Andrew D. Zaron v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.

• Court: District Court, D. Nevada
• Decided: February 4, 2022
• Docket: 2:20-cv-00858
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

10 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

11 DISTRICT OF NEVADA

12 * * *

13 Mauricio Jasso, et al., Case No. 2:20-cv-00858-RFB-BNW

14 Plaintiffs, Order re ECF No. 132 15 v.

16 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., et al.,

17 Defendants.

18 19 Before the Court is Plaintiffs’ motion to compel. ECF 132. Defendants opposed at ECF 20 No. 160, and Plaintiffs replied at ECF No. 168. 21 On December 21, 2022, this Court initially entered an oral order granting Plaintiffs’ 22 request to compel Wells Fargo to produce the Exit Customer Relationship Policy. At that time, 23 this Court understood the policy would list the specific types of suspicious activities that would 24 trigger the exit of a particular account (e.g., deposits/withdrawals over a certain amount, transfers 25 to certain countries, etc.). After this Court pronounced the order, Wells Fargo brought to the 26 Court’s attention that the policy did not contain that information. This Court asked Wells Fargo to 27 produce the policy for in-camera review and withdrew the oral order to review the contents of the 1 I. Applicable Law 2 Discovery is broad. Jackson v. Montgomery Ward & Co., 173 F.R.D. 524, 528 (D. Nev. 3 1997). Parties may obtain discovery on any nonprivileged matter (a) relevant to any party's claim 4 or defense and (b) proportional to the needs of the case. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 5 When a party fails to provide requested discovery, the requesting party may move for an 6 order compelling discovery. Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(1). When the discovery sought appears relevant 7 on its face, the party resisting discovery bears the burden of establishing the lack of relevance. 8 Krause v. Nevada Mutual Insurance Company, 2014 WL 496936, at *3 (D. Nev. Feb. 6, 2014). 9 Conversely, if the relevance of the discovery sought is not apparent, then the party seeking 10 discovery bears the burden of establishing the relevance of the request. Id. Once the relevance 11 hurdle is cleared, the party seeking to avoid discovery bears the burden of explaining why 12 discovery should be denied. U.S. EEOC v. Caesars Entertainment, 237 F.R.D. 428, 432 (D. Nev. 13 2006). 14 The Court has broad discretion to permit or deny discovery, and its decision will not be 15 disturbed “except upon the clearest showing” that the denial “results in actual and substantial 16 prejudice to the complaining litigant.” Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 751 (9th Cir. 2002). 17 II. Analysis 18 In previous orders, this Court limited discovery to policies that were “applicable to 19 Maza’s accounts.” The Court has now had the ability to review the content of the policies.1 After 20 having reviewed the policy in question, the Court still finds the policy is applicable to Maza’s 21 account. While the policy does not provide any level of detail regarding the specific transactions 22 that would trigger an exit, it lists categories of activities that might require an account to be 23 exited. In addition, the policy includes language acknowledging there are circumstances in which 24 accounts can be subject to immediate closure. Thus, the policy is relevant to “the types of 25 suspicious activities that would trigger the account’s closure[;]” and whether “the BSA Exit 26 Policy should have applied to Maza’s accounts[.]” See ECF No. 168 at 3, 5 (emphasis in

27 1 Wells Fargo produced five versions of the same policy as updated on the following dates: January 22, 2014; April 1 |} original). In short, the policy could provide information as to whether Wells Fargo ignored red 2 || flags which, in turn, could serve as circumstantial evidence of knowledge. 3 || IN. Conclusion and Order 4 IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that ECF No. 132 is GRANTED. Wells Fargo shall 5 || make the policies available to Plaintiffs within 10 days of this Order. 6 7 DATED: February 4, 2022. 8 gum le WER BRENDA WEKSLER 9 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28