SiteLock LLC v. GoDaddy.com LLC

District Court, D. Arizona·Decided January 6, 2021·No. 2:19-cv-02746·Unknown

Opinion

WO

SiteLock LLC, No. CV-19-02746-PHX-DWL

Plaintiff, ORDER

v.

GoDaddy.com LLC,

Defendant. This case has been marred by a seemingly endless series of discovery disputes. (See, e.g., Docs. 32, 33, 34, 50, 70, 72, 73, 121, 124, 147, 152, 154.) In September 2020, the Court issued an order explaining that, due to the parties’ “seeming inability to agree on anything,” it needed to alter its normal discovery-dispute procedures. (Doc. 160.) The following month, the Court issued a 32-page discovery order that addressed the parties’ then-pending squabbles. (Doc. 176.) That order chastised the parties for their failure to “seek[] cooperative, productive solutions” and “reiterate[d] . . . that their bickering and game-playing must stop.” (Id. at 1-2.) Unfortunately, since the issuance of that order, the parties have not found a way to work together. Instead, they have filed thousands of pages of additional briefing regarding an array of new discovery disputes. Five more discovery-related motions—three motions to compel, a motion for a protective order, and a motion to strike—are now fully briefed and ripe for resolution. (Docs. 181, 187, 205, 220, 221.) Each is addressed below. The background of this case is described in detail in the October 2020 order. (Doc. 176.) In a nutshell, Plaintiff SiteLock LLC (“SiteLock”) and Defendant GoDaddy.com LLC (“GoDaddy”) entered into a contract (the “Reseller Agreement”) in 2013 under which GoDaddy agreed to market and sell SiteLock’s website security services to GoDaddy’s customers. In this action, which was filed in April 2019, SiteLock accuses GoDaddy of various contractual breaches, as well as Lanham Act and state-law violations, and seeks over $20 million in damages. In the case management order, the Court set forth an informal process for resolving discovery disputes. (Doc. 22.) The parties repeatedly (and sometimes prematurely) invoked that process during the early stages of the case, causing the Court to expend considerable time and resources. (Doc. 176 at 2-5.) Accordingly, in September 2020, the Court issued an order revoking the availability of the informal process and requiring the parties to present future discovery disputes as formal motions. (Doc. 160.) On October 19, 2020, the Court issued a lengthy order resolving several such motions. (Doc. 176.) On October 27, 2020, SiteLock filed the first motion now pending before the Court—a motion to compel GoDaddy to produce certain sales-related documents. (Doc. 181.) That motion became fully briefed on November 20, 2020. (Docs. 190, 215.) On November 6, 2020, SiteLock filed the second motion now pending before the Court—a motion to compel GoDaddy to produce certain documents related to the endeavor-to-promote claim. (Doc. 187.) That motion became fully briefed on December 3, 2020. (Docs. 219, 226.) On November 17, 2020, GoDaddy filed the third motion now pending before the Court—a motion to compel SiteLock to produce various other documents. (Docs. 205, 206.) That motion became fully briefed on December 11, 2020. (Docs. 225, 238.) On November 25, 2020, SiteLock filed the fourth motion now pending before the Court—a motion for a protective order. (Doc. 220.) That motion became fully briefed on December 18, 2020. (Docs. 237, 240.) On November 30, 2020, GoDaddy filed the fifth motion now pending before the Court—a motion to strike portions of one of SiteLock’s earlier reply briefs. (Doc. 221.) That motion became fully briefed on December 21, 2020. (Docs. 239, 243.)1 I. The Motions To Compel A. Legal Standard Rule 37(a)(3)(B)(iv) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that “[a] party seeking discovery may move for an order compelling an answer, designation, production, or inspection” when the non-moving party “fails to produce documents . . . as requested under Rule 34.” Rule 26(b), in turn, defines the “Scope and Limits” of discovery. Under Rule 26(b)(1), “[p]arties 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, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.”2 Under Rule 26(b)(1), “[i]nformation . . . need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.” 1 Some of the motions were accompanied by requests for oral argument, but those requests are denied because the issues are fully briefed and oral argument will not aid the Court’s decision. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 78(b); LRCiv 7.2(f). 2 The current version of Rule 26(b)(1) was enacted in 2015. An earlier version provided that the requested material had to be “relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action,” and the Ninth Circuit has recognized that the change in 2015 (under which “the ‘subject matter’ reference [was] eliminated from the rule, and the matter sought must be ‘relevant to any party’s claim or defense’”) “was intended to restrict, not broaden, the scope of discovery.” In re Williams-Sonoma, Inc., 947 F.3d 535, 539 (9th Cir. 2020). See also Fed. R. Civ. P. 26, advisory committee’s note to 2015 amendment (noting that Rule 26(b)(1) was amended in 1983 in part “to encourage judges to be more aggressive in identifying and discouraging discovery overuse,” that the “clear focus of the 1983 provisions may have been softened, although inadvertently, by [subsequent] amendments,” and that the 2015 amendment was intended in part to “restore[] the proportionality factors to their original place in defining the scope of discovery”). As for the burden of proof, “the party seeking to compel discovery has the initial burden of establishing that its request satisfies the relevancy requirements of Rule 26(b).” Doe v. Swift Transp. Co., Inc., 2015 WL 4307800, *1 (D. Ariz. 2015). “In turn, the party opposing discovery has the burden to demonstrate that discovery should not be allowed due to burden or cost and must explain and support its objections with competent evidence.” Id.

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SiteLock LLC v. GoDaddy.com LLC, (D. Ariz. 2021).

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