Minor v. Baker Mills, Inc.

Background

The court considered a joint discovery-dispute letter from Kodiak Cakes, LLC and Baker Mills, Inc., collectively called “Kodiak,” and Sherris Minor. The disputes concerned Kodiak’s requests for production, Kodiak’s interrogatories, and Minor’s requests for production. The court also considered Minor’s motion to quash document subpoenas served on six nonparties: Safeway, Amazon, Grubhub, Doordash, Maplebear doing business as Instacart, and Uber Technologies.

Kodiak’s Requests for Production

Kodiak sought documents concerning Minor’s consumption of high-protein foods, other products she bought because they were high in protein, and the foods and drinks she consumed. Kodiak argued that the information related to the merits of the case, potential class certification, materiality, reliance, knowledge, habits, and credibility.

Minor agreed that documents concerning her purchases of the Kodiak products at issue were relevant if they were in her possession, custody, or control. The court also recognized that Kodiak could test the truth of Minor’s allegations that she relied on Kodiak’s protein-labeling representations. But the court agreed with Minor that seeking evidence of every food purchase and dietary habit over her lifetime was harassing and disproportionate to the needs of the case.

Kodiak narrowed the proposed time period to 2015 through the present and said it wanted only purchases and consumption involving foods or drinks with some connection to protein. The court still found the requests too burdensome because they would require Minor to sort, inventory, and produce labels, packaging, and receipts for all foods and drinks containing protein that she had consumed or purchased. The court found that the burden outweighed the likely benefit and stated that relevant information could be obtained less burdensomely by questioning Minor at her deposition.

Kodiak’s Interrogatories

The court found Interrogatory No. 1 overbroad because it sought purchase details for each Kodiak product Minor had purchased during her lifetime. The court limited the relevant period to the proposed class period, April 9, 2016, through the present. Minor had identified the types of Kodiak products she purchased, but the court required her to provide other known or reasonably available purchase details; referring Kodiak only to her complaint was not sufficient.

The court found Minor’s existing responses to Interrogatory Nos. 6, 12, 13, and 15 sufficient. It limited Interrogatory Nos. 9 and 11 to the proposed class period and directed Minor to answer them. The court found Interrogatory Nos. 16 and 18 overbroad and unduly burdensome and stated that Kodiak could seek relevant information through questioning at Minor’s deposition.

The court found Interrogatory Nos. 17 and 19 relevant and required Minor to answer them to the fullest extent possible. Interrogatory No. 17 concerned why Minor could not rely on or trust the nitrogen method used to calculate protein content. Interrogatory No. 19 concerned the facts supporting her position that the Kodiak products contained an inaccurate amount of protein. The court required Minor to amend her interrogatory responses within 14 days.

Minor’s Requests for Production

Minor stated that Kodiak was withholding hundreds of responsive documents because they contained consumer email addresses and Kodiak believed those addresses needed to be redacted or preceded by an opt-out notice. The court ordered Kodiak to redact the email addresses and produce the responsive documents within 14 days.

Motion to Quash Nonparty Subpoenas

Minor challenged subpoenas seeking records of her food purchases from January 1, 2015, through April 1, 2021. The Safeway subpoena sought documents identifying specific products she purchased and showing her Safeway receipts. The subpoenas to the food-delivery services sought documents identifying food products she ordered or purchased and related receipts.

For Safeway, Minor proposed that she subpoena Safeway herself and provide Kodiak with redacted records showing only purchases of Kodiak products. Kodiak did not object to that proposal. The court granted Minor’s motion to quash Kodiak’s Safeway subpoena. It ordered Minor to subpoena Safeway by July 23, 2021, provide Kodiak with a copy of that subpoena at the same time, and produce documents reflecting her purchases of Kodiak products during the class period within seven days after receiving the records, if such documents existed. Minor could redact purchases of non-Kodiak products.

The court also granted Minor’s motion to quash Kodiak’s subpoenas to Amazon, Grubhub, Doordash, Maplebear, and Uber Technologies. Minor said she had never used those services, including to purchase Kodiak products. Kodiak did not refute or address those assertions, and the court was not persuaded that the subpoenas sought information relevant and proportional to the needs of the case.

Disposition

The court entered a discovery order limiting or directing the specified discovery and granted Minor’s motion to quash the Safeway subpoena and her motion to quash the subpoenas to Amazon, Grubhub, Doordash, Maplebear, and Uber Technologies. The order did not decide the merits of the underlying claims.