Alternative Petroleum Technologies Holdings Corp v. Grimes

CourtDistrict Court, D. Nevada
DecidedMay 6, 2021
Docket3:20-cv-00040
StatusUnknown

This text of Alternative Petroleum Technologies Holdings Corp v. Grimes (Alternative Petroleum Technologies Holdings Corp v. Grimes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Nevada primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alternative Petroleum Technologies Holdings Corp v. Grimes, (D. Nev. 2021).

Opinion

1 CARL M. HEBERT, ESQ. Nevada Bar #250 2 2215 Stone View Drive Sparks, NV 89436 3 (775) 323-5556 carl@cmhebertlaw.com 4 DANIEL S. BRETZIUS, ESQ. –PRO HAC VICE 5 Dan B Law PLLC 75 South Main Street, #272 6 Concord, NH 03301 (603) 731-2507 7 dan@danblaw.com 8 Attorneys for Defendant Patrick Grimes 9 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEVADA 10 11 ALTERNATIVE PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGIES HOLDINGS, 12 CORP. andALTERNATIVE PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGIES, 13 INC., Case Number 14 Plaintiffs, 3:20-cv-00040-MMD-CLB 15 vs. Defendant’s Emergency Motion for Authorization to Issue EvidencePreservation 16 Subpoena PATRICK GRIMES, 17 Defendant. 18 _______________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ 19 DEFENDANT’S EMERGENCY MOTION 20 FORAUTHORIZATION TO ISSUE EVIDENCE PRESERVATION SUBPOENA 21 ________________________________________________________________________ Pursuant to LR 7-4, Defendant Patrick Grimes hereby moves for authorization to 22 issue an evidence preservation subpoena on PS Orange Co. Inc. d/b/a Public Storage 23 (“Public Storage”) and states as follows: 1 INTRODUCTION 2 Jack Waldron and Defendant Patrick Grimes are listed as co-inventors on five 3 United States patents. In 2019, Jack Waldron alleged to Plaintiffs that Defendant Grimes 4 was improperly listed on the five patents. In turn, Plaintiffs allege that they own the patents- 5 in-suit and commenced this action to attempt to remove Defendant Grimes from the listed 6 inventors on the five patents-in-suit. 7 BACKGROUND 8 Defendant has conducted depositions of Plaintiffs’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) witness 9 and Jack Waldron. Plaintiffs have indicated that they have done nothing to investigate the

10 allegations made by Mr. Waldron. (ECF No. 36-8, 30(b)(6) Dep., 42:25-43:4): 11 “Q. Did plaintiffs do anything to investigate the claims made by Mr. Waldron that there was improper inventorship? 12 A. Not that I’m aware of. We believe what Jack said.” 13 During Mr. Grimes’ employment, he maintained files in his office that are relevant 14 to this action, including three-ring bindersthat had relevant patent and research documents 15 in them. (ECF No. 36-16, Waldron Dep., 71:23) (“There were three-ring binders in his 16 office.”).Plaintiffs have neither attempted to locate nor produced any of Mr. Grimes’ three- 17 ring binders or office files. (ECF No. 36-8, 30(b)(6) Dep., 50:13-19): 18 “Q. Did plaintiffs make any efforts to locate the three-ring binders that Mr. Grimes is alleging to have maintained? 19 A. Jack Waldron wound up taking the office that Patrick once had. And he’s been running the company since Patrick 20 left. And I don’t know whether he found any or not.” 21 On February 23, 2021, Jack Waldron indicated that items previously located in Mr. 22 Grimes’ office, which included the three ring binders and other documentation related to 23 the five patents-in-suit, were moved to a storage unit, with their final disposition was 1 unknown. (ECF No. 36-16, Waldron Dep., 64:12-18): 2 “Q. And where were the items moved to? A. They were moved to a storage facility on Valley Road. 3 Q. Are they still there? A. No. Valley Road facility has been closed. They probably 4 ended up being disposed of somewhere around two years after [Mr. Grimes] left.” 5 On February 23, 2021, Jack Waldron additionally indicated that his personal lab 6 notebooks were “stashed in my storage in a fire-proof lockup”. (Id., 70:4-5). 7 The Storage Unit 8 Defendant has become aware that Jack Waldron rented a Storage Unit on behalf of 9 Plaintiff Alternative Petroleum Technologies Inc. until late 2020, when the rent due 10 became in arrears. (Exhibit 2, Declaration of Carl Hebert (“Hebert Dec.”) at ¶¶ 3-5). The 11 Storage Unit is owned by Public Storage and is identified as Unit #A161,located at Public 12 Storage #24535, 200 Telegraph Street, Reno, NV 89502. (Id. at ¶ 3). The Storage Unit 13 measures approximately 12 feet by 20 feet. (Id. at ¶ 4). The Storage Unit is believed to 14 contain the remainder of Plaintiffs’ three-ring binders and office files, Jack Waldron’s 15 notebooks, missing invention disclosure forms, a computer server with back-up e-mail 16 correspondence, and other evidence and documentation relevant to this action. 17 On May 4, 2021, Defendant learned that the contents of the Storage Unit have been 18 marked for destruction at any moment.(Id.at ¶ 7).Defendant also learned that: [i] therent 19 has been in arrears since at least as early as late 2020)(Id.);[ii]the contents were advertised 20 for sale on February 25, 2021 and March 25, 2021, but luckily were not sold (Id.) & 21 (Exhibit 3, Notices of Public Sale); [iii] the account related to the Storage Unit has been 22 terminated and closed (Exhibit 2, Hebert Dec. at ¶ 5); and [iv] the contents of the Storage 23 1 Unit have not been destroyed since April 5, 2021 solely due to luck that the destruction 2 company has not yet arrived to the Storage Unit. (Exhibit 2, Hebert Dec. at ¶ 7). 3 Defendant promptly sent a written preservation request to Public Storage, asking 4 Public Storage to preserve the contents of the Storage Unit.(Id.at ¶ 8) & (Exhibit 4, Written 5 Request to Public Storage).Public Storage is not a party to this litigation and does not have 6 an obligation to comply with LR 7-4(a)(3)’s meet and confer requirements. Additionally, 7 as a non-party, Public Storage is under no obligation to preserve the contents of the Storage 8 Unit without a court order. 9 Accordingly, with the understanding that emergency motions should be rare,

10 Defendant seeks an order from this Court permitting Defendant to serve a document 11 preservation subpoena (proposed as Exhibit 5) on non-party PS Orange Co. Inc. (“Public 12 Storage”), to protect critical evidence that was hidden by Plaintiffs, transferred to Public 13 Storage, and is currently marked for destruction at any moment. This subpoena, which 14 requires only the preservation of evidenceand not actual production at this time, will place 15 little to no burden on Public Storage, and may even save Public Storage the cost of 16 destruction services. Withoutleave to serve this subpoena,critical evidence will beforever 17 lost, causing obvious and severe prejudice to Defendant and preventing justice from being 18 served. 19 ARGUMENT

20 A party must preserve evidence it knows or should know is relevant to a claim or 21 defense of any party, or that may lead to the discovery of relevant evidence. United States 22 v. Kitsap Physicians Serv., 314 F.3d 995, 1001 (9th Cir. 2002). However, the same 23 obligation to preserve does not apply to non-parties. Plaintiffs violated their obligation to 1 preserve and produce the contents of the Storage Unitand are no longer permitted to access 2 the Storage Unit. The new custodian of the contents, Public Storage, is a non-party to this 3 litigation and therefore under no obligation to preserve the contents of the Storage Unit. 4 Public Storage is currently intending to destroy the contents of the Storage Unit. Without 5 a courtorder,Public Storage will destroy information relevant to this action. 6 Before a preservation order is issued, the movant must show that there is a 7 significant concern that potentially relevant evidence will be destroyed, thereby causing 8 harm to the movant. CenturyLink, Inc. v. Alpine Audio Now, LLC, 2016 WL 192291 at 9 *1 (D. Colo. Jan. 15, 2016). In this case, Public Storage has taken custody of the contents

10 of the Storage Unit since late 2020, has advertised them for sale in February and March 11 2021, and has marked the contents for destruction since April 5, 2021.

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Related

In Re Vivendi Universal, S.A., Securities Litigation
381 F. Supp. 2d 129 (S.D. New York, 2003)
United States v. Kitsap Physicians Service
314 F.3d 995 (Ninth Circuit, 2002)

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Alternative Petroleum Technologies Holdings Corp v. Grimes, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alternative-petroleum-technologies-holdings-corp-v-grimes-nvd-2021.