Dyer v. DOES 1-10

Background

At a November 20, 2024 case-management conference, the court permitted Min Ji Goo Ji Goo Dyer to file a motion seeking permission to serve third-party subpoenas on Bitcoin.com, Binance.com, and Imageflip.com. The subpoenas were intended to help determine the identities of the Doe defendants. Dyer filed the motion by the court’s December 4 deadline.

Legal standard

The court explained that expedited discovery—discovery allowed before the usual schedule—may be permitted when the requesting party shows good cause. Good cause exists when the need for early discovery, considering the administration of justice, outweighs the prejudice to the responding party. Courts commonly allow this type of discovery to identify unknown defendants when the plaintiff cannot yet identify any defendants and has a legitimate concern that identifying information may be destroyed.

Court’s analysis

The court found that Dyer had been unable to identify the Doe defendants despite extensive efforts and had a legitimate fear that information about their whereabouts faced imminent destruction. However, the court could not determine whether the proposed subpoenas were narrowly tailored to obtain information likely to identify the defendants.

Dyer did not provide supporting declarations or other evidence linking the specific information sought from Bitcoin.com, Binance, and Imageflip.com to the alleged fraudulent conduct. She also did not address the subpoenas’ scope in the motion. The requested information appeared only in the proposed order, which listed specific information for Bitcoin.com and Binance but did not identify specific information sought from Imageflip.com.

The court noted that some supporting evidence might already appear in the extensive record, including a possible connection between at least one listed Binance account and an account discussed in an earlier declaration. But the court stated that it was not responsible for searching the record to locate evidence connecting the requested information to the alleged conduct.

Disposition

Judge Joseph C. Spero DENIED the motion without prejudice to refiling by December 26, 2024. An amended motion must include evidence linking the specific information sought from each of the three entities to the conduct at issue. If the evidence is already in a filed declaration, Dyer may cite the declaration and the relevant paragraphs. For Imageflip.com, she must also describe the specific information sought in the proposed subpoena and explain why that information is likely to uncover a Doe defendant’s identity.