Hall-O'Neil v. Amazon.com Inc

District Court, W.D. Washington·Decided December 17, 2019·No. 2:19-cv-00910·Unknown

Opinion

1 THE HONORABLE RICHARD A. JONES THE HONORABLE MICHELLE L. PETERSON 2 3 4 5 6 10 B.F. and A.A., minors, by and through their Case No.: 2:19-cv-910-RAJ-MLP guardian Joey Fields, et al. 11 STIPULATED MOTION TO MODIFY Plaintiffs, SCHEDULING ORDER REGARDING 12 CLASS CERTIFICATION DISCOVERY v. DEADLINES 13 DATE OF TELEPHONIC HEARING: 14 AMAZON.COM, INC., a Delaware Tuesday, December 17, 2019 at 3:00 P.M. corporation, and A2Z DEVELOPMENT 15 CENTER, INC., a Delaware corporation, ORAL ARGUMENT SCHEDULED

16 Defendants. 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 2 Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4) and LCR 16(b)(5), Plaintiffs and 3 Defendants Amazon.com, Inc. and a2z Development Center, Inc. (collectively, “Amazon”) 4 respectfully submit this joint motion requesting that the Court modify the Rule 16(b) and Rule 5 23(d)(2) Scheduling Order Regarding Class Certification (Dkt. No. 54) by 120 days to allow the 6 parties to complete class certification discovery and proceed with briefing on Plaintiffs’ motion 7 for class certification. The current deadline for the parties to complete discovery on class 8 certification issues is January 7, 2020, with Plaintiffs’ class certification motion to follow on 9 February 7, 2020. As the Court acknowledged at the October 17, 2019 hearing in this matter, this 10 schedule set “an aggressive timetable” for class certification discovery, and the Court invited the 11 parties, after diligent efforts, to seek relief from deadlines that proved unworkable. 12 Since that hearing, the parties believe that they have worked diligently and in good faith to 13 satisfy their respective discovery obligations. The parties have also met and conferred extensively 14 on discovery matters, among other things to narrow areas of dispute. Despite these efforts, 15 however, the current timetable for completing class certification discovery is unfeasible, and there 16 are several reasons for an extension of the deadlines concerning class certification in this case. 17 Given the complexity of the legal issues and the technology in this case, Plaintiffs’ discovery 18 requests seek extensive technical and business sensitive information concerning a core Amazon 19 service. The parties have disputes over the scope of discovery and have brought one dispute over 20 whether Plaintiffs state claims entitling them to discovery based on post-recording use and 21 disclosure of voice recordings for resolution by the Court. In addition, Plaintiffs have sought leave 22 to file a proposed second amended complaint that would add new claims under California law on 23 behalf of a California class and could affect the scope of discovery. All the disputed discovery 24 issues cannot be resolved before the January 7, 2020 class certification discovery deadline. Nor 25 can all documents be collected before disputes over scope are unresolved. Moreover, while the 26 parties have been working to schedule depositions in this matter, it is not possible to complete all 27 the necessary depositions – including of the named class representatives, their guardians, and 1 For these reasons, the parties respectfully request an extension of 120 days to all current 2 discovery and briefing deadlines concerning class certification. The parties propose that the Court 3 modify the case calendar set forth in the Rule 16(b) and Rule 23(d)(2) Scheduling Order Regarding 4 Class Certification as follows: 5 Event Current Deadline Proposed Deadline 6 7 Deadline to complete discovery on class January 7, 2020 May 6, 2020 certification 8 9 Deadline for Plaintiffs to file Motion for Class February 7, 2020 June 8, 2020 Certification 10 11 Deadline for Amazon to File Opposition to March 28, 2020 July 27, 2020 Plaintiffs’ Motion for Class Certification 12 13 Deadline for Plaintiffs to file Reply re: Plaintiffs’ April 15, 2020 August 13, 2020 Class Certification Motion 14 15 This schedule accords more closely with the circumstances that this very complicated action 16 presents. Accordingly, the parties request that the Court extend both parties’ deadlines in the 17 current scheduling order for 120 days, as proposed above. 20 On June 11, 2019, the initial complaint was filed in this action, naming Plaintiff C.O. Dkt. 21 No. 1. On July 8, 2019, counsel for Plaintiffs filed their First Amended Complaint, adding 21 22 minor plaintiffs and seven causes of action. See Dkt. No. 24 (“FAC”). On September 11, 2019, 23 the Court entered a scheduling order setting a deadline for the parties to complete discovery on 24 class certification by January 7, 2020, and for Plaintiffs to file their motion for class certification 25 by no later than February 7, 2020, with Amazon’s opposition to follow on March 28, 2020 and the 26 Plaintiffs reply due April 15, 2020. Dkt. No. 54. 27 Amazon filed a motion to compel this action to individualized arbitration and to dismiss or 1 motion, on September 23, 2019, Amazon responded to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests with 2 objections that merits discovery should be stayed and that Plaintiffs’ discovery requests were 3 premature until the Court decided Amazon’s pending Arbitration Motion. Plaintiffs responded by 4 filing a motion to compel discovery responses on October 3, 2019. Dkt. No. 70. 5 This Court issued a report and recommendation (the “Report”) denying Amazon’s motion 6 to compel arbitration on October 21, 2019. Dkt. No. 78. On October 21, 2019, the Court also 7 granted Plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery and ordered Amazon to provide substantive 8 responses to Plaintiff’s discovery requests within two weeks. It also ordered the parties to meet 9 and confer on a coordinated discovery effort that will take the similar putative class actions 10 pending in other districts into account. Dkt. No. 79. On November 4, 2019, Amazon filed its 11 objection to the Report. Dkt. No. 86. The same day, Amazon also provided substantive responses 12 to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests, together with a production totaling over 10,000 pages. The parties 13 reached agreement on how to coordinate discovery between this case and other pending matters, 14 including understandings concerning the extent to which other parties could rely upon discovery 15 received in one matter in another, and limitations on the ability of a side to seek identical discovery- 16 related relief in one proceeding after an adverse decision in another. The parties filed the ESI 17 Agreement on November 7, 2019. Dkt. No. 90. Plaintiffs filed their response to Amazon’s 18 objections to the Report on November 18, 2019. Dkt. No. 92. Judge Jones has yet to take action 19 on the Report, and Amazon’s motion to compel arbitration is thus still pending.1 20 Following Amazon’s supplemental response, the parties conferred extensively about 21 Amazon’s amended responses to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests, both over email and in telephonic 22 conferences on November 6, 2019; November 14, 2019; November 15, 2019; and November 19, 23 2019. In addition to its November 4 production, Amazon produced more than 12,000 additional 24 pages of documents on November 27, 2019. This production included confidential Amazon 25 1If the motion to compel arbitration were denied, the Federal Arbitration Act provides an appeal 26 as of right to such a decision. Amazon reserves the right to seek a stay of this action pending an appeal of the district court’s ultimate decision, and Amazon does not waive any rights to arbitration 27 by its submission of this Joint Motion or its other conduct of discovery as ordered by the Court. That said, Amazon also fully understands the Court’s order to proceed with discovery, and it is 1 documents concerning Alexa’s architecture and how it operates, all privacy policies, all Alexa 2 Terms of Use, Amazon disclosures about Alexa recordings, Alexa privacy settings, and settings 3 for Alexa kid skills.

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Hall-O'Neil v. Amazon.com Inc, (W.D. Wash. 2019).

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