Rumble, Inc. v. Google LLC

Background

Google served Rumble with fourteen contention interrogatories, numbered 6 through 19. A contention interrogatory asks a party to state the facts and positions supporting its claims. Google said Rumble had provided a substantive answer to only one interrogatory and had objected completely to the others. Rumble later gave supplemental answers to Interrogatory No. 6, while its answers to Nos. 7 through 19 generally referred back to its response to No. 6.

Google asked the court to compel Rumble to provide complete answers to Interrogatories Nos. 6–17 and 19. Rumble primarily argued that the interrogatories were premature because they sought expert opinions during fact discovery. The court noted that the parties agreed such interrogatories are improper during fact discovery when they call for expert opinions, but may seek facts rather than an expert’s interpretation of those facts. By the time of the hearing, fact discovery had closed and the parties had exchanged opening expert reports.

Interrogatory No. 6

Interrogatory No. 6 asked Rumble to identify, by document number, each agreement that Rumble alleged harmed competition, the specific provision that caused the harm, and how the provision harmed competition. The court found that Rumble’s responses identified only categories of agreements and general types of provisions. The categories included Anti-Fragmentation Agreements, Android Compatibility Commitments, Mobile Application Distribution Agreements, Revenue Sharing Agreements, and Mobile Incentive Agreements. The described provisions included requirements concerning placement and deletion of Google applications and exclusivity provisions affecting competing services.

The court granted Google’s request to compel a further response to Interrogatory No. 6. It ordered Rumble to identify the specific agreements and provisions sufficiently for Google to understand which practices Rumble claims harmed competition and how those provisions harmed the competitive process. Rumble could cite its expert reports with specific page references, but its answer had to be more concise and clearly stated.

Other Interrogatories

The court granted Google’s request to compel responses to Interrogatories Nos. 7–9, 11, 13–17, and 19. Rumble was required to respond separately to each interrogatory rather than cross-reference one lengthy response. The supplemental responses could cite an expert report, but the answers and citations had to be clear and concise enough to reasonably respond to each question.

The court denied Google’s request to compel a further response to Interrogatory No. 12, which asked Rumble to identify and quantify all damages it claimed resulted from Google’s anticompetitive conduct. Google conceded at the hearing that this damages interrogatory was improper and said it had already received Rumble’s damages expert report. The court found no indication that Google needed another response.

The court also denied Google’s request to compel a further response to Interrogatory No. 10. That interrogatory asked Rumble to identify known search queries for which it claimed Google improperly favored YouTube in search results and to provide its basis. The court described that topic as more appropriately addressed through expert testimony.

Order

Rumble was ordered to provide supplemental responses to Interrogatories Nos. 6–9, 11, 13–17, and 19 no later than seven days after the order. Magistrate Judge Lisa J. Cisneros therefore granted Google’s discovery request in part and denied it in part, with the specific dispositions described above.