Vance v. Google LLC

Opinion

1 2 3 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 4 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 5 SAN JOSE DIVISION 6 7 STEVEN VANCE, et al., Case No. 20-cv-04696-BLF

8 Plaintiffs, ORDER EXTENDING STAY 9 v. [Re: ECF No. 69] 10 GOOGLE LLC, 11 Defendant.

12 13 On August 15, 2022, the parties submitted a joint status report in which Defendant Google 14 LLC (“Google”) requested that the Court extend the stay in this case pending resolution of an action 15 in the Northern District of Illinois. See Joint Status Report, ECF No. 69. Plaintiffs contest various 16 issues underlying Google’s request and the Court’s prior stay orders, although Plaintiffs take no 17 position on whether the Court should extend the stay. See id. at 6–7. Based on the below reasoning, 18 the Court hereby EXTENDS the stay through February 27, 2023. 19 The above-captioned case is a privacy class action under the Illinois Biometric Information 20 Privacy Act (“BIPA”) based on Google’s alleged receipt of the “Diversity in Faces” dataset from 21 International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”). Plaintiffs first sued IBM in the Northern 22 District of Illinois on January 24, 2020. See Vance v. Int’l Bus. Machines Corp., No. 1:20–cv–00577 23 (N.D. Ill.) (the “IBM Action”). On July 14, 2020, Plaintiffs filed the above-captioned action and 24 actions against Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”) and Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”) in the 25 Western District of Washington and against FaceFirst, Inc. (“FaceFirst”) in the Central District of 26 California. See Vance v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 2:20–cv–1084 (W.D. Wash.) (“Amazon Case”); 27 Vance v. Microsoft Corp., No. 2:20–cv–1082 (W.D. Wash.) (“Microsoft Case”); Vance v. FaceFirst, 1 On February 21, 2021, the Court stayed the above-captioned case pending the IBM Action, 2 since the above-captioned case “shares significant factual and legal questions with the IBM action” 3 and the harm to Plaintiffs from a stay was not significant enough to outweigh other factors. See 4 Order, ECF No. 66. Further, the Court credited Plaintiffs’ concerns regarding an indefinite stay, so 5 it limited the stay to a year. See id. at 8. On February 14, 2022, the Court extended the stay an 6 additional six months, finding that it was appropriate to allow the parties to the IBM Action to 7 “complete discovery and provide them a meaningful amount of time to resolve some of the issues 8 that overlap with this case,” particularly given that Plaintiffs “failed to point to any damage from an 9 extended stay other than a further delay in the case.” See Order, ECF No. 68. 10 Per the Court’s February 14, 2022 order, the parties filed a joint status report on 11 August 15, 2022. The parties informed the Court that fact discovery is ongoing in the IBM Action. 12 See Joint Status Report, ECF No. 69 at 3. In the Amazon and Microsoft Actions, no stay was 13 requested, so the cases have proceeded and summary judgment motions have been fully briefed. 14 See id. at 4. In the FaceFirst Action, the court recently extended the stay an additional six months. 15 See id. at 3. The parties also included briefing in the joint status report regarding whether the Court 16 should extend the stay in the above-captioned action given the pendency of the IBM Action. See id. 17 at 4–7. 18 District courts have the “discretionary power to stay proceedings.” Lockyer v. Mirant Corp.., 19 398 F.3d 1098, 1109 (9th Cir. 2005) (citing Landis v. N. Amer. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254 (1936)). In 20 determining whether to grant or extend a stay, “the competing interests which will be affected by 21 the granting or refusal to stay must be weighed.” CMAX, Inc. v. Hall, 300 F.2d 265, 268 (9th Cir. 22 1962) (citing Landis, 299 U.S. at 254–55). “Among these competing interests are [1] the possible 23 damage which may result from the granting of the stay, [2] the hardship or inequity which a party 24 must suffer in being required to go forward, and [3] the orderly course of justice measured in terms 25 of the simplifying or complicating the issues, proof, and questions of law which could be expected 26 to result from the stay.” Id. (“Landis factors”). 27 In support of extending the stay in this case, Google argues that Plaintiffs will not be 1 and Google has agreed to take reasonable steps to preserve any relevant evidence in its possession. 2 See id. at 4. Google further argues that a lift of the stay could bring about duplication of effort and 3 inconsistent rulings among the various cases brought by Plaintiffs. See id. at 4–5. In response, 4 Plaintiffs do not take a position on whether the Court should extend the stay in this case. See id. 5 at 7. However, Plaintiffs do dispute Google’s contentions in support of extending the stay. See id. 6 at 5–6. Plaintiffs argue that since discovery is ongoing in the IBM Action and no discovery schedule 7 has been set, any extended stay is likely to be open-ended. See id. at 6. Further, Plaintiffs argue 8 that overlap between the above-captioned cases and any of Plaintiffs’ other pending cases is minimal 9 due to factual issues specific to each case. See id. at 67. Additionally, Plaintiffs argue that Google 10 is prejudicing itself and Plaintiffs, because once any stay ends, “Google and Plaintiffs will be in the 11 difficult position later of either dragging third-parties through discovery again or else adopting 12 production and testimony from discovery in other cases in which Google chose not to participate.” 13 See id. at 6. 14 The Court agrees with Google. As the Court outlined in its prior orders, Google has 15 adequately shown that the second and third Landis factors support staying this case pending the IBM 16 Action. See ECF Nos. 66, 68. While there are of course factual differences between Plaintiffs’ 17 various cases since they involve different parties, the Court has already found that there is overlap 18 in the facts and law at issue that are likely to create redundancies or discrepancies if the above- 19 captioned case proceeds in parallel with the IBM Action. See id. Plaintiffs fail to provide sufficient 20 detail of the factual differences between their various cases to indicate that the Court should 21 reconsider its prior finding regarding case overlap. 22 Further, under the first Landis factor, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have again failed to show 23 anything more than minimal prejudice from an extended stay. Plaintiffs now point to the fact that 24 the parties may have to redo discovery in the above-captioned case if it is stayed or else fight about 25 whether to import discovery from Plaintiffs’ other cases. See Joint Status Report, ECF No. 69 at 6. 26 Plaintiffs contend that discovery could be coordinated between this case and Plaintiffs’ other cases 27 if this case were not stayed. See id. The time savings of coordinated discovery pointed to by 1 factual and legal issues are repeatedly litigated across Plaintiffs’ cases. See ECF Nos. 66, 68. 2 || Accordingly, Plaintiffs have failed to show that prejudice from a stay outweighs the other Landis 3 factors, which support extending the stay. 4 Based on the above reasoning, the Court hereby EXTENDS the stay until February 27, 2023. 5 || The parties SHALL submit a joint status report to the Court within 14 days of the resolution of the 6 IBM Action or on February 27, 2023, whichever comes first. The final pretrial conference and trial 7 dates (ECF No. 52) are VACATED. The case schedule will be reset upon lifting the stay. 8 IT IS SO ORDERED. 9 10 || Dated: August 25, 2022 kom Lh ham ty) 11 BETH LABSON FREEMAN %L United States District Judge

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