Moore v. EO PRODUCTS, LLC
- Jon Tigar
- 4:22-cv-07618
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Moore v. EO Products, Judge Ryu denied Jana Nicole Rabinowitz’s request to appear remotely for her deposition, requiring her to attend in California.
Jana Nicole Rabinowitz must appear in person for her deposition in the Northern District of California; the ruling concerns the parties’ discovery process in the proposed class action.
What happened
Moore v. EO Products, LLC is a proposed class action about EO Products’ labeling of skincare and cosmetic products as plant-based. The parties disagreed about whether proposed New York class representative Jana Nicole Rabinowitz could give her deposition remotely instead of traveling to California.
Rabinowitz argued that remote depositions are routine, cost-effective, and equally effective. She did not identify a specific hardship from traveling. The court held that plaintiffs generally must attend depositions in the district where they filed suit unless they show an exceptional hardship, and that ordinary travel time and expense were not enough here.
Judge Donna M. Ryu denied Rabinowitz’s request to appear remotely. The order requires her to appear for the deposition in person in the Northern District of California.
The detailed version
- Moore v. EO PRODUCTS, LLC · No. 4:22-cv-07618
- Jon Tigar
- Oct. 8, 2024
Background
Drew Moore and other plaintiffs brought a proposed class action challenging EO Products, LLC’s labeling of skincare and cosmetic products as “made with plants,” “plant-based,” “made with plant extracts,” and “made with plant-based extracts.” The amended complaint added Jana Nicole Rabinowitz as a proposed representative of the New York Class. The parties filed a joint discovery letter about whether Rabinowitz could appear remotely for her deposition rather than travel from New York to California.
Legal standard
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30 requires a party requesting an oral deposition to state its time and place. Courts generally presume that a plaintiff will be deposed in the judicial district where the lawsuit was filed because the plaintiff selected that forum. This presumption also applies in class actions. A plaintiff seeking a different location or method must show undue hardship or exceptional or compelling circumstances. The court has broad discretion to decide the appropriate place for a deposition.
Analysis
Rabinowitz said she was willing to travel to testify in person at a future trial, but argued that there was no practical reason to fly across the country for a deposition because remote depositions are routine, cost-effective, and equally effective for evaluating credibility. Plaintiffs’ counsel also argued that an in-person deposition would waste money, time, and environmental resources.
The court found that Rabinowitz did not identify any specific hardship associated with traveling to California. The court treated concerns about travel time and expense as ordinary concerns, not exceptional circumstances. Because she did not show an undue burden or other compelling reason to avoid appearing in the chosen forum, the court ruled that she must appear for her deposition in person in the Northern District of California.
Disposition
The court denied Rabinowitz’s request to appear remotely at her deposition. This was a discovery ruling and did not decide the merits of the labeling claims.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.