Calderon v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc.

287 F.R.D. 629, 83 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1257, 2012 WL 5377799, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157935
CourtDistrict Court, D. Idaho
DecidedOctober 31, 2012
DocketNo. 1:11-cv-00386-EJL-MHW
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 287 F.R.D. 629 (Calderon v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Idaho primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Calderon v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc., 287 F.R.D. 629, 83 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1257, 2012 WL 5377799, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157935 (D. Idaho 2012).

Opinion

ORDER ON PLAINTIFF’S SECOND MOTION TO COMPEL

MIKEL H. WILLIAMS, United States Magistrate Judge.

Pending before the Court is Plaintiffs Second Motion to Compel and Motion for Rule 37 Sanctions. (Dkt. 34). Having reviewed the parties’ submissions on this matte» (Dkts. 34, 34-1, 40, 40-1 though 40-5, and 42), and having entertained oral argument on October 3, 2012, the Court hereby enters the following Order.

BACKGROUND

This is a case in which Plaintiff, Jose Luis Calderon, seeks recovery against Experian Information Solutions ínc. (hereafter “Expe-rian”) for violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. This is the second time in several months that the case has come before the Court on discovery mat[631]*631ters. The Court will therefore not engage in an extensive discussion of the facts giving rise to this case, which are set forth generally in the Court’s previous Order on Plaintiffs first Motion to Compel (Dkt. 25), but will turn immediately to the matters at hand.

DISCUSSION

A. Depositions of Witnesses in Chile

The parties’ most significant area of disagreement, and the one which will have the greatest impact on the timely progression of discovery in this ease, concerns the process by which certain witnesses who are located in Chile can be deposed. Plaintiffs counsel wishes to take the depositions of several individuals who worked on Plaintiffs file and who, beginning in 2008, processed several of the numerous requests that he made to Ex-perian to have incorrect information removed from his credit report. The individuals who processed Plaintiffs requests are known as “dispute agents,” and all, or most of them, were employees of Experian Services Chile, S.A. (“Experian Chile” or “the Chilean entity”), which is located in Santiago, Chile and is the Defendant’s sister corporation. Though some of these individuals have apparently left Experian Chile in the intervening years, Plaintiffs counsel wishes to depose three of its current employees. Experian contends that the only way to go about deposing these individuals is by means of the “letters rogatory” process, which would essentially require Plaintiff to file a new lawsuit in Chile, hire a Chilean attorney, and take evidence according to the customs and practices of Chilean courts. This would mean, among other things, that a Chilean judicial officer, rather than Plaintiffs attorneys, would conduct the examination of the witnesses. Plaintiffs have estimated that if they are forced to go through this process, it would consume over a year.

Experian’s argument as to why these depositions must proceed according to Chilean law rather than the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure has several components to it. First, Experian contends that the dispute agents in question are not “directors, officers or managing agents” of Experian such that they would be subject to deposition via notice, as opposed to subpoena. Next, Experi-an contends that although a subpoena would be available to secure the deposition testimony of witnesses who are not “officers, directors, or managing agents,” if they were located in the United States, such is not possible in this case because federal courts have no power to issue subpoenas in Chile to Chilean nationals. For the Court to do so, Experian contends, would be to impermissi-bly tread on Chilean law and Chilean sovereignty. A final component to Experian’s argument emphasizes that the Chilean entity is a separate corporate entity that has not been named as a defendant in this lawsuit.

It is, of course, black letter law that only a party to a lawsuit may be deposed pursuant to notice as opposed to subpoena. Pursuant to Rule 30 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a party may request the deposition of another party to the litigation by serving a notice of deposition upon that party. Sugarhill Records Ltd. v. Motown Record Corp., 105 F.R.D. 166, 169 (S.D.N.Y. 1985). If the party to be deposed is a corporation, the party seeking discovery may either designate an appropriate individual or describe the subject matter to be covered in the proposed deposition and allow the corporate deponent to designate its own spokesperson under Rule 30(b)(6). Id. However, if the party seeking discovery chooses to designate a particular witness, the person so designated must be an “officer, director, or managing agent” of the corporation. Id. If the person is not an “officer, director, or managing agent” of the corporation, the party seeking the discovery must proceed as though the person is an ordinary non-party witness and obtain a subpoena to secure the attendance of the deponent.

These same rules apply to witnesses located overseas. If the witness sought to be deposed is not an officer, director, or managing agent of a corporate opponent, “the procedures of the Hague Convention or other applicable treaty must be utilized.” Stone v. Morton Int’l., 170 F.R.D. 498, 503 (S.D.Utah 1997). See also, In re Honda Motor Co., Inc. Dealership Relations Litigation, 168 F.R.D. 535 (D.Md.1996); EEOC v. Honda of Amer[632]*632ica Mfg., Inc., 2007 WL 682088 (S.D.Ohio 2007). Since there is no argument in this case that the individual dispute agents are officers or directors of Experian, the resolution of this dispute turns on whether they qualify as “managing agents” for purposes of this litigation.

Though the phrase “managing agent” appears at several points in the rules pertaining to discovery, the framework for determining whether a particular individual qualifies for such status is “primarily a construction of decisional law concerned with ensuring that an organization is deposed through its proper representatives concerning the matters at issue in the litigation.” E.I. DuPont de Nem-ours & Company v. Kolon Industries, 268 F.R.D. 45, 48 (2010).1 The Ninth Circuit has not, apparently, had occasion to address the standards under which a corporate employee will be determined to be a “managing agent.” However, courts around the country take largely consistent approaches, and consider the following factors: “(l)whether the individual is invested with general powers allowing him to exercise judgment and discretion in corporate matters; (2) whether the individual can be relied upon to give testimony, at his employer’s request, in response to the demand of the examining party; (3) whether any person or persons are employed by the corporate employer in positions of higher authority than the individual designated in the area regarding which information is sought by the examination; (4) the general responsibilities of the individual respecting the matters involved in the litigation. Sug-arhill Records, 105 F.R.D. at 170 (emphasis in original). See also, Kolon Industries, 268 F.R.D. at 48-49 (discussing similar factors); Founding Church of Scientology of Washington, D.C., Inc. v. Webster, 802 F.2d 1448, 1452, n. 4 (D.C.Cir.1986) (stating similar factors); United States v. Afram Lines, 159 F.R.D.

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287 F.R.D. 629, 83 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1257, 2012 WL 5377799, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157935, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/calderon-v-experian-information-solutions-inc-idd-2012.