While there are fairly clear rules governing electronic discovery in federal civil cases, not all states have set out such guidance in their own rules of civil procedure. Pennsylvania has gotten closer with findings in the case of Brooks v. Fratroll.

Plaintiff bought a $37,500 classic car through a website operated by the defendant. The plaintiff alleged that the car's Vehiicle Identification NUmber (VIN) had been forged and demanded access to a broad range of electronically stored information (ESI).

Pennsylvania civil law has little guidance on cases involving electronic evidence. The Judge in the case, Common Pleas Judge Bradford H. Charles, set forth five factors to guide decisions for ESI discovery requests. His findings will likely act as precedent in future PA civil cases.

Those five factors are: 

1) The scope of the request: are the requests too broad? In this case, the court found the ESI discovery requests to be overly broad as they included all metadata, all internet queries/transmissions/website/auction sites, all deleted files and all stored files.

2) Confidentiality/privacy: are there legitimate interests in maintaining privacy? The court found that the defendant's business documents unrelated to the case and personal communications ought to be allowed to remain private.

3) History of discovery: has the producing party given an adequate response to previous discovery requests? The court found that the defendant had not been adequately responsive.

4) Costs: would the producing parties costs be inordinately expensive? The court found that that the defendant would have to hire an expert of its own.

5) The type of case involved. This case, being a fraud case, suggested that plaintiff should have access to metadata, presumably in order to allow authentication - or demonstrate falsification - of the documents and materials produced.

Given the balance of factors in favor of and against allowing discovery requested, the judge told the plaintiff to come back with a more focused request.

You can read more about  the case here.