Mary Katherine Arcell, et al. v. Google LLC, et al.

• Court: District Court, N.D. California
• Decided: January 28, 2026
• Docket: 3:22-cv-02499
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 MARY KATHERINE ARCELL, et al., Case No. 22-cv-02499-RFL (SK)

8 Plaintiffs, ORDER ON DISCOVERY DISPUTE 9 v. REGARDING RULE12(B)(6) DEPOSITION NOTICE 10 GOOGLE LLC, et al., 11 Defendants. Regarding Docket No. 209

12 Now before the Undersigned is the discovery dispute regarding Plaintiff’s subpoena issued 13 to non-party Apple, Inc. pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6). Apple complains 14 that Plaintiffs have issued this subpoena before taking even a single deposition of Defendant 15 Google. Apple argues and Plaintiffs agree that Plaintiffs intend to use this process of discovery 16 against Apple to renew Plaintiffs’ attempt to name Apple as a defendant in the case. Plaintiffs 17 believe that the District Court will give Plaintiffs an opportunity to reverse the District Court’s 18 rulings eliminating Apple as a defendant in this case and that the District Court invited Plaintiffs 19 to do renew that attempt. Apple also argues that Plaintiffs are seeking information that already exists and that 20 Plaintiffs have from the antitrust case, United States v. Google. As noted in previous orders, 21 Plaintiffs have access to the testimony and evidence from that case, which largely mirrors the 22 allegations in this case. 23 “In general, there is a preference for parties to obtain discovery from one another before 24 burdening non-parties with discovery requests.” Soto v. Castlerock Farming & Transp., Inc., 282 25 F.R.D. 492, 505 (E.D. Cal. 2012) (collecting cases). When the requesting party has “not shown 26 [that it] attempted to obtain documents from the [opposing party] in an action prior to seeking the 27 documents from a non-party, a subpoena duces tecum places an undue burden on a non-party.” Id. ] Further, “when an opposing party and a non-party both possess documents, the documents should 2 || be sought from the party to the case.” Soto, 282 F.R.D. at 505; see also Nidec Corp. v. Victor Co. 3 of Japan, 249 F.R.D. 575, 577 (N.D. Cal. 2007) (“There is simply no reason to burden nonparties 4 || when the documents sought are in possession of the party defendant.”) (quashing subpoena to non- 5 || party where documents requested were in possession of party); see also LegalZoom.com v. Rocket 6 || Law. Inc., 2015 WL 12832823, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 23, 2015) (denying motion to compel on 7 || same ground). The Undersigned agrees that Plaintiffs must first attempt to seek discovery from 8 Google about the issues that exist in the case — not issues that Plaintiffs hope to renew — before 9 seeking this discovery. 10 In addition, the Undersigned agrees that, given the unusual posture of this case, which follows a very similar case, Plaintiffs must explain what they need that they cannot obtain from

2D the testimony and evidence from United States v. Google. Finally, the Undersigned is skeptical E 3 that using this process of discovery to renew an attempt to re-name Apple as a defendant in this 4 case is a proper use of discovery. For these reasons, the subpoena to Apple is QUASHED. 3 15 IT IS SO ORDERED. Dated: January 28, 2026 16 tether. |e .

SALLIE KIM 18 United States Magistrate Judge 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28