By Phil Favro, Contributing Author for HaystackID
Civil discovery has traditionally been governed by a “document-centric” mindset. Counsel have generally visualized their production obligations in terms of document numbers, whether those documents are housed as paper records in a filing cabinet or as TIFFs on an eDiscovery platform. However, over the past several years, as corporate data environments have evolved, lawyers have shifted to addressing ESI as data and not merely as documents.
This trend is evident in many newer forms of ESI, with chat and text message strings as notable examples. Another key manifestation of this trend is found in structured data environments. Structured data sources—e.g., relational databases, project management dashboards, and complex data warehouses—often do not maintain data in the form of traditional documents until a specific query is run to obtain information. In the past, this technical distinction may have allowed producing parties, in certain instances, to avoid having to produce relevant structured data.
Nevertheless, courts have been reluctant to relieve producing parties from their obligation to produce relevant database ESI, given the critical role this type of data may have in certain litigation. Indeed, judges have frequently ordered the production of relevant structured data to ensure requesting parties obtain much-needed evidence while also addressing issues such as reasonable usability, form of production, and undue burden. Several recent cases reflect this judicial trend and exemplify how courts expect litigants to handle the discovery of structured data in 2026 and beyond.
Courts Expect Parties to Produce Relevant Structured Data
Courts have repeatedly clarified that relevant structured data must be produced in discovery. In so doing, they have dismissed arguments from producing parties that structured data productions run afoul of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34, due to the manner in which the data is maintained or because compelling its production would require the producing party to generate new documents.
Sound Around v. Friedman
These trends were evident in Sound Around, Inc. v. Friedman. In that case, the court ordered the plaintiff to produce financial information from a structured database relevant to the defendants’ allegation that the plaintiff improperly calculated their sales commissions. [1] The defendants had long sought this information, arguing that the plaintiff “had lied to or misled the Court about the existence of data and failed to produce information that was responsive to their document requests.” In their motion, the defendants represented that they finally verified the database containing the sought-after financial information only after a witness confirmed its existence during a deposition.
For its part, the plaintiff maintained that it was under no obligation to produce information from the database at issue because the requested information was “raw data” and would require the plaintiff to generate new documents. The plaintiff additionally argued that the defendants were at fault since they failed to identify the database or provide search terms for identifying responsive information.
The court rejected each of these arguments, concluding that the plaintiff “and its counsel utterly failed to identify relevant repositories of electronically stored information pertinent to defendants’ counterclaims concerning the calculation of their commissions.” In particular, Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker declared that Rule 34 required producing parties like the plaintiff to conduct a reasonable search for relevant information, including in databases like the one at issue in this case.
That the plaintiff had to query its database to identify responsive information was not the same as creating new documents. Citing a litany of legal authorities, Judge Parker found that “a producing party may need to create a special query to extract only certain relevant data fields from a database” in order to meet its production obligations. This was a particularly important step in this case, where the existing reports the plaintiff produced did “not provide a full picture of how defendants’ commissions were computed over time; more was required than simply searching for such reports.”
Primoris Energy Services v. Air Products & Chemicals
A similar result to Sound Around was reached in Primoris Energy Services v. Air Products & Chemicals. In that case, the court ordered the plaintiff (Primoris) to produce relevant information from its “Power BI” dashboards.2 The defendant sought the dashboard information to substantiate its allegation that Primoris failed to meet performance specifications under the parties’ construction agreement. According to the court, the Power BI dashboard formatted data in a “visually appealing” manner to help track the progress of construction on the project.
Primoris argued against production, asserting that the requested dashboard was a software application (not a document within the meaning of Rule 34) and that it had no duty to produce a software program in discovery. In addition, the plaintiff maintained that it was under no obligation to generate documents for the defendant from the dashboard.
The court rejected these positions, finding the requested dashboards “contain data that is easily compiled into viewable information” and is thus discoverable information within the meaning of Rule 34. Nor was the defendant demanding the creation of documents, as Primoris maintained. Instead, Magistrate Judge Andrew Edison analogized the defendant’s request to that of a party querying “an existing dynamic database for relevant information [where] courts regularly require parties to produce reports from dynamic databases.” Judge Edison observed that “there is a critical distinction between creating new documents and ‘requiring a party to query an existing database to produce reports for opposing parties.’” Because the defendant was only seeking to obtain information from Primoris’s “computer system” and not requesting that Primoris generate new documents, the court found that the defendant’s request was proper under Rule 34.
Lessons from Sound Around and Primoris
Sound Around and Primoris definitively reject assertions that structured data productions do not comply with Rule 34. In each case, the courts embraced the notion that producing parties should consider querying databases to identify responsive documents. Parties cannot hope to avoid discovery of relevant database information simply because it’s stored as “data” rather than as “documents.” Moreover, developing queries to identify relevant structured data is not the equivalent of creating new documents. Instead, it is a suggested search method that parties may use to satisfy a party’s Rule 34 discovery obligations.
The Format for Structured Data Productions Matters
Another recent structured data decision emphasizes the importance of its production format. To be sure, TIFF or PDF productions of structured data are often unworkable because they generally do not include links or other referenced data or documents. And Excel files may or may not be a reasonably usable format, depending on the nature and extent of the information produced in discovery. In some instances—such as the In re Concho Resources, Inc. Securities Litigation case—courts have ordered producing parties to make relevant structured data available in native format.
In re Concho Resources, Inc. Securities Litigation
In Concho—a certified class action alleging claims for securities fraud—the court granted the plaintiffs’ motion to compel and ordered the defendants to produce relevant information from a structured database.3 In support of their motion, the plaintiffs argued that the defendants’ prior production of database information in Excel files was “unlabeled, disorganized, and unmalleable.” In particular, the plaintiffs complained that the Excel reports were not reasonably usable because (among other things) they “do not have the same functionalities—like categorizing, calculating, or graphing—that the native format” would have. The nature of the database information available to company executives, the plaintiffs argued, was relevant to establishing the scienter element for their securities fraud claims.
Defendants disagreed, arguing that they already produced the requested information, their overall production volume was substantial (over 200,000 documents), it would be difficult to capture a snapshot of the requested data, and the employees who were knowledgeable about the database’s functionality had left their employment.
The court rejected all of these arguments. Under Rule 26(b)(1) proportionality factors, the court found good cause to order production of the requested database information as it was kept in the usual course of the defendants’ business. The court was not convinced that the defendants could not make a production in the format requested by the plaintiffs, particularly since the database was active and the data from the previously produced Excel files did not link or otherwise “tie in” to each other. Moreover, the court emphasized that Rule 34’s “fairness” considerations supported its determination, i.e., the need for the defendants’ production to be reasonably usable for the requesting party plaintiffs.
Lessons from Concho
Concho makes clear that a structured data production format really matters. Excels—while preferable to static production formats—may not always be reasonably usable within the meaning of Rule 34. Getting the right production format may require negotiation between the parties. In addition, as Judge Parker recognized in Sound Around, the parties may need to involve structured data specialists to help formulate queries that are narrowly tailored to obtain responsive information from the database.
Courts are Mindful of Undue Burdens
Despite the need for structured data productions in certain cases, courts are not oblivious to the burdens such productions can impose on producing parties. By rule, courts must be mindful of overly broad discovery requests and ensure that demands are proportional to the needs of the case. In some instances, that means curtailing requests for relevant structured data, no matter how meritorious a requesting party may believe its demands to be. That is exactly what transpired in Dale v. T-Mobile.
Dale v. T-Mobile
The court in Dale denied the plaintiffs’ motion to compel AT&T to produce certain structured data.4 In this antitrust litigation involving the wireless mobile phone services market, the plaintiffs subpoenaed nonparty AT&T to obtain multiple categories of data regarding their claims against the defendant, T-Mobile. Regarding their request for structured data, the plaintiffs demanded (among other things) that AT&T produce structured data fields corresponding to “subscriber data” from a five-year period that pre-dated T-Mobile’s acquisition of Sprint. The subscriber data included several categories of information, such as contract pricing, plan features, detailed payment plan and charge information, and customer “census block group identifiers” or address information.
AT&T maintained that it should only be required to produce two years of pre-merger subscriber data. AT&T also argued that it should not be required to produce subscriber information that it did not maintain in the usual course of its business. The court agreed with AT&T on both issues.
First, Magistrate Judge Albert Berry III reasoned that two years of subscriber data would be sufficient for the plaintiffs to evaluate the nature and extent of AT&T’s pricing and services before and after the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. Next, the court held that the plaintiffs could not demand that AT&T create a new document memorializing all of the disparate subscriber data: “the rules do not require that AT&T hunt down the data in whatever locations may exist, compile it into a spreadsheet, synthesize the data so it is consumable, and produce it to Plaintiffs.” Instead, Judge Berry concluded that AT&T would only be obligated to produce structured data from its databases on “spreadsheets with subscriber data it keeps in the usual course of business.” Judge Berry made clear that he was denying the plaintiffs’ motion “to the extent it seeks to have AT&T include fields for [subscriber] data it does not keep in the ordinary course of business.”
Lessons from Dale
Dale establishes that discovery of structured data has its limits and should not exceed the boundaries of Rule 26 or Rule 34. By limiting the temporal scope of the requested information and emphasizing that the plaintiffs’ production requests should be restricted by Rule 34’s usual course of business requirement, Dale shows that courts are mindful of imposing undue burdens on producing parties. In addition, Dale reinforces the notion that producing parties are not required to generate documents to satisfy the discovery wishes of requesting parties.
As these cases show, disputes over structured data will often turn on scope, format, and burden. Parties that address these issues early, particularly with respect to how data is maintained and can be queried, will be better positioned to meet their discovery obligations.
[1] Sound Around, Inc. v. Friedman, No. 24-CV-1986 (DLC) (KHP), 2025 WL 2855353 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 8, 2025).
[2] Primoris Energy Servs. Corp. v. Air Prods. & Chemicals, Inc., No. 3:24-CV-00156, 2025 WL 2529644 (S.D. Tex. Sept. 3, 2025).
[3] In re Concho Res., Inc. Sec. Litig., No. 4:21-CV-2473, 2025 WL 2899518 (S.D. Tex. Oct. 10, 2025).
[4] Dale v. T-Mobile US, Inc., No. 22-CV-3189, 2025 WL 4059967 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 3, 2025).
About Phil Favro
Phil Favro is the founder of Favro Law PLLC, where he counsels clients on ESI, AI, and discovery issues and serves as a special master, mediator, and expert witness. Phil is nationally recognized for his expertise on ESI, discovery, and information governance, with courts acknowledging his credentials. See, e.g., Oakley v. MSG Networks, Inc., No. 17-CV-6903 (RJS), 2025 WL 2061665 (S.D.N.Y. July 23, 2025). This background makes Phil particularly well-suited to counsel clients and advise courts on information-related issues. As a special master, Phil is acclaimed for his collaborative approach, working with parties to find stipulated solutions to complex issues. For disputes that require adjudication, he is renowned for the clarity and vigor of his written dispositions, which are available on legal search engines.
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