Martinez-Sanchez v. Anthony Vineyards, Inc.

District Court, E.D. California·Decided March 19, 2021·No. 1:19-cv-01404·Unknown

Opinion

SEBASTIANA MARTINEZ-SANCHEZ, et ) Case No.: 1:19-cv-01404-DAD-JLT al., ) Plaintiffs, ) AMENDED ORDER DENYING MOTION TO ) MODIFY SCHEDULING ORDER v. ) ) (Doc. 44) ANTHONY VINEYARDS, INC., et al., ) Defendants. ) ) )

The Court granted Plaintiffs’ first motion to modify the scheduling order on December 15, 2020. (Doc. 43.) On February 9, 2021, Plaintiffs filed a second motion to modify the scheduling order. (Doc. 44.) Defendants filed an opposition on February 19, 2021 (Doc. 46), and Plaintiffs filed a reply on March 2, 2021 (Doc. 51). For the following reasons, Plaintiffs’ motion is DENIED. I. Factual Allegations and Background The Court entered a scheduling order in this case on February 21, 2020. (Doc. 30.) On September 16, 2020, the parties submitted a stipulation to extend the non-expert discovery cutoff, which the Court denied. (Docs. 36, 37.) On November 20, 2020, Plaintiffs filed a motion to modify the schedule, and the Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion. (Docs. 38, 43.) Accordingly, the schedule was modified once before, extending the deadline to complete all non-expert discovery from November 30, 2020 to March 1, 2021. (Doc. 43.) Plaintiffs’ first motion to modify the schedule was related, in part, to Plaintiffs’ access to two electronic databases used by Defendants: Famous Software and Pet Tiger. (Trabucco Decl. at ¶ 3.) According to Plaintiffs, the parties negotiated methods by which Plaintiffs would obtain access to these databases in order to make the exchange of information streamlined and efficient. (Id.) Plaintiffs report that they sought a modification of the fact discovery cutoff because they had not been provided with access to all requested and discoverable categories of ESI, and depositions revealed documents were withheld, including: time stamps relating to class member work and timekeeping practices; records relating to the transport of product in the fields, relevant to the time that class members start and end work; crop inventory and tracking data with time stamps related to when class members may have worked without compensation; and accounts payable data relating to whether Defendants provided tools used by class members. (Id.) As described by Plaintiffs, their first motion to modify was also related to several other categories of documents responsive to discovery requests that Defendants had not produced at the time, even though representatives of Defendants had testified the documents existed, including: operating agreements between Anthony Vineyards, Inc. and Sycamore Labor, Inc. neither produced, nor disclosed, prior to their revelation in depositions of the Defendant corporations; disclosures provided to employees regarding compensation and wage rates constituting the working arrangement and offer of employment; schedules created by farm and field management personnel; class member work schedules and the time for which workers are paid, as well as worktime that is unrecorded and unpaid; written communications between directors, officers, managers and supervisors using company electronic mail accounts; text communications between directors, officers, managers and supervisors using company cell phones; and training logs and attendance sheets for training conducted of Sycamore managers and supervisors. (Trabucco Decl. at ¶ 4.) Plaintiffs report that counsel for the parties conducted a phone conference on December 29, 2020 to discuss outstanding discovery issues, including relevant and discoverable ESI whose existence had been disclosed by Defendants’ corporate designees in the November 2020 depositions, which should have been previously produced by Defendants, and that Plaintiffs asked to be part of a supplemental discovery production. (Trabucco Decl. at ¶ 5.) First was ESI relating to scans of employee badges that Plaintiffs believed were contained in Defendants’ Pet Tiger timekeeping database. (Id.) Counsel for Defendants confirmed that the access provided to Plaintiffs did not allow the review of this data, and would check on whether badge scans, and attendant time stamps, were available. (Id.) Second was ESI relating to cold-storage facility scans of grapes, which Defendants’ witness had testified also include timestamps, and which had not been produced because defense counsel claimed they did not contain time data. (Id.) Counsel for Plaintiffs noted that Anthony Vineyards, Inc.’s person most qualified testified that this data was located in the Famous inventory module, a section of Defendants’ database to which Plaintiffs had not been provided access. (Id.) According to Plaintiffs, counsel for Defendants questioned the usefulness of such data and said they would consider Plaintiffs’ request for access to it. (Id.) When a supplemental production was not made in early January 2021, Plaintiffs’ report that its counsel sent defense counsel additional correspondence on January 21, 2021 asking for an update on these categories of ESI (and other categories of non-electronic discovery). (Trabucco Decl. at ¶ 6.) Counsel for Plaintiffs also revisited the concern relating to Defendants’ Famous payroll data. (Id.) Plaintiffs’ assert that its expert was still reporting issues running reports of class data because the client used to access Defendants’ records times out regularly. (Breshears Decl. at ¶ 3.) Plaintiffs’ counsel requested that Defendants ask Famous for a backup of the data, since it was the only way to provide Plaintiffs’ expert access to the full data set. (Trabucco Decl. at ¶ 6.) Plaintiffs report that this correspondence went unanswered, and Plaintiffs’ counsel sent a follow-up message on January 24, 2021. (Trabucco Decl. at ¶ 7.) Counsel for the parties conducted a telephone conference on January 27, 2021. (Trabucco Decl. at ¶ 8.) Counsel for Plaintiffs reported that they and their expert had not been able to adequately extract data from the Famous payroll module, and asked if alternatively, a copy of the database could be exported in whole. (Id.) According to Plaintiffs, counsel for Defendants expressed doubt as to whether Defendants would be able to obtain a complete backup copy. (Id.) Plaintiffs’ counsel provided defense counsel with the name of a Famous client services representative (Gillaume Visot-Nolder) who has worked with Plaintiffs’ expert previously and could assist with exporting data. (Id.) Plaintiffs’ counsel also requested access to employee badge scans and metadata (including time stamps) contained in the Pet Tiger timekeeping database. (Trabucco Decl. at ¶ 8.) According to Plaintiffs, counsel for Defendants acknowledged that such information did exist, was contained in Pet Tiger, but had been excluded from the access provided to Plaintiffs through user-level controls set by Defendants. (Id.) Counsel for Defendants reported that only if Defendants provided administrative- level access could Plaintiffs obtain timestamps contained in payroll “audit trail” reports. (Id.) According to Plaintiffs, counsel for Defendants represented that Plaintiffs would be unable to run and download any such report. (Id.) Additionally, Plaintiffs’ counsel noted that the access provided to Plaintiffs precluded exporting data and Plaintiffs and their expert were only permitted to print reports to the Adobe PDF format, which precluded expert calculations that would be possible if formats that maintained the relational data were available (such as Microsoft Excel), where the operational functions, and links, among the data are not lost or degraded. (Trabucco Decl. at ¶ 8.) Defense counsel identified Tom Rodriguez, in charge of maintaining Defendants’ Pet Tiger system, as an individual who could address this issue. (Id.) Defense counsel also informed Plaintiffs’ counsel of a Covid-19 outbreak that had sickened a number of individuals whom Plaintiffs have sought to depose. (Id.) Finally, Plaintiffs report that counsel for Defendants confirmed, as Anthony Vineyards, Inc.’s witness at deposition had confirmed, that the

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Martinez-Sanchez v. Anthony Vineyards, Inc., (E.D. Cal. 2021).

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