Employers Have An Obligation To Provide Meaningful Direction To Employees In Email Searches, But Employers Can’t Be Compelled To Recover Company Emails Stored On Personal Accounts Of Employees

A recent case from the Northern District of California raises the importance of actively engaging with employees to coordinate the search for documents and electronically-stored information to comply with the employer’s discovery obligations. At the same time, the Court ruled that an employer cannot be compelled to produce business-related emails from the personal email accounts of its employees.