FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION, Receiver of Community Bank & Trust of Cornelia, Georgia, Plaintiff, v. ST. PAUL MERCURY INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant and Declaratory Judgment Plaintiff, v. Community Bankshares, Inc., and Community Bank & Trust–Alabama, Declaratory Judgment Defendants CIVIL ACTION NO. 2:11-CV-00167-WCO United States District Court, N.D. Georgia, Gainesville Division Signed May 24, 2012 Counsel Sarah D. Pelley, Steven L. Hoard, Mullin Hoard & Brown, Amarillo, TX, J. Douglas Stewart, Sr., Mark William Alexander, Stewart Melvin & Frost, Gainesville, GA, for Plaintiff. Gregory R. Veal, Timothy Jerome Burson, Bovis, Kyle, Burch & Medlin, LLC, Julie Ann Lierly, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, LLP, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant and Declaratory Judgment Plaintiff. O'Kelley, William C., United States District Judge ORDER *1 The captioned case is before the court for consideration of defendant St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company's “Motion to Compel” [61]. On April 6, 2012, defendant St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company (“St. Paul”) filed this motion to compel the production of electronic bank records in the possession of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”), which is acting as a receiver for Community Bank & Trust of Cornelia, Georgia. Previously, St. Paul served several Rule 34 production requests on the FDIC. (See Attach. to Motion to Compel 1-14.) These requests sought documents relating to, among other things: (1) “initial and any renewal loans to the borrowers identified in the proofs of loss submitted by the [p]laintiff,” (id. at 2.); (2) records of board meetings, audits, and internal investigations, (id.); (3) personnel files, (id. at 3); and (4) “every electronic document, specifically including but not limited to e-mails and information stored electronically, concerning or relating to the [c]laims, CBT-GA's discovery of the losses underlying the [c]laims, or any supervision, direction, monitoring, or oversight of Randy Jones, Philip Page, Greg McElroy, or any of them.” (Id.) On May 24, 2012, the court held a telephone conference in an attempt to resolve this matter. At this hearing, the court fully discussed the facts underlying the motion to compel. Those facts will not be repeated here. The court also announced its ruling, which is memorialized in this order. The parties did not dispute that the FDIC had attempted to provide a response to the original production requests filed by St. Paul. The FDIC indicated that its common practice upon assuming control of a failed bank was to collect all of the failed bank's documents and create an electronic database of these documents. The FDIC granted St. Paul access to this electronic database through a third-party technology vendor. St. Paul could use key-word searches to locate documents within the database, create categories to sort documents within the database, and tag documents that would then be printed and produced. St. Paul had two primary objections to this disclosure. First, St. Paul believed that it was necessary to perform “content analytics” searches on the electronic database to find the relevant documents and it contended that the version of the database it was provided could not perform these searches. Second, St. Paul argued that it was unable to print documents on its own. Instead, it had to tag documents for production and wait for the document to be printed and mailed. To remedy these problems, St. Paul asked the FDIC to provide an electronic hard copy of all the documents in the database. St. Paul could give this copy to its own third-party technology vendor, who would create a database that would allow the use of a “content analytics” search. There was one catch: the FDIC asked St. Paul to pay approximately $27,000 for this copy.[1] St. Paul refused to pay this price and filed this motion to compel. *2 The information sought by St. Paul's discovery request involved electronically stored information. Although the Federal Rules allow a requesting party to “specify the form or forms in which electronically stored information is to be produced,” FED. R. CIV. P. 34(b)(1)(C), St. Paul did not take advantage of this provision. St. Paul also did not object to the FDIC's initial description of the method it would use to produce the documents. Thus, the FDIC was only obligated to produce the information “in a form or forms in which [the information] is ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably useable form or forms.” FED. R. CIV. P. 34(b)(2)(E)(ii). If such a “reasonably useable form” was provided, the FDIC had no duty to “produce the same electronically stored information in more than one form.” FED. R. CIV. P.34(b)(2)(E)(iii). Accordingly, the real issue in this case is whether the original database disclosed by the FDIC was a “reasonably useable form” of the data. After consideration, the court determines that the original database provided by the FDIC was a reasonably useable form of the stored information.[2]Although in its briefing, St. Paul contended that the FDIC had the ability to perform “content analytics” searches in the FDIC's version of the database, the FDIC stated at the hearing that it had not paid for this option and was thus unable to use this search feature. Thus, the court finds that the original database disclosure did not “remove or significantly degrade[ ]” any included search feature. FED. R. CIV. P. 34(b), Advisory Committee Notes, 2006 Amendments. Essentially, St. Paul wants to perform a “content analytics” search on the database because a human search of the database using key-word searching or other methods is much less efficient. But, for two separate reasons, the FDIC is not under an obligation to provide the precise search functionality that St. Paul desires. There is no indication that the database produced by the FDIC makes “it more difficult or burdensome” for St. Paul to search the information. Id. Indeed, it would probably have been far more burdensome for the FDIC to produce a paper copy of each and every document in this litigation. In that case, St. Paul would need to manually review each document without the benefit of any search function whatsoever. Additionally, as explained, there is no indication that the FDIC has significantly degraded the search functionality of the database. According to the presentation at the hearing, St. Paul has the exact same search functionality as the FDIC. Just because St. Paul believes there are more efficient methods to search the information in the database does not mean that the FDIC must foot the bill for these methods. Thus, the FDIC has complied with St. Paul's request for production. It has no obligation to provide an additional copy of the database. Accordingly, St. Paul's motion to compel must be denied. For the foregoing reasons, defendant St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company's “Motion to Compel” [61] is hereby DENIED. IT IS SO ORDERED, this 24th day of May, 2012. Footnotes [1] According to the FDIC, this amount was actually several thousand dollars less than the fee the FDIC paid to the technology vendor for the database copy. [2] The Advisory Notes to Rule 34 state that: the option to produce in a reasonably useable form does not mean that a responding party is free to convert electronically stored information from the form in which it is ordinarily maintained to a different form that makes it more difficult or burdensome for the requesting party to use the information efficiently in the litigation. If the responding party ordinarily maintains the information it is producing in a way that makes it searchable by electronic means, the information should not be produced in a form that removes or significantly degrades this feature. FED. R. CIV. P. 34(b), Advisory Committee Notes, 2006 Amendments.