Free Joint Status Report - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

Case 1:02-cv-00024-FMA

Document 93

Filed 12/07/2004

Page 1 of 4

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS ____________________________________ THE PUEBLO OF LAGUNA, ) ) ) Plaintiff, ) v. ) ) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) ) Defendant. ) ____________________________________) Electronically filed December 7, 2004 No. 02-24 L Judge Francis Allegra

JOINT STATUS REPORT ON RECORD INDEXATION AND RECORD REVIEW Plaintiff, the Pueblo of Laguna, and Defendant, the United States, (the "parties"), hereby jointly report to the Court regarding their progress on an indexation plan to be submitted to the Court and on other matters. I. INDEXATION PLAN STATUS Plaintiff has proposed to Defendant, with respect to Plaintiff's previously expressed concern about the adequacy of the BISS system that, as to future utilization of the Defendant's BISS system by Plaintiff for purposes of identifying boxes of documents for Plaintiff's review, that should Plaintiff determine, in its view, that the BISS is too inaccurate to permit Plaintiff to cost effectively but nevertheless accurately limit the boxes to be reviewed, then Plaintiff will notify Defendant in writing of such deficiencies as the Plaintiff may assert and the Defendant shall have two weeks after receipt of such written notification to examine the problems raised by Plaintiff and then the parties will meet and attempt to resolve the problems and issues thus identified. Plaintiff has further proposed that, if thereafter the parties are unable to reach an acceptable resolution, then the matter will be brought either jointly or severally to the court's attention for

Case 1:02-cv-00024-FMA

Document 93

Filed 12/07/2004

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resolution. Defendant, having just been made aware of this proposal from Plaintiff, will be examining this proposal during the course of the next several weeks and will try to reach an agreement with Plaintiff as to how to address Plaintiff's concerns about the adequacy of the BISS system. The parties will report to the Court on their collective efforts in this regard in their next status report. On October 22, 2004, Defendant provided a Draft Order Regarding Indexation, incorporating issues that the parties had discussed on October 14 and 15. On October 27, 2004, the parties participated in a conference call to discuss, among other matters, Defendant's draft order. In particular, the parties discussed a cooperative effort involving on-site review of certain of Defendant's relevant document collections to address the sufficiency of existing indices and to discuss what additional indexing, if any, would be appropriate for each collection. Plaintiff agreed to provide a draft modification of the Draft Order Regarding Indexation in order to implement this cooperative approach and expects to provide the modification to Defendant within two weeks. II. OFFICE OF TRUST RECORDS ("OTR") DOCUMENT REVIEW For the purpose of apprising the Court of events that have transpired since the November 8, 2004 telephonic status conference, on November 12, 2004, Plaintiff provided to Defendant a list of 59 boxes that Plaintiff wished to re-review for quality control purposes. In addition, on November 26, 2004, Plaintiff provided to Defendant a list of 71 boxes, which include some re-review boxes and the final boxes that Plaintiff has not reviewed from its designations in May and June, 2004. After a hiatus to allow for collection of the requested boxes, OTR agreed to make the boxes available beginning the week of December 6, 2004. The parties intend that, with the exception of a handful of boxes that present special

Case 1:02-cv-00024-FMA

Document 93

Filed 12/07/2004

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issues, the review of the May and June designations will be complete by December 17, 2004. Plaintiff is also in the process of designating for review additional boxes that were entered into the Box Information Search System ("BISS") after May 1, 2004. When that supplemental designation is complete and the location of the additional boxes is known, the parties will work together to agree on a review plan for the additional boxes. Plaintiff has expressed concern regarding the condition of some of the boxes at the OTR. At Plaintiff's request, Defendant has agreed that, during the course of Plaintiff's review, Plaintiff may photograph or videotape boxes to document the manner in which the Trust records have been maintained. If the contents of a document must be captured to record its or its box's condition, Defendant has agreed to photograph the document and review the image for privileged or confidential material before providing the image to Plaintiff. The parties have discussed Plaintiff's concerns regarding changes being made to the fields and numbering scheme of the BISS index, and will continue to work to resolve any remaining issues. III. OTHER ISSUES Finally, as the Court was advised during the telephonic conference call on November 8, 2004, the parties have agreed to carve out one significant issue in an attempt to move it up on the ADR calendar. Under the auspices of the ADR Judge, the Honorable Eric G. Bruggink, they will attempt to resolve that specific issue for a specific time period within six months of Plaintiff's receipt of the necessary underlying documents. The parties are discussing the timetable on which Defendant can provide the scanned and coded documents needed from OTR and elsewhere. Further progress on this effort will be reported to the Court as appropriate.

Case 1:02-cv-00024-FMA

Document 93

Filed 12/07/2004

Page 4 of 4

The parties shall report further to the Court on these matters of indexation and production of documents on or before February 11, 2005. Respectfully submitted this 7th day of December, 2004. s/Alan R. Taradash Alan R. Taradash Nordhaus, Haltom, Taylor, Taradash & Bladh, LLP 405 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. NE Albuquerque, NM 87102-3541 telephone: 505-243-4275 facsimile: 505-243-4464 Attorney of Record for Plaintiff Attorney of Record for Defendant Thomas J. Peckham Nordhaus, Haltom, Taylor, Taradash & Bladh, LLP 405 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Ave NE Albuquerque, NM 87102 telephone 505-243-4275 Of Counsel Donald H. Grove Nordhaus, Haltom, Taylor Taradash & Bladh, LLP Suite 801 1401 K Street NW Washington, DC 20005 telephone 202-530-1270 Of Counsel s/Robert W. Rodrigues Robert Rodrigues U.S. Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division General Litigation Section P.O. Box 663 Washington, DC 20044-0663 telephone: 202-305-0484 facsimile: 202-305-0506