Blackshear v. Performance Contracting, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-02218-JRO-TAB (S.D. Ind. Oct. 27, 2026), full opinion (PDF)
A party whose text message production is incomplete and whose extraction method is undisclosed can face forensic imaging of its phone, even if concealment is never decided. A magistrate judge in the Southern District of Indiana reached that result in an employment case. The plaintiff had produced her texts in installments. She then offered a heavily redacted spreadsheet of extracted message data in place of the full conversations. She never identified who extracted the data or disclosed how. Leaving concealment undecided, the court ordered imaging on the ground that she lacked the expertise to retrieve the messages herself.
What happened
The plaintiff sued her former employer for discrimination and retaliation. The employer requested her text messages with co-workers and others about her claims. Her first installment, the court noted, was a small fraction of the messages later deemed responsive. A June supplement still left out conversations with people she had identified in her interrogatory answers. Her counsel then sent a spreadsheet that the employer had separately requested.
More than half of the spreadsheet's rows had been replaced with a non-responsive label. The plaintiff disclosed only that she or her husband obtained the spreadsheet from an unknown member of Best Buy's Geek Squad. She disclosed neither the extraction method nor the search terms counsel used to redact rows. The employer compared a screenshot from her first production with the matching spreadsheet rows. The court noted that the spreadsheet redacted relevant texts, including messages about her alleged harasser.
The court's analysis
The court noted that the spreadsheet matched neither format in the case management plan, which called for searchable PDF or native files. A spreadsheet redacted on undisclosed terms and stripped of conversational context, the court stated, is not a substitute for the text conversations themselves.
The court called a forensic search of a device an extraordinary remedy. Under the standard it applied, a movant must prove that the responding party concealed information or lacks the expertise to retrieve the relevant data. Privacy and proportionality limit any search that follows. Although it described the production history as "concerning for intentional concealment", the court left that question undecided. The court noted that the plaintiff never explained where the spreadsheet came from or how responsive texts were identified within it. The court concluded that imaging was appropriate because the incomplete and disorganized production showed that the plaintiff "lacks the expertise necessary to search and retrieve all responsive data".
The court relied on the existing protective order to address privacy. The examination will follow a protocol limited to text conversations about her claims, damages, and employment during a defined period. Given the significant damages alleged, the court concluded that the search was proportional. The employer bears the imaging cost for now. If the examination reveals intentional concealment or other significant violations, the court would entertain a request to recover that cost.
Why it matters
A party that gathers text messages from its own phone should be able to tell the court who extracted them and by what method. It should also be able to name the terms used to judge responsiveness. For a party without that explanation, gaps in the production can support an inference that it lacks the expertise to retrieve the data. Retaining a qualified forensic examiner and recording the method gives the party a defensible account.
When reviewing text messages, treat the conversation around a responsive message as the thing to be produced, within the agreed period and subject matter. Redactions that preserve keyword hits while hiding the surrounding messages remove the context the court treated as part of the production. A court may also read those hidden messages as evidence that the search terms were inadequate.
A requesting party can build an imaging motion on the production's gaps. Its record should identify people named in interrogatory answers whose conversations never arrived. Comparing messages from an earlier production with the redacted rows can show responsive content the redaction terms withheld. A protocol proposed with the motion, limited to the relevant conversations and time period, can answer privacy concerns before any objection reaches the court. The requesting party should also move as soon as the gaps appear, because the court remarked that the employer could have filed sooner.
The full opinion is available as a PDF.
