of related documents that include parent and child
documents (e.g., a parent email and subsequent emails, and any attachments thereto, including, but not
limited to, Excel spreadsheets, word documents, and PDFs). Hyperlinks within a document are not
considered attachments. For the avoidance of doubt, any ESI referenced in documents (or any other
ESI) by a hyperlink or other digital pointer (“hyperlinked files”) shall not be construed to be in the
same parent-child relationship solely by virtue of the hyperlink reference. The Receiving Party may
make reasonable requests for the production of particular referenced files on a document-by-document
basis by Bates number. The Parties agree to meet and confer as to any such requests including as to
their reasonableness and proportionality.
D. 	“Electronically stored information” or “ESI,” as used herein, means and refers to
computer-generated information or data, stored in or on any storage media located on computers, file
servers, disks, tape, USB drives, or other real or virtualized devices or media, as such information is
defined in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including Rule 34(a).
E. 	“Extracted Text” means the text extracted from a Document, and includes all header,
footer and document body information when reasonably available.
F. 	“Hard Copy Document” means a document existing in tangible form, including but not
limited to Documents collected from physical files and not from electronic sources.
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AND HARD COPY DOCUMENTS / CASE NO. 4:21-CV-05497-HSG
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G. 	“Hash Value” is a unique numerical identifier that can be assigned to a file, a group of
files, or a portion of a file, based on a standard mathematical algorithm applied to the characteristics
of the data set. The most commonly used algorithms, known as MD5 and SHA, will generate numerical
values so distinctive that the chance that any two data sets will have the same Hash Value, no matter
how similar they appear, is less than one in one billion. “Hashing” is used to guarantee the authenticity
of an original data set and can be used as a digital equivalent of the Bates stamp used in Hard Copy
Document productions.
H. 	“Load/Unitization file” means an electronic file provided with a production set of
document images that facilitates the loading of such information into a Requesting Party’s document
review platform, and the correlation of such data in the platform. It also contains information
identifying a set of paper-scanned images or processed ESI and indicating where individual pages or
files belong together as Documents, including attachments, and where each Document begins and ends.
A Load/Unitization file will also contain data relevant to the individual Documents, including extracted
and user-created metadata.
I. 	“Media” means an object or device, real or virtual, including, but not limited to, a disc,
tape, computer or other device on which data is or was stored.
J. 	“Metadata” means and refers to information or data about data, and includes, without
limitation: (i) information embedded in or associated with a native file that is not ordinarily viewable
or printable from the application that generated, edited, or modified such native file which describes
the characteristics, origins, custody, usage, and/or validity of the electronic file; and/or (ii) information
generated automatically by the operation of a computer or other information technology system when
a native file is created, modified, transmitted, deleted or otherwise manipulated by a user of such
system.
K. 	“Native,” “Native Format,” or “Native Data Format” means and refers to the format of
ESI in the application in which it was originally created and/or as used by the Producing Party in the
usual course of its business and in its regularly conducted activities.
L. 	“OCR text” means text generated through Optical Character Recognition Process of
image/bitmap picture representation of the documents.
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M. 	“Parties” means or refers collectively to the named Plaintiff and Defendants in the
above-captioned matter, as well as any later added plaintiffs and defendants. “Party” shall refer to a
plaintiff or defendant, individually.
N. 	“Producing Party” means or refers to a Party in the above-captioned matter from which
production of ESI or Hard Copy Documents are sought.
O. 	“Requesting Party” means or refers to a Party in the above-captioned matter seeking
production of ESI or Hard Copy Documents.
P. 	“Searchable Text” means the native text extracted from an Electronic Document or any
OCR text generated from a Hard-Copy Document or electronic image.
Q. 	“Static Image(s)” means a representation of ESI produced by converting a Native File
into a standard image format capable of being viewed and printed on standard computer systems. A
Tagged Image File Format, or “TIFF,” image is an example of a Static Image. “Tagged Image File
Format” or “TIFF” refers to the CCITT Group IV graphic file format for storing bit-mapped images
of ESI or paper documents.
R. 	“Zetia MDL” refers to the prior multidistrict litigation captioned In re: Zetia
(Ezetimibe) Antitrust Litigation, No. 2:18-md-02836-RBS-DEM (E.D. Va.).
S. 	“Zetia MDL Discovery” means all discovery materials, including Documents, ESI, and
written discovery, exchanged between the parties in the Zetia MDL.
T. 	“Zetia MDL Privilege & ESI Protocol” means the Joint Stipulated Protocol Governing
Privilege and the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information and Hard Copy Documents filed in
the Zetia MDL on October 24, 2018 at ECF No. 172.
III. 	PRESERVATION.
A. 	General. To reduce the costs and burdens of preservation and to ensure proper ESI is
preserved, the parties agree to the following.
B. 	Deleted Files and Litigation Holds. To help contain costs, the Parties shall not be
obligated under this Protocol to produce or preserve ESI that was deleted or lost prior to the date upon
which the duty to preserve ESI arose as a result of the routine, good-faith operation of an ESI system.
Nothing in this provision limits or expands a Party’s obligation to search for ESI known to be “deleted”
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by a user that remains as a copy on an archive, backup, or as active data on some other central server
or place within a Party’s possession, custody, or control, provided such search is otherwise consistent
with and does not exceed the Party’s obligations under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
C. 	Types of ESI that Need Not Be Preserved or Searched. Nothing in this Protocol
limits a Party’s obligation to preserve responsive ESI. However, the Parties agree that there is no need
to preserve or collect ESI from the following sources:
1. 	Random access memory (RAM) or other ephemeral data that is difficult to
preserve without disabling the operating system;
2. 	On-line access data such as temporary internet files, histories, caches, cookies,
etc.;
3. 	Data in meta data fields that are frequently updated automatically, such as last
opened dates;
4. 	Shadowed, residual, “slack,” “fragmented,” “unallocated,” or other data only
accessible by forensics;
5. 	Data stored on photocopiers, scanners, and fax machines;
6. 	Data in metadata fields that are frequently updated automatically, such as last-
opened dates, except that metadata shall be produced in accordance with Section V.
7. 	Data remaining from systems no longer in use that is unintelligible on any
system;
8. 	Data maintained or duplicated from or in any electronic system used for the
purpose of system recovery or information restoration and/or retention, including, but not limited to,
system recovery backup or other media, continuity of operations systems, and data or system mirrors
or shadows. No Party is obligated to preserve or collect from system-recovery or information
restoration tapes as outlined above;
9. 	Server logs, or network logs; and
10. 	Logs of calls made from cellular or land-line phones.
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The Parties also agree that there is no need, at this time, to search ESI from the following
sources (although it must be preserved if potentially responsive), but all Parties reserve the right to
seek to have this ESI searched if it becomes necessary during the litigation:
1. 	Information posted solely to social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr,
and similar platforms, to the extent posted through company accounts;
2. 	Voicemail messages;
3. 	Text messages sent and received via company-issued telephones, such as SMS
or Apple iMessages; and
4. 	Instant message or “chat” messages which reside solely in the messenger
program’s cache or other automatic backup.
The Parties acknowledge that any subsequent search for ESI within these sources may require
any documents resulting from such searches to be produced after the agreed-upon date for the close of
fact discovery. A Producing Party who may produce documents resulting from supplemental searches
within these sources of documents will not be prejudiced or otherwise penalized for producing such
documents after the fact discovery cutoff.
IV. 	SEARCH PROCEDURES FOR ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS.
A. 	Document Families. The entire family of a responsive document must be produced
absent privilege or other permissible objection and subject to the below provisions. But a Producing
Party may slipsheet non-responsive attachments within a document family. Further, the parties may
suppress and withhold “junk” files such as signature blocks and corporate logos that are family
members of produced documents.
B. 	Timeframe. The preservation, collection and production obligations of the Parties as
set forth in this ESI Protocol apply to Documents and ESI generated, received, or created on or after
the relevant periods as defined in the Parties’ discovery requests and responses, except as otherwise
modified by the Parties after meeting and conferring in good faith, or upon further order of the Court
for good cause shown.
C. 	Custodians and Search Terms. Promptly after written responses to discovery requests
are due, the Party receiving such requests shall provide an initial list of (a) custodians within its
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organization (past or present) likely to possess responsive ESI with respect to documents the Party does
not object to producing (as well as the potential custodians’ job titles and brief summary of their
primary responsibilities); (b) a proposed list of keyword search terms and strings (including semantic
synonyms, code words, acronyms, and abbreviations that may reference responsive ESI) , and (c) any
other search methodologies (e.g., Technology Assisted Review (“TAR”)) that a Party intends to use to
cull potentially responsive or relevant ESI. To the extent the parties disagree as to additional custodians,
search terms, or search strings, the Parties will then meet and confer about any disputed issues promptly
and in good faith. If the Parties reach an impasse, they may submit the dispute to the Court in the form
of a joint discovery letter. .
D. 	TAR/AI Disclosures. 	Parties that intend to use TAR or any other type of AI to cull
potentially responsive or relevant ESI shall also, promptly after written responses to discovery requests
are due, describe a protocol that will include: (1) the TAR/AI software or system to be used; (2) the
universe of ESI to which TAR/AI is to be applied (e.g., custodians, non-custodial sources, date ranges,
additional search methodologies used to define the dataset); (3) a description of the method for training
the TAR/AI model/system and identifying responsive ESI; and (4) a description of the method for
validating the results of the TAR/AI model/system. The Parties agree to meet and confer in good faith
with regard to any disputes relating to such TAR/AI disclosures. If the Parties reach an impasse, they
may submit the dispute to the Court in the form of a joint discovery letter no later than thirty (30)
calendar days after the Party receiving the requests has provided the initial TAR/AI disclosure.
E. 	Supplemental Searches for ESI. A Party may request additional searches, search
strings, or the searching of additional custodial and non-custodial sources, but may do so no later than
75 calendar days before the close of fact discovery. If a Receiving Party believes that such searches are
needed, it shall notify the Producing Party and the parties shall meet and confer. If they are unable to
reach an agreement, either Party may seek guidance from the Court. The Parties acknowledge that any
supplemental searches for ESI may require any documents resulting from such searches to be produced
after the agreed-upon date for the close of fact discovery. A Producing Party who may produce
documents resulting from supplemental searches for ESI will not be prejudiced or otherwise penalized
for producing such documents after the fact discovery cutoff.
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JOINT STIPULATION GOVERNING THE DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION
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F. 	Non-Custodial Sources. Promptly after written responses to discovery requests are
due, the Party receiving such requests shall provide a list of non-custodial sources, such as databases,
that will be searched to identify potentially responsive or relevant Documents or ESI to the extent not
previously produced in the Zetia MDL.
G. 	System Files. The Parties may exclude certain files and folders that are reasonably
identified as system files and not likely to contain user-created files.
H. 	Deduplication. To reduce the unnecessary costs of reviewing and producing exact
duplicate documents, each Party may use reasonable, good-faith efforts to avoid the production of
duplicate ESI. Global de-duplication is executed at the document family level. Stand-alone files will
de-duplicate against other stand-alone files, but not against attachments contained in document
families. Deduplication shall be done on exact duplicate documents based on MD5 or SHA-1 Hash
Values at the document level. Exact duplicate shall mean bit-for-bit identicality of the document
content. For emails with attachments, the Hash Value shall be generated based on the parent-child
document grouping, and only email messages in which the parent document and all attachments are
exactly the same will be considered duplicates. However, Metadata identifying all custodians in
possession of each document that is removed as a duplicate must be produced by being added to the
“ALLCUSTODIANS” field in the production Load/Unitization File. In addition, outlook.ost files are
excluded from processing as duplicative of outlook.pst files.
I. 	Email Threading. Each Party may also thread e-mails in such a way as to eliminate
lesser inclusive chains, and produce only the most complete iteration or most inclusive version of an
e-mail chain. This includes production of any lesser inclusive chain with an attachment that is unique
to the attachment in the most complete iteration or most inclusive version of that email chain. If a Party
elects to produce only the most inclusive email chain, the Parties shall meet and confer if a Receiving
Party requests production of a lesser-inclusive email chain. No Party will unreasonably deny any such
request made according to the following protocol:
a. 	The Requesting Party shall make any such request as soon as reasonably
practicable after receiving a document production.
b. 	The Requesting Party shall provide a list of Bates numbers of the documents and
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the reason that it is requesting lesser-inclusive email chains.
c. 	Within fourteen (14) days of receiving such a request, the producing Party will
either (i) produce the requested lesser-inclusive email chains to the extent
reasonably practicable, or (ii) respond in writing, setting forth its position on the
production of the requested documents.
d. 	If the Parties are unable to agree as to the production of the requested lesser-
inclusive email chains, either Party may submit the matter to the Court.
e. 	Wholesale or categorical requests by category or file type are presumptively not
reasonable.
Lesser included emails are not required to be slipsheeted or included in any redaction log.
J. 	Previously Collected and Produced Data. The Parties agree there is no obligation to
reproduce any prior productions produced prior to the entry of this Stipulation including all Zetia MDL
Discovery that was produced to Kaiser. To the extent discovery materials from other litigation are
reproduced in this Litigation, the Parties may limit the form of production requirements set forth herein
to the form they were produced in the other litigation. The Receiving Party reserves the right to meet
and confer regarding the practicability and expense of previously collected and produced data meeting
the form of production requirements set forth herein. To the extent that metadata for and formats of
discovery materials produced in other litigation is readily accessible, the Producing Party shall make
reasonable efforts to obtain and produce such data, but the Producing Party is otherwise under no
obligation to re-collect, re-process, and/or re-produce the native or original files found in previously
collected and produced data or create any metadata that does not exist in and/or is not already associated
with the previously collected and produced data. The Parties are under no obligation to reproduce the
material they previously produced to one another while in the Zetia MDL, but will reasonably
accommodate requests arising from technology-related issues (e.g., pertaining to accessibility) to the
extent any arise.
V. 	PRODUCTION PROCEDURES FOR ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS.
A. 	General Production Format.
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1. 	Non-Redacted ESI Not Produced in Native Form. The Parties shall take
reasonable steps to produce non-redacted ESI in a form no less “searchable” than it is maintained in
the normal course of the Producing Party’s business. ESI will generally be produced in single-page,
black and white, 300 dpi Group IV TIFF image file format together with Concordance or DAT load
file and OPT image load file. When Microsoft Word documents are converted to TIFFs, the version
that will be converted is as it was last saved and with track changes turned on. This means the images
and extracted text will reflect the track changes. The Parties shall take reasonable steps to produce
Microsoft Office document types converted to TIFF to reflect comments, speaker notes, footers,
headers and track changes. The Parties shall take reasonable steps to produce non-redacted ESI with
searchable extracted text of the entire Document (at the document level in a .TXT file) and the
Metadata fields listed in Exhibit A in a Concordance .DAT file, where applicable. The list of fields in
Exhibit A does not create any obligation to create or manually code fields that are not automatically
generated by the processing of the ESI or that do not exist as part of the original Metadata of the
Document. The Parties acknowledge there can be differences between the Operating System
(Windows) and Application date/time fields and also agree that the Producing Party has no obligation
to try and reconcile the differences, if any.
The Parties shall take reasonable steps to preserve the relationship between related
documents (e.g., email attachments), and to produce attachments contemporaneously and sequentially
immediately after the parent email or document. Parties may request the production of Documents or
ESI in Native form by Bates number in the event that a Document or ESI produced in TIFF form is
illegible, which request shall not unreasonably be refused.
2. 	Production 	of 	Documents 	Originating 	as 	Paper 	(i.e., 	Hard 	Copy
Documents). All Hard Copy Documents will be produced as black-and-white or color (as applicable),
single-page, 300 dpi Group IV TIFF image file format together with Concordance or Summation
Load/Unitization Files (depending on the preference of the Requesting Party) with coded data
contained in a separate file. The Producing Party shall also provide document level OCR text files to
accompany the TIFF format production. The minimum fields for a scanned Hard Copy Document
record will be BEGBATES, ENDBATES, BEGATTACH, ENDATTACH, ALLCUSTODIANS, and
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TEXT, indicating the beginning and ending Bates numbers, attachment ranges of all documents, the
custodian information, and the OCR text. If a Hard Copy Document consists of more than one page,
the Unitization of the Document and any attachments and/or affixed notes shall be maintained as it
existed in the original Document, so that each page will not be split, but instead sequenced and saved
together, as they existed in the original.
3. 	Production of Native Format ESI. The following types of documents shall be
produced in Native Format, including the formulae embedded in the spreadsheet and any Metadata
contained in the file, except where such files are redacted on privilege grounds: (a) Non-redacted
Microsoft Access or other databases, (b) Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet files, (c) Microsoft Excel
or other spreadsheet files, (d) Microsoft PowerPoint files, or (e) other similar file formats where an
image file does not adequately represent the files as maintained in the ordinary course of business.
Files produced in Native Format shall be named with a sequential Bates number followed by the
Confidentiality Designation, if applicable, and the file name. A single page slipsheet or placeholder
TIFF image with the original file name, the phrase “PRODUCED IN NATIVE FORMAT” (or similar
language), and stamped with the assigned Bates number, and the corresponding Confidentiality
Designation under the Protective Order shall be included for each native file produced. No Party may
attach to any pleading or any correspondence addressed to the Court, any Special Master, or any
adverse or third party, or submit as an exhibit at a deposition or any other judicial proceeding, a copy
of any produced native format document without ensuring that either the corresponding placeholder
slip sheet is attached to the document or the corresponding Bates number and confidentiality legend,
as designated by the Producing Party, appears on the document. To the extent native files, including
electronic spreadsheets or presentations, are redacted for privilege, production may be made in TIFF
format in accordance with the section on redacted documents.
4. 	Appearance and Content. No document may be intentionally manipulated to
change how the source document would have appeared if printed out to a printer attached to a computer
viewing the file without prior agreement of the Requesting Party. Therefore, subject to any appropriate
redaction, the Parties shall take reasonable steps to ensure that each document’s electronic image shall
convey the same information and image as the original document. Responsive ESI that presents
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imaging or formatting problems shall be promptly identified and the Parties shall meet and confer in
an attempt to resolve the problems. If a copy is not legible and the Requesting Party requests a legible
copy, the Producing Party shall provide a legible copy within 14 calendar days, or explain why a legible
copy is not available.
5. 	Searchable Text. The Parties shall take reasonable steps to produce Searchable
Text for all ESI produced. For all non-redacted ESI, the searchable text will be extracted directly from
the native file. Likewise, the Parties agree that they will produce Searchable Text for all Hard Copy
Documents that have been converted to images. For any document where text has been redacted,
Searchable Text will be provided for the non-redacted text.
6. 	Bates Numbering. Each page of a produced image shall have a unique Bates
number electronically “burned” onto the image at a location that does not unreasonably obliterate or
obscure any information from the source Document. Each TIFF image or native file assigned a Bates
number shall be assigned a Bates number that is unique and maintains a constant length across the
entire document production. No other legend or stamp will be placed on the document image other
than confidentiality legends (where applicable) or redactions.
7. 	No Color. Documents and ESI in color need not be produced in color. A party
may request by Bates number that a reasonable number of specifically-identified documents be
produced in a color .PDF or .JPG format, which request shall not unreasonably be refused. If a party
seeks more than a reasonable number of documents to be produced in color, the Parties will meet and
confer in good faith on the request.
8. 	Foreign Language Documents. To the extent that Documents or ESI are
produced that contain languages other than English, in whole or in part, the Producing Party shall
produce all foreign language documents and ESI in the original language.
9. 	Replacements. All files that are replaced for any reason must be annotated with
an “R” designation appended to the Bates prefix. A cross reference file will be provided identifying
the document’s original Bates and its replacement Bates number.
B. 	Production of Redacted Documents/Information.
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1. 	Redactions. To the extent that a responsive document contains privileged
content (e.g., attorney-client privilege or attorney work product), or to comply with federal or state
privacy requirements (e.g., HIPAA), the Producing Party may produce that document in a redacted
form. For the avoidance of doubt, no redactions based on relevancy or responsiveness are permitted
under this Order.
Any redactions shall be clearly indicated on each page of the document from which
information is redacted, bearing a designation that it has been redacted. The designation shall make
clear the reason for the redaction (e.g., “Redacted Privileged”). Where a document contains content
that is both privileged or private (i.e., HIPAA) and non-privileged, the Producing Party shall redact the
privileged or private material and produce the remainder of the document as non-redacted. If the
Receiving Party finds a document to be incomprehensible or unintelligible because of a redaction, the
Parties will meet and confer to try in good faith to resolve the dispute. For redacted electronic files,
and redacted Hard Copy Documents, the Parties agree to produce a Concordance or Summation
Load/Unitization File (depending on the preference of the Requesting Party), with Metadata in the dat.
file.
2. 	Native Excel or other spreadsheet files that are redacted for privilege or to
comply with federal or state privacy requirements (i.e., HIPAA) may be redacted by overwriting the
data contained in a particular cell, row, column or tab with the word “Redacted” and shall make clear
the reason for the redaction (e.g., “Redacted Privileged”) provided that such redaction does not alter
any other unredacted cell(s) in the document. The Party producing redacted Native Format ESI must
endeavor to produce the redacted Native Format ESI with all Metadata fields identified in Table 1
hereto. If the usefulness of the redacted Native Format ESI is significantly impacted by the loss of
certain Metadata fields identified in Exhibit A hereto, the Parties shall meet and confer in good faith
regarding the production of such Metadata without the production of the unredacted Native Format
ESI itself.
3. 	Native Excels or other spreadsheet files, PowerPoint or other presentation files
that are redacted may be produced as single-page, 300 dpi Group IV TIFF images with load files
pursuant to Exhibit B.
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4. 	For the avoidance of doubt, redactions for other than privilege are not required
to be logged.
C. 	Family Relationships.
1. 	Document families must be preserved by assigning sequential Bates numbers to
all files within a parent-child group, and by providing accurate attachment ranges for those files in the
metadata fields required.
2. 	For document families, to the extent that a document within a document family
is deemed, after review, to be wholly non-responsive, such document may be withheld in accordance
with Section IV.A of this Order. However, in no event should a “parent” document of a document
family be withheld, even if standing alone such document would be non-responsive. If the Receiving
Party believes that any document within a document family has been wrongfully withheld, the parties
will meet and confer to try and resolve the issue.
3. 	Where a document that is part of a family is withheld for privilege or
non-responsiveness, its relationship to the rest of that Document Family shall be indicated by Bates-
numbered slipsheets for each page in the withheld document. In accordance with Section V(B) of this
Order, if an attachment to an email is withheld as non-responsive, its file name shall not be redacted
from documents referencing or attaching the attachment.
4. 	If a member of a Document Family otherwise determined to be responsive
cannot technically be processed (e.g., unsupported file format, file corruption, inaccessible password-
protected document), such technical issues shall be denoted by producing a Bates-labeled slipsheet
stating bearing “Technical Issue - File Cannot Be Processed.” If possible, Metadata for such
technically-impaired documents shall be produced. The Parties agree to meet and confer in good faith
to resolve any disputes over documents deemed to have technical issues.
D. 	Confidentiality of Produced ESI.
1. 	Responsive ESI, whether produced as TIFF images or in Native Format, shall
be produced pursuant to the terms of the Protective Order. Any objections to production shall otherwise
be made pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, this ESI
Protocol and the Protective Order entered in this Litigation. If the Producing Party is producing ESI in
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TIFF format subject to a claim that it is protected from disclosure under any protective agreement or
confidentiality order, or any agreement entered into or Order issued in this matter, the words
“CONFIDENTIAL”, “HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL – ATTORNEYS’ EYES ONLY”, or “HIGHLY
CONFIDENTIAL—OUTSIDE COUNSEL EYES ONLY” shall be stamped electronically on each
page of such document.
2. 	If the Producing Party is producing ESI in Native Format subject to a claim that
it is protected from disclosure under any protective agreement or confidentiality order, or any
agreement entered into or Order issued in this matter, then the designation shall be included in the
filename as well as the TIFF placeholder or where not produced with a TIFF placeholder, the storage
device (e.g., CD, USB, or hard drive) containing such native ESI data shall be labeled with the
designation “CONFIDENTIAL”, “HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL—ATTORNEYS’ EYES ONLY”, or
“HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL—OUTSIDE COUNSEL EYES ONLY.”
3. 	The Receiving Party shall not load, import, submit, or otherwise transfer
documents or data produced by the Producing Party to a publicly accessible Large Language Model
(“LLM”) or Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) platform. LLM or AI platforms may be utilized with industry
standard data security provisions and the Party has ensured the documents or data will not be utilized
to train public models or otherwise made accessible to other users of the LLM or AI platform. Nothing
in this paragraph changes obligations owed under the Stipulated Protective Order.
E. 	Production 	Specifications. 	All 	productions 	will 	include 	these 	additional
specifications:
1. 	Delimited image load/unitization file for images (.opt, .lfp or .dii) shall be
provided pursuant to Exhibit B;
2. 	Delimited metadata load file (.DAT) containing a field with the full path and
file name to the native files produced pursuant to Exhibit B, and shall include the metadata fields
identified below (Exhibit A);
3. 	Document level .txt files for all native documents containing extracted full text
or OCR text (OCR only if extracted text is not available or if the document has been redacted);
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4. 	Bates number branding and confidentiality designation (if any) on the face of
the image in a location that does not obliterate, conceal, or interfere with any information from the
source document;
5. 	A 	TIFF 	placeholder 	embossed 	with 	the 	corresponding 	confidentiality
designation and Bates number shall be produced for all ESI produced in Native Format;
6. 	Each Bates number will: (i) be unique across the entire document production;
(ii) maintain a constant length across the entire production (i.e., ABC00000001- with no space between
the prefix and the number, padded to the same number of characters); (iii) contain no special characters;
and (iv) be sequential within a given document. If a Bates number or set of Bates numbers is skipped
in a production, the Producing Party will so note in a cover letter or production log accompanying the
production.
7. 	PowerPoint slides/presentations that are produced in TIFF format will be
produced with any notes or comments contained therein; and
8. 	Each of the Metadata and coding fields set forth in Exhibit A shall be produced
for a Document. The Parties are not obligated to populate manually any of the fields in Exhibit A if
such fields cannot be reasonably extracted from a Document, with the exception of Default Production
Fields (“DPF’) or “duplicate custodian” fields that are generated in the course of collection, review
and production. If metadata fields are not produced because they do not exist or because they are not
reasonably accessible, the Producing Party shall include the fields in the header row of the .DAT and
leave the field blank for the corresponding document(s).
VI. 	STRUCTURED DATA.
Structured data (i.e., data that has been organized in a database or other similar formatted data
repository) should be produced in a mutually agreeable data exchange format. The Parties will meet
and confer to determine the potentially relevant databases at issue, including the data fields included
in such databases.
VII. 	PRODUCTION MEDIA.
Documents shall be produced on CD-ROM, DVD, external hard drive (with standard PC
compatible interface), via secure FTP site, or such other readily accessible computer or electronic
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media as the Parties may hereafter agree upon (the “Production Media”). Each piece of Production
Media shall include a unique identifying label and cover letter including the following information:
A. 	Name of the litigation and its case number;
B. 	Name of the Producing Party;
C. 	Date of the production (mm/dd/yyyy);
D. 	Production volume number;
E. 	Bates number range(s);
F. 	Confidentiality Designation; and
G. 	Notes regarding any irregularities in the production (e.g., whether it is replacement
Production Media (see below)).
Any replacement Production Media or Documents shall cross-reference the original Production
Media, clearly identify that it is a replacement, and cross-reference the Bates number range that is
being replaced. Producing Parties may encrypt their Production Media and, if so, shall provide a key
to decrypt the Production Media in a separate communication.
VIII. 	PRIVILEGE AND PRIVILEGE LOGS.
A. 	Privileged Documents in the Zetia MDL. The Parties agree that the privilege
designations included in the Zetia MDL Discovery, made pursuant to the Zetia MDL Privilege & ESI
Protocol, continue to apply in this Action..
B. 	Burden to Justify Privilege. Pursuant to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, all
redactions and/or other withholdings from discovery on the basis of the attorney-client privilege, the
work product doctrine, or other applicable privilege or protection (each encompassed by the term
“privilege” as used hereafter), must be disclosed and logged, subject to the provisions and exclusions
of this ESI Protocol. The Producing Party bears the burden of establishing that any document,
communication, information, or other content that is withheld whole or in part on the basis of an
asserted privilege is in fact privileged and/or otherwise properly withheld. None of the above or
following shifts or changes this burden.
C. 	Documents that Need Not Be Logged. The parties agree that certain privileged
communications or documents need not be included in a privilege log: (a) communications to or from
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outside or inside legal counsel for Defendants that were created after January 16, 2018, the filing date
of the first complaint in the Zetia MDL; (b) communications or attorney work product that is related
to the claims in this Litigation and that were created after January 16, 2018, the filing date of the first
complaint in the Zetia MDL, (c) communications regarding litigation holds or preservation, collection,
or review in this Litigation or any other litigation, including the Zetia MDL, unless otherwise ordered
by the Court, and (d) lesser included emails suppressed under Section IV.I, above.
D. 	The parties shall meet and confer on a schedule for the production of privilege logs
pursuant to this Section to the extent that productions are made wherein additional privilege logs must
be produced.
E. 	Privilege logs shall be produced in a sortable Excel (or comparable electronically
searchable and sortable format) that provides for each log entry or category (as applicable and to the
extent reasonably available) at least the following information:
1. 	unique document identification number or, if produced in redacted form, Bates
number;
2. 	document type;
3. 	family relationship, if applicable (i.e., identification of parent emails and all
attachments);
4. 	date (date sent for correspondence such as emails, memos, and letters; date
created for other documents);
5. 	to;
6. 	from;
7. 	author
8. 	cc;
9. 	bcc;
10. 	all privilege(s) or protection(s) claimed;
11. 	a description of the document, its subject matter, and its contents sufficient to
establish the privilege under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5); and
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12. 	an indication of whether the document has been redacted and produced or
wholly withheld.
All attorneys appearing in the privilege log must be identified on a separate document by full
name, employer, and last or current job title. In the privilege log itself, all attorneys must be identified
with an asterisk next to their name in each entry.
To alleviate the time and expense of manually creating each entry field identified in this
Section, the Party producing the privilege log may populate any of the required fields by exporting
such associated Metadata available for the document, if applicable to support the claim of privilege.
For privileged email chains, the Party is required only to log the information in the required fields for
the top (or most recent) privileged email in the chain. Where practical, and in an effort to try and
minimize disputes, a Producing Party shall consider producing email threads in redacted form rather
than wholesale withholding, but is not required to do so. The privilege description field for such
documents shall sufficiently describe the privilege basis for the entire document in accordance with
Rule 26(b)(5). For avoidance of doubt, a Party shall not be required to log each individual email within
an email chain as separate entries on the log.
F. 	If the Requesting Party requires further information, it shall explain in writing the need
for such information and identify, by Bates number or other unique identifier, each document for which
it seeks this information. Within thirty (30) calendar days of such a request, the Producing Party must
either (i) provide the requested information or (ii) challenge the request. If a Party challenges a request
for further information, the Parties shall meet and confer to try to reach a mutually agreeable solution.
If they cannot agree, the Parties may request a conference with the Court before any motions may be
filed.
IX. 	PRODUCTION OF PRIVILEGED OR OTHERWISE PROTECTED MATERIAL.
A. 	No Waiver by Disclosure. This order is entered pursuant to Rule 502(d) of the Federal
Rules of Evidence. Subject to the provisions of this Order and Section X of the Protective Order, if a
party or nonparty (the “Disclosing Party”) makes a disclosure, whether inadvertent or otherwise, of
information in connection with the pending litigation that the Disclosing Party thereafter claims to be
privileged or subject to work product protection (“Protected Information”), that disclosure of that
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Protected Information will not constitute or be deemed a waiver or forfeiture – in this or any other
federal or state proceeding – of any claim of privilege or work product protection that the Disclosing
Party would otherwise be entitled to assert with respect to the Protected Information and its subject
matter. The Parties hereby expressly intend to exempt the Disclosing Party from any obligation to
satisfy the requirements of FRE 502(b), including any requirement to demonstrate that the disclosure
was inadvertent or that the holder of the privilege or protection took reasonable steps to prevent
disclosure.
B. 	Notification Regarding Clawbacks. A Disclosing Party must promptly notify the
party receiving the Protected Information (“the Receiving Party”), in writing, that it contends it has
disclosed that Protected Information. Upon such notification, the Receiving Party must act in
accordance with Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5)(B). This notification process shall in no way relieve a
Receiving Party of its independent duty to notify a Disclosing Party of the production of Protected
Information that the Receiving Party knows or reasonably should know was produced.
C. 	Contesting Claim of Privilege or Work Product Protection. If the Receiving Party
contests the claim of privilege or work product protection, the Parties shall meet and confer and, if
necessary thereafter, either party can move the Court for an Order concerning the dispute. Such a
motion must be filed under seal. Pending resolution of the Disclosure Motion, the Receiving Party
shall abide by the terms of Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5)(B).
D. 	Agreement to Modify Time Periods. The Parties may stipulate to extend the time
periods set forth in paragraphs (B) and (C) above.
E. 	Burden of Proving Privilege or Work-Product Protection. The Disclosing Party
retains the burden – upon challenge pursuant to paragraph (C) above – of establishing the privileged
or protected nature of the Protected Information.
F. 	Voluntary and Subject Matter Waiver. This Order does not preclude a party from
voluntarily waiving privilege or work product protection. The provisions of Federal Rule of Evidence
502(a) apply when the Disclosing Party uses or indicates that it may use information produced under
this Order to support a claim or defense.
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G. 	Review. Nothing contained herein is intended to or shall serve to limit a Party’s right
to 	conduct 	a 	review 	of 	documents, 	ESI 	or 	information 	(including 	metadata) 	for 	relevance,
responsiveness and/or segregation of privileged and/or protected information before production.
X. 	COST SHIFTING.
A. 	Generally, the costs of production of ESI under this Protocol shall be borne by the
Producing Party, and the Parties agree that nothing in this Protocol renders any costs or expenses of
producing ESI “necessary” within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1920. The Producing Party shall bear
all costs of producing documents, if any, in TIFF format, and expressly waives any right to seek
reimbursement or taxing of such costs pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1920 or any other state or federal cost-
recovery provision.
B. 	If a Producing Party reasonably believes in good faith that producing particular ESI
poses an undue burden or cost or is otherwise disproportionate, such Party, at or before the time the
production is due under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, shall describe the nature of the objection
with reasonable particularity and indicate whether it is willing to offer an alternative to production.
The Parties shall promptly meet and confer in an attempt to resolve the issues and, if no resolution is
reached, seek appropriate relief from the Court. In such case, the Court may apportion the costs of
electronic discovery in accordance with and only as allowed by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure;
provided, however, that such apportionment shall not include the costs of producing documents in
TIFF format, as discussed above.
D. 	Nothing in this Section or the remainder of this Protocol precludes the Requesting Party
from opposing any applications for shifting of costs.
E. 	By entering this Protocol, a Party does not waive any objections it has to requests for
documents. Nor does a Party give up its right to review its documents for privilege. The existence of
this Protocol cannot be used to compel a Party to produce documents without review.
XI. 	MISCELLANEOUS.
A. 	Third Party Documents. A Party that issues a subpoena (“Issuing Party”) shall include
a copy of this Order with the subpoena and state that the Parties to this Action have requested that third
parties produce documents in accordance with the specifications set forth herein. Within seven (7)
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calendar days of receiving any Documents or ESI obtained pursuant to a non-Party subpoena, the
Issuing Party shall produce such Documents or ESI to all other Parties, except where the Third Party
Documents are to be used in a deposition that is fewer than seven (7) calendar days away, in which
case the Issuing Party shall produce such Documents or ESI to all other Parties no later than three (3)
calendar days prior to the deposition. Nothing in this Order is intended or may be interpreted to narrow,
expand, or otherwise affect the rights of the Parties or third parties to object to a subpoena.
B. 	Good Faith. The Parties shall make their best efforts to comply with, and resolve any
differences concerning compliance with, this Order. If a Producing Party cannot reasonably comply
with any material aspect of this Order, such Party shall inform the requesting party in writing at or
before the time of production as to why compliance with the Order was unreasonable or not possible.
No Party may seek relief from the Court concerning compliance with the Order unless it has conferred
with other affected Parties to this Action.
C. 	No Effect on Discoverability or Admissibility. This Protocol does not address, limit,
or determine the relevance, discoverability, agreement to produce, or admissibility of ESI. Nothing in
this Protocol shall be construed to affect the admissibility of any document or data. All objections to
the admissibility of any document or data, except as to the authenticity of the documents produced by
a Party as to which that Party stipulates, are preserved and may be asserted at any time.
D. 	No Effect on Arbitration of Claims. By agreeing to the terms of this Protocol, the
Parties do not waive any and all rights to proceed by way of individual arbitration instead.
XII. 	MODIFICATION
This Protocol may be modified by a Stipulated Order of the parties or by the Court for good
cause show.
IT IS SO STIPULATED, through Counsel of Record.
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Dated: November 3, 2025 	Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Tiffanie McDowell
Daniel A. Sasse (State Bar No. 236234)
Tiffanie L. McDowell (State Bar No. 288946)
CROWELL & MORING LLP
3 Park Plaza, 20th Floor
Irvine, California 92614
Telephone: 949.263.8400
Facsimile: 949.263.8414
dsasse@crowell.com
tmcdowell@crowell.com
Kent A. Gardiner *
Mark M. Supko, Pro Hac Vice
CROWELL & MORING LLP
1001 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20004
Telephone: 202.624.2500
Facsimile: 202.628.5116
kgardiner@crowell.com
msupko@crowell.com
* Pro Hac Vice forthcoming
Attorneys for Plaintiff Kaiser Foundation Health
Plan, Inc.
/s/ Samuel G. Liversidge
Samuel G. Liversidge, SBN 180578
Shaun A. Mathur, SBN 311029
Sarah M. Kushner, SBN 320077
GIBSON DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
333 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90071-3197
(213) 229-7000
sliversidge@gibsondunn.com
smkushner@gibsondunn.com
S. Christopher Whittaker, SBN 283518
Courtney L. Spears, SBN 329521
GIBSON DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP
3161 Michelson Drive
Irvine, California 92612-4412
(949) 451-3800
cwhittaker@gibsondunn.com
cspears@gibsondunn.com
Attorneys for Defendants Merck & Company,
Inc., Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC (f/k/a Merck
Sharp & Dohme Corporation), Schering-Plough
Corporation, and Schering Corporation, and
MSP Singapore Company LLC
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SIGNATURE ATTESTATION
Pursuant to Civil Local Rule 5-1(i)(3), I, Samuel G. Liversidge, hereby attest under penalty of
perjury that concurrence in the filing of this document has been obtained from all signatories.
Dated: November 3, 2025 	By: /s/ Samuel G. Liversidge
Samuel G. Liversidge
PURSUANT TO STIPULATION, IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: 11/5/2025 _____________________________
Honorable Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr.
United States District Judge
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EXHIBIT A
FIELDS and METADATA TO BE PRODUCED
The load files accompanying scanned paper documents will include the following objective
coding fields, to the extent applicable:
The following metadata fields shall be included in Load/Unitization Files accompanying ESI,
to the extent available, and/or unredacted:
Field 	Field Description
for Electronic
Documents
Field Description for
Emails Field Description for
Calendar Entries
BEGBATES (DPF) 	First Bates identifier
of item First Bates Identifier
of item First Bates Identifier of
item
ENDBATES (DPF) 	Last Bates identifier
of item Last Bates identifier of
item Last Bates identifier of
item
BEGATTACH (DPF) 	Starting Bates
number of a
document family
Starting Bates number
of a document family Starting Bates number
of a document family
ENDATTACH (DPF) 	Ending Bates number
of a document family Ending Bates number
of a document family Ending Bates number
of a document family
Field 	Field Description
BEGBATES (DPF) 	First Bates identifier of item
ENDBATES (DPF) 	Last Bates identifier of item
BEGATTACH (DPF) 	Starting Bates number of a document family
ENDATTACH (DPF) 	Ending Bates number of a document family
PAGECOUNT (DPF) 	Number of pages
TEXTLINK (DPF) 	Link to text file for the document
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Field 	Field Description
for Electronic
Documents
Field Description for
Emails Field Description for
Calendar Entries
PAGECOUNT (DPF) 	Number of pages 	Number of pages 	Number of pages
ALLCUSTODIANS 	All custodians /
sources of a
document from
which the document
originated even if de-
duplicated prior to
production, separated
by semicolons
All custodians /
sources of a document
from which the
document originated
even if de-duplicated
prior to production,
separated by
semicolons
All custodians /
sources of a document
from which the
document originated
even if de-duplicated
prior to production,
separated by
semicolons
CONFIDENTIAL 	Confidentiality
designation Confidentiality
designation Confidentiality
designation
FROM 	Sender of message 	Sender of calendar
invite
TO 	Recipient(s) of
message or calendar
invite
Recipient(s) of
calendar invite
CC 	Copied recipient(s) of
message or calendar
invite
BCC 	Blind copied
recipient(s) of
message or calendar
invite
SUBJECT 	Subject of message 	Subject of calendar
invite
SENTDATE 	The sent date of the
message in the format
MM/DD/YYYY
Date calendar invite
sent (if any)
SENTTIME 	The sent time of the
message in the format
HH:mm:ss
Time calendar invite
sent (if any)
RECEIVEDDATE 	The received date of
the message in the
format
MM/DD/YYYY
The received date of
the message in the
format
MM/DD/YYYY
RECEIVEDTIME 	The received time of
the message in the
format HH:mm:ss
The received time of
the message in the
format HH:mm:ss
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Field 	Field Description
for Electronic
Documents
Field Description for
Emails Field Description for
Calendar Entries
FILENAME 	Contents of this
metadata field, or an
equivalent
Contents of this
metadata field, or an
equivalent
FILEEXTEN 	File extension 	File extension 	File extension
FILESIZE 	Size of the file in
bytes Size of the file in
bytes Size of the file in bytes
HASH 	MD5 or SHA 1 hash
of the document MD5 or SHA 1 hash
of the email MD5 or SHA 1 hash of
the calendar entry
ITEMTYPE 	Identifies whether the
file is an email,
attachment, or stand-
alone efile.
Identifies whether the
file is an email,
attachment, or stand-
alone efile.
Identifies whether the
file is an email,
attachment, or stand-
alone efile.
NATIVELINK (DPF) 	Link to native file (if
any) Link to native file (if
any) Link to native file (if
any)
TEXTLINK (DPF) 	Link to text file for
the document Link to text file for the
email Link to text file for the
calendar invite
TITLE 	Title from a
document’s
properties
AUTHOR 	Document Author
from metadata
DATECREATED 	Date file was created
TIMECREATED 	Time file was created
For chat and text messages, in addition to the above metadata fields, the following metadata
fields shall be included in Load/Unitization Files accompanying ESI, to the extent available, and/or
unredacted:
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Field 	Field Description for chat and text messages
MESSAGE_BEGINDATE 	Date 	and 	time 	Message 	was 	sent 	(format: 	MM/DD/YYYY
HH:MM SS) for first message in chat thread.
MESSAGE_ENDDATE 	Date 	and 	time 	Message 	was 	sent 	(format: 	MM/DD/YYYY
HH:MM SS) for Last message in chat thread.
MESSAGE_NAME 	Name assigned to the Message Thread
MESSAGE_PARTICIPANTS 	Name and numbers for the individuals in chat thread
MESSAGE_COUNT 	Count of messages in Thread
MESSAGE_ATTACHCOUNT 	Count of attachments files in the message
MESSAGE_ATTACHNAMES 	Filenames for the Message Attachments
MESSAGE_FILEPATH 	Original path to the individual source Message file. Includes path
up to and including internal path of containers
MESSAGE_FILENAME 	Name assigned to the Message
MESSAGE_FILEEXT 	File extension of Message
MESSAGE_FILEHASH 	MD5 hash value of Message
APPLICATION 	The application that the message was created in (WhatsApp,
AppMessage, IMessage, SMS, MMS, Etc.)
Such metadata field values will be extracted from the native file and will be produced to the
extent available at the time of collection and processing, except that they may be redacted if privileged
or if the metadata field values contain information protected by law or Court Order. This list of fields
does not create any obligation to create or manually code fields, except the duplicate custodian field,
that do not exist as part of the original metadata of the document.
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EXHIBIT B
REQUESTED LOAD FILE FORMAT FOR ESI
1. 	Delimited Text File. A delimited text file (.DAT File) containing the fields listed in
Exhibit A should be provided. The delimiters for the file should be Concordance defaults:
• 	Comma – ASCII character 20 (<JI)
• 	Quote – ASCII character 254 (p)
• 	Newline – ASCII character 174 (®)
2. 	Image Cross-Reference File (.opt). The Opticon cross-reference file is a comma
delimited file consisting of six fields per line. There must be a line in the cross-reference file for every
image in the database. The format for the file is as follows:
ImageID: 	The unique designation that Concordance and Opticon use to
identify an image. This should be the BegBates Number of the
Document.
VolumeLabel: 	The name of the volume.
ImageFilePath: 	The full path to the image file.
DocumentBreak: 	If this field contains the letter “Y”, then this is the first page of a
Document. If this field is blank, then this page is not the first page
of a Document.
FolderBreak: 	Leave empty.
BoxBreak: 	Leave empty.
PageCount: 	Number of pages in the Document.
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Sample Data
PROD0000000l, VOL001,E:\100\ PROD0000000l.TIF,Y,,2
PROD00000002, VOL001,E:\100\ MT00000002.TIF,,,,
PROD00000003, VOL00l,E:\100\ MT00000003.TIF,Y,,,4
PROD00000004, VOL001,E:\100\ MT00000004.TIF,,,,
PROD00000005, VOL001,E:\100\ MT00000005.TIF,,,,
PROD00000006, VOL001,E:\100\ MT00000006.TIF,,,,
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