Cardenas v. IMS Fund LLC
- John Koeltl
- 1:24-cv-04041
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Cardenas v. IMS Fund LLC, Judge Gorenstein ordered limited phone-use disclosures, denied two discovery requests, and extended motion deadlines.
Erica Cardenas must provide the unredacted Verizon bill and a sworn statement about her use of the telephone number. IMS Fund LLC received more time to move or answer the amended complaint, while its requests for information about alternate accounts and the account-listing date were denied.
What happened
In Erica Cardenas v. IMS Fund LLC, the defendant sought additional information about whether Cardenas regularly used a telephone number involved in her Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuit. The defendant also asked for more time to respond to Cardenas’s amended complaint and related filings.
The court ordered Cardenas to provide an unredacted Verizon bill and a sworn statement describing how and when she used the telephone number. It ruled that she did not need to answer two other requests about alternate accounts and the date the number was first listed under a Verizon account.
Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein extended the deadlines: the defendant’s motion or answer was due August 23, 2024; Cardenas’s response was due September 13, 2024; and any reply was due September 27, 2024. The motion remained assigned to Judge John Koeltl.
The detailed version
- Cardenas v. IMS Fund LLC · No. 1:24-cv-04041
- John Koeltl
- Aug. 9, 2024
Background
This order concerns a putative class action under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. IMS Fund LLC sought limited discovery about subject-matter jurisdiction before filing a motion to dismiss. The defendant argued that the telephone number at issue was a business number subscribed to by Mark Cardenas, not Erica Cardenas, and that Erica Cardenas therefore might lack standing. The defendant also relied on the possibility that she could establish standing by showing that she was the regular user of the number.
The defendant asked for information on three subjects: evidence that Cardenas regularly used the number; whether the number was connected to another account; and the date the number was first listed under Verizon account 7784. It also requested extensions of the deadlines for responding to the amended complaint and for briefing a motion to dismiss. Cardenas opposed the requests.
Rulings
The court directed Cardenas to produce the Verizon bill in unredacted form by August 15, 2024. Defense counsel was required to keep the previously redacted information confidential and could not share it with any party, including the defendant, unless the court later allowed disclosure.
The court disagreed that ownership of the telephone number was relevant to subject-matter jurisdiction in light of Cardenas’s allegations about her use of the number. Accordingly, Cardenas was not required to respond to discovery requests 2 and 3. As to request 1, the court found the request unclear and too vague if it was intended as a document request. Nevertheless, it ordered Cardenas to provide a sworn statement by August 15, 2024, describing her use of the number and the approximate dates of that use.
Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein extended the time for IMS Fund LLC to move or answer the amended complaint to August 23, 2024. Cardenas’s response to any motion was due September 13, 2024, and any reply was due September 27, 2024. The order stated that the motion remained returnable before Judge John Koeltl.
Classification
This is a procedural order because it addresses jurisdictional discovery, confidentiality over produced information, and briefing deadlines without deciding whether Cardenas ultimately has standing or whether the Telephone Consumer Protection Act claims succeed.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.