eDiscovery Daily Blog

• May 10, 2018

In Michael E. Davis, et al. v. Electronic Arts, Inc., No. 10-cv-03328-RS, (N.D. Cal., April 3, 2018), California Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu ruled that the plaintiff’s failure to fully comply with the discovery requests by the defendant were sanctionable under FRCP Rule 37, which states, “Such sanctions may include ordering a party to pay the reasonable expenses, including attorneys’ fees, caused by its failure to comply with the order or rule.”

Case Background

Three former NFL players claimed that Electronic Arts (EA) used their likenesses in the Madden NFL videogame series without authorization. In July 2017, EA moved to compel plaintiffs to provide further responses to discovery, and the court ordered the parties to meet and confer regarding the disputes set forth in the letters and to file joint letters regarding any remaining disputes. After a hearing, the Court granted in part EA’s motions to compel further responses to requests for the production of documents (“RFPs”), interrogatories, and requests for admission (“RFA”), setting a deadline for response on September 28, 2017.

A day after the deadline, the plaintiffs responded by saying they had, “engaged in a reasonable and diligent search” but found no responsive documents to certain requests. The plaintiffs also said the requested privilege log was rendered unusable due to a computer error even though both the plaintiffs and the plaintiffs’ attorney had stated in an earlier hearing that they had regular communications via email regarding the case.

EA requested sanctions of $45,000 against the plaintiffs under Rule 37. However, the billing records EA provided to the court did not segregate the fees by task or category, which makes it difficult to evaluate the reasonableness of the time expended, or to calculate precise sums that should be allowed or disallowed. But even with the problems with EA’s billing records, it was clear that EA incurred substantial attorneys’ fees in attempting to obtain plaintiffs’ compliance and seeking court intervention.

Judge’s Ruling

Given the inconsistencies between counsel and plaintiffs’ statements about communications regarding this litigation, Judge Ryu expressed concern about the adequacy of the plaintiffs’ search for responsive documents and ordered them to “search thoroughly all . . . email, going all the way back, for communications between [Plaintiffs] and other people who are not lawyers about this case.”

Judge Ryu also ruled that the plaintiffs’ response to the defendant’s discovery request was deficient and found monetary sanctions appropriate in this case, in addition to the evidentiary sanctions, as their conduct forced EA and the court to continue to expend significant resources to address plaintiffs’ failure to meet its discovery obligations and provide basic discovery.

“A sanction of $25,000 is justified in these circumstances and acknowledges that this amount represents a significant discount from the actual attorneys’ fees incurred by EA as a result of plaintiffs’ counsel’s actions. The court finds that $25,000, coupled with the evidentiary consequences set forth above, are an appropriate sanction here.”

So, what do you think?  Was the ruling correct or were sanctions unwarranted in this case?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Case opinion link courtesy of eDiscovery Assistant.

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