Cordero Romero v. Goldman Sachs Bank USA

Background

Michael Cordero Romero filed a motion seeking an “order to compel limited production of evidence.” The court, giving the special consideration ordinarily provided to people representing themselves, understood the motion as an application for expedited discovery concerning Goldman Sachs Bank USA’s pending motion to compel arbitration.

Romero sought three categories of information: the complete transcript or audio recording of his January 7, 2025 call to Marcus Customer Service; internal notes, correspondence, or customer-relationship-management entries concerning his account application and onboarding process from January 7, 2025; and screen captures, metadata, or audit logs showing steps taken in the Marcus online application portal.

Court’s Analysis

The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), which permits discovery of nonprivileged information relevant to a claim or defense, subject to proportionality and other limits. For expedited discovery, the court considered the entire record, the reasonableness of the request, good cause, and the potential prejudice to each side.

The court found good cause for the limited discovery. It stated that the factual record might need further development because Romero described one process for setting up his bank account, while Goldman Sachs provided evidence that he would have experienced a different process without showing that Romero actually did. The court also noted that Goldman Sachs asserted it had internal records confirming when Romero assented to the agreements at issue but had not provided those records in briefing on the arbitration issue. The requested records could address these gaps.

The court found that Goldman Sachs would not be significantly prejudiced. It characterized the request as limited in time and scope and focused on the evidentiary issues raised by the pending arbitration motion. The court also noted that Goldman Sachs had consented to produce most of the requested information, although Goldman Sachs stated that its consent was conditional on a protective order.

Order

The court granted the application for the discovery described in Docket Entry 73 and ordered Goldman Sachs to produce the requested documents no later than one week after the order. Because Goldman Sachs argued that the materials supported its position, the court allowed Goldman Sachs to file a supplemental brief of no more than 10 pages by July 31, 2025. That brief could not present new evidence or arguments unrelated to the information disclosed to Romero.

The court extended Romero’s deadline to file his sur-reply to August 7, 2025. It denied any additional discovery requests made in Romero’s reply because Goldman Sachs had not had an opportunity to oppose those requests and because the court stated it would not consider the evidence that Goldman Sachs submitted concerning the expedited-discovery motion when deciding the arbitration motion. The court took no action on a protective order because Goldman Sachs had not made an appropriate application or provided information showing good cause.

The court certified that an appeal from the order would not be taken in good faith and denied fee-free appeal status for that purpose. The clerk was directed to terminate the motion at Docket Entry 73. The order did not decide the pending motion to compel arbitration.