Image: Holley Robinson, EDRM.
This blog addresses two of the issues resolved in Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. v. Allen Interchange LLC, 2025 WL 3485862 (D. Minn. Dec. 4, 2025). Toyota moved to compel Allen to produce certain discovery.
First, Toyota requested the “Jim Folder.” Allen initially danced — unsuccessfully — around a response, arguing that it could not determine whether the folder or its contents were requested.
Second, Allen contended that certain metadata — specifically, some file and subfolder names — was privileged. On unique facts, it succeeded.
THE “JIM FOLDER”
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During a deposition, an Allen employee “testified that relevant documents had been kept by a former employee whose name was ‘Jim.’” “Jim” was no longer employed and Allen maintained the ESI he had kept in a folder named “The Jim Folder.” Id. at *2. Toyota requested “The Jim Folder.”
The Toyota court described Allen’s response as “somewhat shocking”:
Allen Interchange objects to this request as being so vague that it [is] impossible to determine what is sought. Plaintiff’s definition of the “Jim Folder” is a location and not a document: “the electronic and/or hard copy file referred to by Bruce Enkhaus at his May 14, 2025, deposition at 246:8-247:10.”
Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. v. Allen Interchange LLC, 2025 WL 3485862 (D. Minn. Dec. 4, 2025).
The court reframed the issue:
In other words, Allen originally objected to the RFP because, when it was asked for a folder, it could not tell whether it was being asked for the folder or the contents of the folder. Asserting that such a distinction makes the request “so vague that it [is] impossible to determine what is sought” is ridiculous. Anyone reading the request would immediately understand that Toyota wanted the contents of the folder, not the folder that held those contents. Allen’s response triggered federal court litigation in which teams of opposing lawyers, like so many medieval alchemists, marshaled arguments and textual analyses for and against a question whose answer was obvious on its face.
Id. (some emphasis added).
However, Allen later amended its response stating that it had produced anything in that folder that was relevant.
Noting that the amended response repeated Allen’s argument that Toyota’s request was improper because “it does not describe any documents it seeks,” but “merely points to a location,” the court wrote: “The Court stands by its characterization that it is ridiculous to claim that a request is too vague to be understood because it does not specify whether the requester wants what is in a file or the file itself.” Id. at n. 1.
Allen’s original position was absurd, and its later effort at damage control by proffering a more defensible rationale for the objection was too little, too late.
Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. v. Allen Interchange LLC, 2025 WL 3485862 (D. Minn. Dec. 4, 2025).
The Toyota court wrote:
There is no need to mince words. Allen’s original position was absurd, and its later effort at damage control by proffering a more defensible rationale for the objection was too little, too late. The reason this dispute was litigated at all was Allen’s original response to the RFP. That original response caused both parties to expend resources in addressing the dispute and wasted the Court’s time. Once the original objection was made, the damage was done. That Allen later thought of more defensible support for its motion does not change that fact. If the parties wonder why the Court’s tone in this case is becoming increasingly acerbic, they need look no further than the disputes of this type that are all too frequent in this case.
Id.
The court’s decision focused on the merits:
The Court must now decide what to do with this dispute, which was spurred by an entirely inappropriate objection but has since been joined, post hoc, by more colorable argument. At the risk of rewarding bad behavior, the Court finds that Allen’s production of Jim Folder documents that are responsive to other discovery requests was correct. To be certain that all responsive documents have been produced, the Court orders Allen to disclose any documents in the Jim Folder that are responsive to any discovery request from Toyota that has, to this point, been uncontested or validated by court order, subject to appropriate assertions of privilege.
Id. at *2 (emphasis added).
FILE OR SUBFOLDER NAMES DEEMED PRIVILEGED
Allen asserted privilege “over metadata… because the file or subfolder names reveal privileged information.” Id. at *4. In response, “Toyota argues that the metadata cannot be privileged because metadata is not a communication between Allen and its counsel nor is it attorney work product.” Id.
Here, the factual context was unique. Arguments about words like “metadata” must be considered in context. The Sedona Conference defines metadata as “[t]he generic term used to describe the structural information of a file that contains data about the file, as opposed to describing the content of a file.”1
Toyota argued that it “did not “understand how the file path can be privileged unless someone, you know labeled their file something like, ‘My lawyer told me XYZ’.” Id.
Allen responded that “I mean, that’s not literally what these folders were, but that’s what happened.” Id.
The parties’ ships passed in the night because of the difference between user-created metadata to communicate with counsel, on the one hand, and computer-generated metadata, on the other. For example, the “ESI Principles” of the District of Maryland state that: “Metadata occurs in many forms within and without digital files. Some is supplied by the user, but most metadata is generated by systems and software.”2 In my words, in Toyota, the metadata was “user created” and intended to communicate with counsel.
The Toyota court ordered in camera review of the metadata and, on the facts presented, held:
After reviewing the metadata and without disclosing its contents, the Court concurs with Allen’s characterization. The file folder names, put on by Allen employees, not by counsel, are of the form “here are the documents the lawyers told me to collect about XYZ.” After its in camera review, the Court concludes that the specific metadata at issue is privileged, even under [Toyota’s] characterization, and need not be disclosed. If the metadata has not previously been entered on the privilege log, though, it must be.
Id. (emphasis added).
In short, where folders or file names are user-created in order to communicate with counsel, the names are privileged.
Notes
