Triple S Farms, LLC v. DeLaval Inc.

Background

This is a putative (proposed) class action lawsuit filed by several dairy farms — Triple S Farms LLC, Green Acres Dairy LLC, Charles Fry and Emily Snyder, Rocky Point Farms Inc., and Northcrest Dairy Inc. — against DeLaval Inc., West Agro Inc., and several affiliated DeLaval entities. The plaintiffs allege that DeLaval misrepresented the capabilities of its robotic voluntary milking system, the DeLaval VMS V300, that the machine is defective, and that these issues caused substantial damages to the plaintiffs and putative class members.

The opinion addresses two cross-motions to compel discovery under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37, which allows a party to ask a court to order an opposing party to provide discovery it has refused or failed to produce. The court granted in part and denied in part both motions.

Legal Standard

The court applied the standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), which limits discovery to nonprivileged matters that are relevant to a party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, considering factors such as the importance of the issues, the amount in controversy, the parties' relative access to the information, and whether the burden of the discovery outweighs its likely benefit. The party seeking discovery bears the initial burden of showing relevance; the party resisting bears the burden of showing lack of relevance or undue burden.

Plaintiffs' Motion to Compel

Project Green Report

DeLaval produced a 55-page 'Project Green Report' — based on anonymized interviews of V300 owners about their overall experience — just one day before a key executive deposition. DeLaval's representative testified the report was created as part of a 'litigation prevention' effort after this suit was filed. The court found the report and related documents clearly relevant and ordered DeLaval to produce documents from four employees identified as involved in the project: Kristy Campbell, Derek Zepp, Chris Horton, and Fernando Cuccioli, covering the period up to March 14, 2025 (the report's publication date). The court declined to require production from two other employees (Mats Nilsson and Alix Edouard), finding plaintiffs had not established those individuals were likely to have relevant information. To manage burden, the court ordered the parties to meet and confer within five days to agree on search terms; if they cannot agree, they must schedule a conference with the court.

Separately, the court granted plaintiffs' request for emails between DeLaval employee Chris Horton and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the V300 Teat Preparation Protocol since 2023, which DeLaval had already agreed to produce during the parties' pre-motion discussions.

Milk Production Spreadsheet (Persson Spreadsheet)

DeLaval created and produced a spreadsheet (the 'Persson Spreadsheet') identifying 95 instances where the V300 allegedly met or exceeded a certain milk production level. The court found this document highly relevant because it was created after litigation began and contradicts some of the plaintiffs' key allegations, making it likely DeLaval will try to use it at trial. The court ordered DeLaval to produce all of the underlying 'MyFarm' data used to create the spreadsheet — not just the subset DeLaval proposed to produce. DeLaval's concerns about anonymization of farm names were addressed by reference to the existing protective order in the case.

DeLaval's Financial Information

The court ordered DeLaval to produce financial documents sufficient to show the number of V300s operating each year, which after-market products were used exclusively with the V300, which were used with V300s and other products, and how much of those after-market products were used by V300s. The court noted that DeLaval had already produced some annual profit margin data and that both sides agreed the general category of information was relevant.

However, the court denied plaintiffs' requests for documents about DeLaval's 'expected' (projected) profits, finding those not relevant to disgorgement claims (which require the return of actual wrongfully obtained profits, not projected ones). The court also denied requests for profit information on DeLaval products other than the V300.

Project Thunderbird

Plaintiffs asked the court to order DeLaval to search its preserved custodial documents using the term 'Project Thunderbird' — the internal name for DeLaval's next-generation milking machine development project. The court granted this request, finding Project Thunderbird highly relevant to the products-liability issue of whether a safer alternative design existed. The court rejected DeLaval's undue-burden argument, noting that any extra review burden resulted from DeLaval's own failure to disclose or search for the term earlier in discovery, even though DeLaval knew it was using that project name.

DeLaval's Motion to Compel

As a threshold matter, the court noted that DeLaval's motion failed to comply with Local Rule 37.1, which requires a motion to compel to include the specific discovery requests at issue, together with each response or objection. DeLaval instead argued the information was so obviously relevant that its obligation to produce was self-evident. The court noted this failure alone would be sufficient to deny the motion but nonetheless addressed the substance.

Remote Access Codes to Dairy Herd Information (DHI)

DeLaval asked the court to order plaintiffs to provide remote access codes to their Dairy Herd Information (DHI) systems — essentially giving DeLaval the ability to directly access and search plaintiffs' farm data. The court denied this request. Critically, DeLaval did not argue that plaintiffs had failed to produce specific responsive documents — only that they had not given DeLaval direct unfettered access. The court analogized this to cases in which courts have refused to grant a party full access to an opposing party's social media accounts, noting that compelling access codes would allow DeLaval to conduct its own search of plaintiffs' data, bypassing the normal self-regulated discovery process.

DelPro BAK Backup Files

DeLaval sought plaintiffs' DelPro BAK files — backup files from farm management software. Plaintiffs did not dispute relevance but argued production would be unduly burdensome because it would require travel to individual computers and painstaking file restoration. The court disagreed, finding the remaining files to be produced relatively small in number (covering only December 2024 through June 2025 for three of the four farms), and granted this part of DeLaval's motion.

Additional Depositions

The scheduling order in the case limits each side to 10 fact (non-expert) depositions. DeLaval sought leave to take three additional depositions. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4), a scheduling order may be modified only for 'good cause.' The court found good cause to allow two additional depositions — not three. The court pointed to two key facts: (1) the court had previously allowed plaintiffs to add a new named plaintiff (Rocky Point Farms) over DeLaval's objection, which increased the facts at issue; and (2) the specific witnesses DeLaval identified (the current manager of Triple S's farm, Triple S's accountant, and Rocky Point's dealer representative) were likely to have relevant information. The court authorized depositions of those three individuals but characterized this as an increase of two (not three) in the deposition limit, without further explanation of that arithmetic in the opinion.

Disposition

Plaintiffs' Motion to Compel (Dkt. 373) was granted in part and denied in part. Defendants' Motion to Compel (Dkt. 382) was granted in part and denied in part. The court directed that a Fourth Amended Pretrial Scheduling Order would issue, and ordered each party to bear its own costs and fees.