Mississippi Adopts Special Electronic Discovery Rule

The Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure generally track the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. However, on May 29, 2003, Rule 26(b)(5) was added specifically to authorize and regulate discovery of electronic data. Recognizing that special problems may exist in the retrieval of such data, the rule limits the duty of production of electronic data to that which is reasonably available to the responding party in its ordinary course of business. Further, if extraordinary steps are required to comply with the request, the court may require the requesting party to pay the expense of those steps.