May v. Google LLC

Background

Judy May filed claims under California’s Unfair Competition Law, the California Consumers Legal Remedy Act, California Penal Code section 496, and for conversion against Google LLC, Google Arizona LLC, Google Payment Corp., and Alphabet, Inc. The complaint alleges that, in April 2021, a person posing as a government agent convinced May to buy five Google Play gift cards and send the redemption codes to that person. May later recognized that she had been scammed.

Google filed a motion to dismiss, which was scheduled for a later hearing. Before that motion was decided, Google moved to stay discovery—meaning to pause the exchange of information and evidence between the parties—until the court resolved the motion to dismiss.

Legal standard

The court explained that it may stay discovery for good cause to protect against undue burden or expense. Courts in the district apply a two-part test when a party seeks to stay discovery pending a potentially case-dispositive motion. First, the pending motion must potentially dispose of the entire case or at least the issue targeted by discovery. Second, the motion must be capable of decision without additional discovery. The court also takes a preliminary look at the motion’s merits and may consider efficiency, resource conservation, and prejudice.

Court’s analysis

Google argued that its motion to dismiss could substantially narrow the case because of a liability limitation, alleged group pleading, and statute-of-limitations arguments. The court found that Google had not shown that its liability-waiver theory could dispose of the case or even some claims, particularly because May alleged that Google was liable for its own conduct and argued that the waiver was unenforceable. The court also noted that Google raised its argument about the heightened pleading requirement for fraud claims only in its reply.

The court agreed that the motion to dismiss was potentially dispositive as to the length of the proposed class periods. The complaint initially defined the class period as beginning January 1, 2015, but the parties did not appear to dispute that this period extended beyond the applicable limitations periods. The court concluded that this supported limiting discovery for each claim to the class period consistent with that claim’s statute of limitations, rather than staying all discovery.

The court also found that the motion to dismiss could be decided without additional discovery. Although broad discovery reaching back to January 1, 2015 could be wasteful and prejudicial, Google did not identify comparable prejudice or inefficiency from discovery limited to the applicable limitations periods.

Order

The court granted in part and denied in part Google’s motion to stay discovery. It did not stay all discovery. Instead, for each claim, May may seek discovery for the class period consistent with that claim’s statute of limitations. The court directed that further disputes about the scope of discovery be referred to the Magistrate Judge.