Verduzco v. Con Agra Foods Packaged Foods, LLC

• Court: District Court, E.D. California
• Decided: April 25, 2024
• Docket: 1:18-cv-01681
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 ARTURO VERDUZCO, 1:18-cv-01681-TLN-CKD 12 Plaintiff, ORDER 13 v. 14 CON AGRA FOODS PACKAGED FOODS, LLC, 15 Defendants. 16

17 18 Defendant’s motion for a protective order related to plaintiff’s deposition of defendant’s 19 corporate representative is pending before this court.1 (ECF No. 133.) Defendant filed the 20 motion for a protective order on March 15, 2024, and noticed it for a hearing on April 10, 2024. 21 (ECF No. 133.) The parties filed a joint statement regarding the discovery dispute on March 27, 22 2024. (ECF No. 134.) On April 3, 2024, plaintiff filed an opposition to the motion for a 23 protective order. (ECF No. 138.) 24 For the reasons below, the court grants defendant’s motion for a protective order. 25 //// 26

27 1 On April 4, 2024, undersigned took this matter under submission on the papers. (ECF No. 139.)

28 1 I. Motion for Protective Order 2 A. Legal Standard 3 A Rule 30(b)(6) deposition requires a corporation to designate knowledgeable persons and 4 “to prepare them to fully and unevasively answer questions about the designated subject matter.” 5 Great Am. Ins. Co. of N.Y. v. Vegas Constr. Co., 251 F.R.D. 534, 539 (D. Nev. 2008). Rule 6 30(b)(6) “imposes reciprocal obligations on proponent and deponent: the proponent must specify 7 which subject matters it intends to inquire into, and the deponent must take affirmative steps to 8 learn about those topics.” Preservation Techs. LLC v. MindGeek USA, Inc., 2020 WL 10965163, 9 at *2 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 19, 2020); Memory Integrity, LLC v. Intel Corp., 308 F.R.D. 656, 660 (D. 10 Or. 2015). Because Rule 30(b)(6) places substantial responsibilities and burdens on corporate 11 designees, for the rule to function effectively, a requesting party must “designate with painstaking 12 specificity, the particular subject areas that intended to be questioned.” Preservation Techs., 2020 13 WL 10965163, at *2. 14 The court may, for good cause, issue an order to protect a party or person from annoyance, 15 embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense by, among other things, forbidding a 16 deposition or limiting its scope. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(1). Generally, courts issue a protective 17 order precluding the enforcement of the Rule 30(b)(6) notice as drafted without prejudice to issue 18 a new notice with appropriately narrowed topics. Willy v. Sherwin-Williams Co., 2022 WL 19 1553703, at *6 (D. Or. May 17, 2022). 20 B. Discussion 21 The deposition notice at issue contains twenty-one topics. (ECF No. 136-1.) The first 22 topic seeks “Any and All facts supporting CONAGRA’s defenses to plaintiff’s claims.” (ECF No. 23 136-1 at 9.) Each of the following proposed topics also begin with the open-ended phrase “Any 24 and All.” (Id.) Courts have found that similar requests seeking “all” facts regarding defenses to 25 be unduly burdensome as they seek information regarding “nearly every conceivable facet” of 26 litigation and “make witness preparation a nearly impossible task.” United States v. HVI Cat 27 Canyon, Inc., 2016 WL 11683593, at *10 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 26, 2016) (noting that comprehensive 28 requests beginning with “all” increase the degree of difficulty required to prepare a witness to 1 testify and much time would be “wasted in light of the limited number of hours” allowed for the 2 deposition.”); Preservation Techs., 2020 WL 10965163, at 5 (“A deposition topic lacking all 3 metes and bounds is facially overbroad and unduly burdensome.”). 2 4 In analyzing the excessiveness of Rule 30(b)(6) topics, courts do not generally engage in 5 an item-by-item analysis to allow particular topics and rule out others. Reno v. W. Cab Co., 6 2020 WL 5902318, at *3, n. 3 (D. Nev. Aug. 31, 2020), citing F.D.I.C. v. Wachovia Ins. Servs., 7 Inc., 2007 WL 2460685, at *5 (D. Conn. Aug. 27, 2007). Instead, courts generally issue a 8 protective order precluding enforcement of the notice as currently drafted without prejudice to the 9 issuance of a new notice with appropriately narrowed topics. Id., citing Apple Inc. v. Samsung 10 Elecs. Co., 2012 WL 1511901, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 27, 2012). Accordingly, the court finds that 11 the operative deposition notice, as currently drafted, is excessive and improper and should be 12 redrafted in accordance with this order. Plaintiff is ordered to redraft the current notice to comply 13 with this order and to serve the amended notice on defendant. If defendant still objects to certain 14 topics, the parties are required to meet and confer—in good faith—to resolve any outstanding 15 objections and issues with the amended notice prior to filing any additional notices of discovery 16 disputes. 17 II. Sanctions 18 Each party has requested sanctions. (ECF No. 134 at 27, citing Rule 37(a); ECF No. 138 19 at 2.) Reasonable costs and attorney’s fees should be imposed unless the court finds (1) the 20 motion was filed without a good faith effort to obtain the discovery without court intervention, (2) 21 the objection was substantially justified, or (3) other circumstances make an award of expenses 22 unjust. Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(4)(A). The court finds the parties’ respective positions were 23

24 2 Plaintiff has not, in either the joint statement or in opposition, attempted to respond to the substantive arguments in support of the pending motion. (ECF No. 138.) Instead, plaintiff’s 25 arguments concern defendant’s alleged failure to meet written discovery obligations, which are not the subject of the instant motion. (e.g., id. at 4, “Defendant Conagra and its attorneys failed to 26 meet its burden of a particularized showing of good cause with respect to any individual 27 document that defendant Conagra failed to produce;) (id. at 5, “there is no secrecy from the public at large when plaintiff Arturo Verduzco is seeking documents pertaining to his own employment 28 at defendant Conagra.”) 1 || substantially justified and that no sanctions are required.* 2 TI. Conclusion 3 Accordingly, defendant’s motion for a protective order is granted without prejudice to 4 || issuance of a third-amended notice of deposition. The parties’ requests for sanctions are denied. 5 || SO ORDERED. 6 | Dated: April 24, 2024 □□ id aed aay _ AA i [+ L . 4 \ } 7 CAROLYN K DELANEY? 8 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 9 10 11 || 2t.verd.1681 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 %6 > Plaintiff's filing of a “opposition,” as opposed to meaningful participation in the joint statement requirement, is procedurally improper. See L.R. 251. The parties are responsible for 27 || familiarizing themselves with the local rules regarding discovery disputes. Future failures to comply with the local rules will be met with sanctions. 28