Ramirez v. Bank of America, N.A.
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:22-cv-00859
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Ramirez v. Bank of America, Judge Illman granted the Bank’s request for a protective order limiting duplicative employee depositions.
The order affects the plaintiffs’ requested depositions and Bank of America employees who could be questioned as current or former witnesses, particularly the current employees also designated as Rule 30(b)(6) witnesses.
What happened
Ramirez v. Bank of America, N.A. is a putative class action about alleged pandemic-era promises concerning overdraft and insufficient-funds fees. The plaintiffs sought to question current and former Bank employees.
The Bank asked the court to prevent multiple depositions of its current employees, who were also designated to testify for the Bank about specified subjects. The plaintiffs argued they needed to question some employees before finalizing those subjects, but the court found they had not explained why written discovery or other options could not provide the needed information.
Judge Robert M. Illman granted the Bank’s request for a protective order to prevent undue burden and inefficient, cumulative depositions. The order addressed the discovery dispute and did not decide the underlying claims about the fee-relief programs.
The detailed version
- Ramirez v. Bank of America, N.A. · No. 4:22-cv-00859
- Yvonne Rogers
- June 13, 2024
Background
This putative class action alleges that Bank of America promised pandemic-era programs that would provide relief from overdraft and insufficient-funds fees, did not fully implement those programs, and ended the limited changes it had made without notice in August 2020.
The plaintiffs sought to promptly depose at least two of four current Bank employees—Lance Berg, Jennifer Haag, Maggie Helms, and Chris Wong—and one former Bank employee, Kathy Quaranta. The four current employees were also designated as Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6) witnesses. Under that rule, an organization designates people to testify on its behalf about specified subjects.
Discovery dispute
The Bank sought a protective order, which is a court order limiting discovery that would create undue burden or unnecessary duplication. It argued that deposing the current employees before the plaintiffs served a notice identifying their Rule 30(b)(6) subjects could lead to the same employees being deposed again on substantially overlapping topics.
The plaintiffs said they could not finalize their Rule 30(b)(6) subjects until they received more written discovery, including class-wide data. They argued that individual testimony could help them develop those subjects and that they should be allowed to depose some current employees now and perhaps again later. The plaintiffs did not explain why written discovery or other available methods could not provide the information needed to formulate their subjects. The Bank offered to make the former employee available for a deposition.
Court’s ruling
The court rejected the plaintiffs’ reliance on a statement from another case that plaintiffs are the “masters of their own discovery plans.” It explained that the cited decision did not establish a right to impose unreasonably burdensome and cumulative discovery by deposing Rule 30(b)(6) witnesses once to develop subjects and again later to address those subjects.
The court granted the Bank’s request for a protective order to prevent undue burden and inefficiency concerning the noticed depositions. The opinion specifically reasoned that the plaintiffs had not shown that multiple depositions of the current employees were the only way to develop their Rule 30(b)(6) subjects. The order resolved the discovery dispute; it did not decide the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims about the Bank’s fee-relief programs.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.