Production of Defendants’ Organizational Chart is Ordered
Untimely Privilege Objections Waived; However, Dissolved Entity Had No Privilege
August 3, 2025Certiorari Petition to U.S. Supreme Court in 4th Circuit Geofence Decision
August 4, 2025Plaintiff’s motion to compel production of defendants’ organizational chart was granted in a putative class action for alleged unpaid overtime. Castillo v. Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Inc., 2025 WL 1789827 (S.D.N.Y. Jun. 30, 2025).
The court wrote that:
Plaintiff moves to compel responses to its Requests for Production (“RFPs”) Nos. 11–12 seeking a “complete list of potential custodians,” or individuals responsible for establishing the rate and basis for the putative collective and class members’ pay, and organizational charts depicting such…. Plaintiff represents that defendants merely directed plaintiff to defendants’ website, which lists certain individuals employed by defendants…. Defendants also allegedly provided a list of potential custodians that was incomplete in that it included only Castillo and his immediate supervisor.
The Castillo court wrote that it “finds that the information plaintiff seeks is plainly relevant and discoverable…. And merely referring plaintiff to its current website is not an acceptable solution, for a host of reasons, including that the website may reflect extraneous and irrelevant information, and because the information on it may not adequately capture the information sought for the period of Castillo’s alleged employment.”
As such defendants were ordered to produce an organizational chart for the department and program at issue. Id. at *3.
Depending on the facts, organizational charts, like data maps, may be useful tools in discovery planning. The ESI Principles of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland (Apx. 1) suggest the following topic for an ESI discussion: “Is an organizational chart encompassing the potentially responsive custodians available?” Principle 1.02 states that: “The parties may also consider exchanging organizational charts for key custodians of ESI….”
The Castillo court also ordered defendants to respond to plaintiff’s proposed ESI Protocol, produce a “hit report” after agreeing on custodians, and compelled a response to an interrogatory that required defendants to identify people who used systems that tracked employee time.
