“Meta Data – the data behind the data”

Don’t ignore the Meta Data

"[b]ecause of their ubiquitous nature, documents stored in electronic form... should be specifically targeted by counsel in developing their discovery plans. Failing to do so may not only prejudice their case, but may also constitute malpractice." Michael R. Overly: California Continuing Education of the Bar (1998 3d Ed), Civil Discovery Practice 3rd Ed., Vol.2, §8.24, p. 711.

Application File Meta Data

Files created by different applications store data about the data. For instance, Microsoft Word documents save a plethora of interesting data that may be crucial to your case. The illustration below shows some of the Meta Data behind a Word Document

Click here to see a sample of Microsoft Word Metadata

What’s the big deal?

What is so valuable about this information? Well, it shows valuable data not readily available from the printed document.

For example, take an employment case, where an employee was terminated after an alleged incident.

What the paper document shows:

The paper document given to the employee upon termination shows a date of September 15, 2001.

It refers to an incident which occurred on September 1, 2001.

Seems pretty cut and dry, right?

What the Meta Data shows:

The document was created and printed on August 16, 2001 two weeks before said incident was alleged to have happened.

Without the Meta Data the employee would not have been able to prove her claim of wrongful termination. With the Meta Data the case settles and goes away quietly.

Email Meta Data

Emails have Meta Data too. The structure of all Internet email is governed by a single basic standard. This data may be captured and placed into litigation support databases thereby allowing you to compile Boolean Queries or full text queries and sort the results according to your needs.

“STANDARD FOR THE FORMAT OF ARPA INTERNET TEXT MESSAGES,” was published in August, 1982. More familiarly known as RFC 822, this standard describes twenty-five fields that Internet emails may contain.

Below is an abbreviated version of RFC 822 showing the valuable data elements available if you have access to the electronic files.

Bcc Recipients whose names aren’t visible to other recipients. (Bcc names will never be seen on a printout unless it’s printed from the sender’s files.) Optional – and rarely seen on printouts.

Cc Additional recipients other than the primary recipient, if any. Optional

Comments Textual comments that don’t affect message contents. Optional

Date The date on which the message was sent. Required

Encrypted Methodology used to encrypt the message. Optional

From Sender’s identity. Remember that the sender may not be a human being, but could be a computer

sending out email to a list. Required.

In-Reply-To Identifies previous email answered by this message. Optional

Keywords Keywords separated by commas. Optional

Message-ID Unique machine readable ID for this particular email. Can be of vital importance in authenticating email. Optional – but almost always used. Does not show up on ordinary printouts from an email client.

Received Shows the time when a message was received by the intended recipient and the entire route taken from the sender’s machine to the recipient’s, which often includes a great many stops along the way. This information is vital to authenticating email and in determining if there are other machines that you should be examining. Optional, but almost always used. Email servers from the beginning of the route through the end add their information automatically.

References Identifies previous email referenced by this message. Can sometimes be useful in authentication and determining whether the adverse party has produced all that they should. Optional

Reply-to The mailbox to which responses should be sent. Usually the same address as the sender, but sometimes not. Optional – but many email clients include it.

Resent-bcc The same as Bcc, but applies to messages that have been forwarded. Optional

Resent-cc As above with application to Cc. Optional

Resent-date As above, with application to Date Optional

Resent-From As above with application to From. Optional

Resent-Message-ID Same as above with application to Message-ID. Optional

Resent-Reply-to Same as above with application to Reply-to. Optional

Resent-Sender Same as above with application to Sender. Optional

Return-Path Address and route back to originator of email. Optional

Sender The address of the user who sent the email. Required

Subject The subject of the email Optional

To Primary recipients of the email Required

X- Prefix for user created labels. Optional

If reading the entire RFC 822 document appeals to you, here’s the url - http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc822.html

Printouts are not exact duplicates of emails

Clearly, by looking at the printed email, you can see that the aforementioned fields are not all printed along with the message. The first absolute truth of email discovery is that a printout of an email is not an exact duplicate of the original electronic file. See Armstrong, et al. v. Executive Office of the President, 1 F.3d 1274 (D.C. Cir. 1993). “the mere existence of the paper print-outs does not affect the record status of the electronic materials unless the paper versions include all significant material contained in the electronic records. Otherwise, the two documents cannot accurately be termed “copies”--identical twins--but are, at most, “kissing cousins.”
If your request for production asks for electronic originals and you are provided printouts, you’re not getting what you asked for.

Use this Meta Data with your favorite litigation support software

Once the electronic documents have been converted to TIFF images and you have captured the Meta Data, it is possible to use these elements in your favorite litigation support database. They become part of your case. You can simultaneously search across transcripts, the database and the full text of the documents. What is more, there’s no need for busy litigation professionals to learn additional programs. What a treat…and at a fraction of the cost of handling paper!

For more information on this topic, please contact your representative or give us a call (214) 939-9700