Kimera Labs Inc v. Jayashankar

District Court, S.D. California·Decided August 13, 2024·No. 3:21-cv-02137·Unknown

Opinion

KIMERA LABS INC, Case No.: 21-cv-2137-MMA-DDL

Plaintiff, ORDER ON JOINT MOTION FOR v. DETERMINATION OF DISCOVERY DISPUTE RE PLAINTIFF’S RULE EXOCEL BIO INC., et al., 30(b)(6) DEPOSITION OF Defendants. DEFENDANT EXOCEL BIO

[Dkt. No. 300]

I. Plaintiff has noticed the deposition of defendant Exocel Bio pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6). The deposition notice contains 85 topics, and Exocel Bio objects to certain of those topics. The parties’ Joint Motion contains their respective positions regarding the disputed topics. The Court held a motion hearing on August 12, 2024. / / / / / / II. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permit a broad scope of discovery: “Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case . . . .” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). “Information within this scope of discovery need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.” Id. “Evidence is relevant if: (a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and (b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.” Fed. R. Evid. 401. “When it comes to proportionality, courts consider six factors, including the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Adamson v. Pierce Cnty., No. 3:21-CV-05592-TMC, 2023 WL 7280742, at *3 (W.D. Wash. Nov. 3, 2023). Rule 30(b)(6) “requires an organization subject to proper notice to produce a witness who can answer questions about the subject matter in the deposition notice.” Guinnane v. Dobbins, 479 F. Supp. 3d 989, 994 (D. Mont. 2020). “A 30(b)(6) witness testifies as a representative of the entity, his answers bind the entity and he is responsible for providing all the relevant information known or reasonably available to the entity.” SF 2402 LLC v. B.F.B., Inc., No. 21-CV-906-GPC-DDL, 2023 WL 116338, at *1 (S.D. Cal. Jan. 5, 2023) (citation omitted). Rule 30(b)(6) “imposes reciprocal obligations on proponent and deponent: the proponent must specify which subject matters it intends to inquire into, and the deponent must take affirmative steps to learn about those topics.” Preservation Techs. LLC v. MindGeek USA, Inc., No. 2:17-cv-08906-DOC-JPR, 2020 WL 10965163, at *2 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 19, 2020). The party noticing the deposition must describe “with reasonable particularity” the matters upon which the organization will be asked to testify. Fed.R.Civ.P. 30(b)(6). For Rule 30(b)(6) to “effectively function, the requesting party must take care to designate, with painstaking specificity, the particular subject areas that are intended to be questioned, and that are relevant to the issues in dispute.” Memory Integrity, LLC v. Intel Corp., 308 F.R.D. 656, 661 (D. Or. 2015) (emphasis in original) (citation omitted). “While a corporation must make a good faith effort to prepare a Rule 30(b)(6) witness to fully and unevasively answer questions about the designated subject matter . . . that task becomes less realistic and increasingly impossible as the number and breadth of noticed subject areas expand.” Pongsai v. American Express Co., 2020 WL 5356711, at *2 (C.D. Cal. June 29, 2020) (citation omitted). “Rule 30(b)(6) does not permit burdening the responding party with production and preparation of a witness on every facet of the litigation.” Id. Similarly, “[d]eponents under Rule 30(b)(6) must be prepared and knowledgeable, but they need not be subjected to a memory contest.” The Icon At Panorama, LLC v. Sw. Reg’l Council of Carpenters, No. 2:19-CV-00181 CBM (MRWX), 2024 WL 2208100, at *4 (C.D. Cal. May 7, 2024) (citation omitted). The attached chart includes the parties’ chart submitted with their Joint Motion with an additional column indicating whether the Court overrules or sustains Exocel Bio’s objections to the disputed topics. Three points warrant clarification: First, as reflected in the chart, the Court construes the topics as modified to include language added as a result of the parties’ meet and confer efforts. Second, the deposition testimony shall be limited to information known to Exocel Bio at the time of its formation and thereafter. Third, the overruling of Exocel Bio’s objections to certain topics does not thereby authorize Plaintiff to ask any conceivable question on those topics. For example, Topic No. 2 is “[t]he preliminary research Exocel performed before it created its Process for manufacturing exosomes and during the period Exocel initially created its Process for manufacturing exosomes regarding advanced therapies for cosmetic issues, including the publications referenced and dates the research was performed.” Inquiry into research performed by Exocel Bio regarding the manufacture of exosomes generally is permissible. However, to the extent Plaintiff seeks testimony regarding every publication referenced by Exocel Bio and each date that Exocel Bio performed research, that would seek irrelevant information and raises concerns of overbreadth and proportionality. The same concerns exist with respect to other topics (e.g., Topic Nos. 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23 and 25), and this Order does not preclude Exocel Bio from interposing appropriate objections to questions on these topics that seek information beyond what a reasonably prepared designee should be expected to know. With the foregoing in mind, the Court rules on the disputed topics as follows: Plaintiff’s Rule 30(b)(6) Topic Court’s Ruling

1. The initial intended therapeutic or clinical No objection. purposes of Exovex. 2. The preliminary research Exocel performed Overruled as to the general topic of before it created its Process for manufacturing research performed by Exocel Bio exosomes and during the period Exocel regarding the manufacture of initially created its Process for manufacturing exosomes. exosomes regarding advanced therapies for cosmetic issues, including the publications referenced and dates the research was performed. 3. All exosome related product lines Exocel No objection. considered before choosing to manufacture Exovex.

4. The research Exocel performed before it Overruled as to the general topic of created its Process for manufacturing research performed by Exocel Bio exosomes and during the period Exocel regarding the manufacture of initially created its Process for manufacturing exosomes. exosomes regarding which specialized exosome to produce, and which brand of exosome would be effective for the intended use, including the publications referenced and the Bates’ numbers of each. 5. The inspirations, deliberations, Overruled as to the general topic of considerations, research, and experiments that why Exocel Bio decided to start a caused Exocel to champion, or otherwise business “concerning therapies for Plaintiff’s Rule 30(b)(6) Topic Court’s Ruling

endeavor to start, a business concerning cosmetic issues.” therapies for cosmetic issues.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Kimera Labs Inc v. Jayashankar, (S.D. Cal. 2024).

Kimera Labs Inc v. Jayashankar (Kimera Labs Inc v. Jayashankar) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Memory Integrity, LLC v. Intel Corp.
308 F.R.D. 656 (D. Oregon, 2015)