Jones v. PGA Tour, Inc.
- Beth Freeman
- 5:22-cv-04486
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Jones v. PGA Tour, Inc., Judge Van Keulen ordered players to obtain and produce nonprivileged agent-held electronic records requested by PGA Tour.
The order directly affected the four Players—Phil Mickelson, Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford, and Ian Poulter—and their agents, requiring the Players to search and produce qualifying agent-held ESI to PGA Tour, Inc.
What happened
In Jones v. PGA Tour, Inc., the court considered a dispute over the PGA Tour’s subpoenas for electronic records held by agents representing four professional golfers: Phil Mickelson, Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford, and Ian Poulter. Those golfers had accepted service of the subpoenas and had previously dismissed their claims in the case.
The court explained that documents held by an agent are within a responding person’s or entity’s legal control when that person has the legal right to obtain them upon demand. The court rejected the Players’ focus on how search terms would identify responsive documents and found it not credible that they could not obtain responsive records from their own agents.
Judge Susan Van Keulen ordered the Players to run the parties’ agreed search terms over their agents’ email and device data, adding limits to focus the results on the agents’ representation of the Players. She also ordered production of nonprivileged responsive materials and a log identifying responsive materials withheld because of privilege or another protection.
The detailed version
- Jones v. PGA Tour, Inc. · No. 5:22-cv-04486
- Beth Freeman
- Nov. 17, 2022
Background
The court addressed the parties’ joint statement about collecting and producing custodial electronically stored information (ESI), including email and device-level data, from agents representing Phil Mickelson, Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford, and Ian Poulter. The four golfers, referred to collectively as the “Players,” had initially been plaintiffs in the action but dismissed their claims on September 27, 2022.
The Players accepted service of PGA Tour, Inc.’s subpoenas. The subpoenas defined the responding party to include the Players’ attorneys, agents, members, employees, and other people acting on their behalf. The dispute concerned whether the Players had legal control over responsive ESI physically held by their agents.
Legal standard and analysis
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 requires production of documents within a person’s or entity’s “possession, custody, or control.” The court stated that the same standard applies to parties under Rule 34 and third parties subject to Rule 45. Under the legal-control test, “control” generally means the legal right to obtain documents upon demand.
The court relied on Ninth Circuit law providing that materials possessed by an agent are within the responding person’s control and must be produced. It found that the Players could obtain responsive documents from their own agents, particularly because limiting search terms could focus the materials on the agents’ representation of the Players. The court found the Players’ reliance on a decision involving complex corporate structures misplaced.
Order
The court concluded that custodial ESI in the actual possession of the Players’ agents was within the Players’ control under Rules 34 and 45. Judge Susan Van Keulen ordered the Players to run the previously agreed search terms over the agents’ ESI, with additional limiting terms designed to identify materials related to the agents’ representation of the Players and exclude materials concerning other potential principals.
The court further ordered the Players to produce nonprivileged materials responsive to the PGA Tour’s subpoenas and provide the PGA Tour with a log of responsive materials withheld based on privilege or another protection from disclosure.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.