Taylor v. Doe
- Vyskocil
- 1:20-cv-03398
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
Taylor v. Doe: Judge Vyskocil permitted plaintiffs to subpoena Medium early to identify Doe, subject to Rule 45 safeguards.
The plaintiffs could issue a limited subpoena to Medium seeking information reasonably related to identifying Jane Doe; the order did not decide the defamation claims.
What happened
In Taylor et al. v. Doe, plaintiffs sued an unidentified person in a defamation case because they did not know Doe’s identity or how to serve Doe. They said Medium had information connected to two accounts that could identify Doe.
Plaintiffs asked to issue a subpoena to Medium before the required conference between the parties about managing the case. They also asked the court to address the rule requiring subpoenaed information to be produced within 100 miles of Medium’s offices.
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ordered that plaintiffs could issue the subpoena based on their representations, provided the information could be uploaded to counsel from a location within 100 miles of Medium’s offices and was reasonably related to identifying Doe.
The detailed version
- Taylor v. Doe · No. 1:20-cv-03398
- Vyskocil
- June 24, 2020
Background
Plaintiffs Deborah Taylor, also known as Holly T; Matthew Kramer, also known as Disco Killerz; and Reem Taoz, also known as GATTUSO, brought a defamation action against an unidentified defendant, Jane Doe. Plaintiffs said they knew Doe only through two Medium accounts, identified as @kittykat97 (also known as @kittykat) and @Edmunation2020 (also known as @Edmunation). They stated that Medium had other information that might identify Doe, including a true identity, email address, and internet-protocol address.
Plaintiffs said they could not serve Doe or hold the required Rule 26(f) conference—an early conference about the case’s management—until they learned Doe’s identity. They sought permission to issue a third-party subpoena to A Medium Corporation before that conference. The subpoena sought identifying information, not the contents of communications.
The Subpoena Dispute
Medium initially raised several objections. After discussions with plaintiffs’ counsel, Medium reportedly maintained two objections: that the subpoena did not require production within 100 miles of Medium’s offices, as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45(c)(1)(A), and that no Rule 26(f) conference had occurred.
Plaintiffs argued that the 100-mile restriction could be satisfied when Medium uploaded electronic information from a location within 100 miles of its offices, even if plaintiffs’ counsel retrieved the information elsewhere. They relied on Mackey v. IDT Energy, Inc., which the letter described as approving that method of production.
Ruling
The court ordered that plaintiffs could proceed with issuing a third-party subpoena to Medium based on the representations in their letter. The order imposed two conditions: the requested information could be uploaded to plaintiffs’ counsel from a location within 100 miles of Medium’s offices, as required by Rule 45 and interpreted by Mackey; and the information had to be reasonably related to identifying Doe.
The order permitted issuance of the subpoena. The provided text does not state that the court separately ordered Medium to produce the information or decide the merits of plaintiffs’ defamation claims.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.