CPI Card Group, Inc. v. Dwyer

Background

The court addressed five matters: the Multi Packaging Solutions defendants’ motion to compel supplemental discovery responses and damages information; John Dwyer’s motion concerning written discovery; CPI’s motion to compel discovery; Dwyer’s motion concerning custodians, search terms, and an amended protective order; and unresolved issues from an earlier status call.

The opinion described the discovery deadlines in the parties’ amended scheduling orders. Written discovery and document production deadlines had passed, but the court had extended some deadlines for supplementing discovery and completing fact depositions. The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, which permits discovery of relevant, nonprivileged information that is proportional to the needs of the case, and requires limits on discovery that is cumulative, duplicative, overly burdensome, or outside the permitted scope.

MPS Defendants’ Motion

The court stated that the MPS Defendants’ motion was granted in part and denied in part. CPI had produced, or agreed to produce, some requested information. The court found that requests seeking documents that related “in any way” to damages or mitigation were overbroad as drafted, but ordered CPI to produce specified information for the period from January 1, 2015, to January 1, 2016. CPI also had to produce documents provided to its damages experts, whether those experts had been disclosed or not, if the documents had not already been produced.

CPI had to supplement specified requests with documents from July 1, 2017, through October 31, 2018. The court denied full supplementation of two broadly worded requests as unduly burdensome, but required production by November 30, 2018, of any additional documents CPI had identified or collected that responded to those requests. The court also stated that CPI should produce older financial data or projects by that deadline if it potentially intended to rely on them.

Dwyer’s Written-Discovery Motion

The opinion states that several disputes had been resolved by the parties, including requests concerning six common Prohibited Accounts, several document requests, missing email attachments, unredacted documents, text messages, custodians, and search terms. The parties were ordered to file a stipulation reflecting their agreements by November 19, 2018.

The court denied Dwyer’s request to require a supplemental answer to Interrogatory No. 10 because the request concerned attorney fees and was premature. It granted Dwyer’s request for confirmation and supplementation concerning Interrogatories 12, 13, 14, and 16. The court explained that CPI had to make a reasonable investigation and inquiry, rather than limiting its answers to information found through a limited search of agreed custodians and search terms.

The court stated that Dwyer’s document-production request was granted in part and denied in part. It granted requests for documents identified as RFP Nos. 5, 9, 12, and 20. For RFP No. 9, the court found that Dwyer had shown relevance and that CPI had not shown undue burden or lack of proportionality concerning non-consolidated financial statements for CPI Card, Inc. For RFP No. 12, responsive documents could correspond to CPI’s answers to Interrogatories 12 and 13.

The court granted in part and denied in part RFP No. 16 as overly broad as drafted. CPI was required to produce decks, presentations, and other marketing-related documents presented or provided to Prohibited Accounts from January 2016 through the present. The court also explained that discovery could reach relevant information beyond documents CPI planned to use to support its damages claim, assuming a particular request was within Rule 26’s scope.

Other Discovery Matters

The opinion states that CPI’s motion to compel was already governed by earlier orders, and that responsive information and documents subject to those orders had to be produced by November 19, 2018. The disputes about custodians and search terms had been resolved before the hearing, and the parties had to file a joint stipulation. The court also stated that a separate amended protective order concerning “attorneys’ eyes only” designations would be issued.

The court denied CPI’s request for additional time to conduct a second deposition of the individually named defendants because CPI had not shown good cause. It granted in part and denied in part CPI’s request for additional time to complete the deposition of MPS under Rule 30(b)(6), allowing two additional hours but no expansion of the deposition topics. MPS was not required to produce a particular individual as its designee, and the designee was not subject to an individual deposition unless one had already been noticed. The parties could not seek additional fact-witness depositions unless those depositions had been noticed by the scheduling-order deadlines, unless the parties had already agreed otherwise.

Order and Disposition

The court ordered discovery required by earlier orders to be produced by November 19, 2018, and discovery ordered by this opinion to be produced by November 30, 2018. It also required the stipulations called for in the opinion to be filed by November 19, 2018.

Magistrate Judge Becky R. Thorson’s order stated that the MPS Defendants’ motion, Dwyer’s written-discovery motion, CPI’s motion to compel discovery, and Dwyer’s motion concerning custodians, search terms, and an amended protective order were each granted in part and denied in part.