JAMES BOYD, Plaintiff, v. LAZER SPOT, INC., Defendant No. 19 C 8173 United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division Filed: April 13, 2022 Counsel James B. Zouras, Anna Ceragioli, Haley Renee Jenkins, Ryan F. Stephan, Stephan Zouras, LLP, Chicago, IL, Megan Shannon, Fegan Scott LLC, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff. Eric L. Samore, John C. Ochoa, Kathryn Victoria Long, Michael Matthew Chang, SmithAmundsen LLC, Chicago, IL, for Defendant. Valdez, Maria, United States Magistrate Judge ORDER *1 This matter is before the Court on Defendant's Motion for Clarification of Order, or in the Alternative, for an Extension of Time [Doc. No. 68]. For the reasons that follow, Defendant's motion is granted in part and denied in part. DISCUSSION On March 30, 2022, this Court granted Plaintiff's motion to compel and ordered Defendant to provide long-overdue discovery responses no later than April 6, 2022. Defendant now moves to clarify whether the Court's March 30 order required the production of documents identified through email searches. According to Defendant, it is unclear whether the order included ESI because Plaintiff's requests for production did not include any search terms or custodians for email, and the parties did not discuss any ESI terms during their meet and confer sessions. Defendant is correct that the requests for production did not include search terms, but they did request ESI, and thus the order to respond to outstanding discovery requests also included ESI.[1] If the search for responsive ESI was burdensome, it was incumbent upon Defendant to work with Plaintiff to refine the requests through agreed search terms and/or email custodians in a timely manner. As described in the March 30 order, Defendant's actions during discovery have been anything but timely. Indeed, the Court is disappointed but not surprised that the present motion was not filed until April 12, 2022, nearly two weeks after Defendant was ordered to produce documents and nearly one week after the deadline to do so. Any confusion about whether Plaintiff's motion to compel included ESI, or arguments related to the burden of searching for and producing ESI, could and should have been addressed during the briefing on that motion. Defendant claims that it “has been working around the clock on this phase since the Court's order.” (Def.’s Mot. at 2) (emphasis added). This admission, the belated filing of the present motion, and Defendant's demonstrated lack of diligence throughout discovery, collectively lead to the reasonable inference that Defendant did not even begin the process of searching for ESI until well after being compelled to answer outstanding discovery responses. Defendant's motion asks in the alternative for an extension of time to April 22, 2022 to produce ESI. Defendant claims there is good cause to extend the deadline because it has been diligently working since March 30, and there will be no prejudice from the delay because the fact discovery deadline is not until July 26, 2022. Defendant's request to extend the deadline is granted, but because of its unexcused failure to comply with the March 30 order, Defendant is ordered to pay Plaintiff's reasonable fees and expenses in connection with his motion to compel [Doc. No. 54], pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37. Defendant is cautioned further that if it fails to fully comply with its discovery obligations by April 22 – a date of its own choosing – additional monetary or evidentiary sanctions will be awarded or recommended. CONCLUSION *2 For the foregoing reasons, Defendant's Motion for Clarification of Order, or in the Alternative, for an Extension of Time [Doc. No. 68] is granted in part and denied in part. Defendant is ordered to fully comply with outstanding discovery requests by April 22, 2022. Plaintiff's petition for fees incurred in its motion to compel is due by May 6, 2022. SO ORDERED. ENTERED: Footnotes [1] Paragraph 7 of the Definition section defines “Document” or “Documents” as “including ESI”; and the first Request for Production expressly and redundantly asks for “All Documents and ESI referenced or relied upon in responding to Plaintiff's First Set of Interrogatories to Defendant.” (Def.’s Mot., Ex. A at 2-3, 9.)