Collins v. Pearson Education, Inc.

Background

John Collins filed this action against Pearson Education, Inc., alleging a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act, a federal law concerning the disclosure of personally identifiable information related to video-viewing records. Collins asserted the claim on behalf of a putative class, meaning a proposed group of similarly situated people whose claims had not yet been certified as a class.

Pearson moved to dismiss Collins’s sole claim. While that motion was pending, Pearson moved to stay discovery, meaning to pause the exchange of information and evidence between the parties. Collins opposed the requested stay.

Court’s Analysis

The court explained that a pending motion to dismiss does not automatically pause discovery, but that a court may do so for good cause. It considered three factors: whether Pearson made a strong showing that Collins’s claim might lack merit, how broad and burdensome the discovery would be, and whether pausing discovery would unfairly prejudice Collins.

First, the court found Pearson’s dismissal arguments potentially dispositive and not unfounded in law. Pearson had offered multiple independent grounds for dismissing the Video Privacy Protection Act claim, including that Collins allegedly failed to adequately plead standing or the sharing of personally identifiable information.

Second, the court found that discovery was likely to be burdensome because the action was brought on behalf of a putative class. The court cited broad discovery requests concerning webpages containing video content on which Pearson’s tracking technology was installed and proposed class members subject to arbitration. The court also reasoned that discovery could waste resources if the pending motion to dismiss eliminated the action.

Third, the court found no unfair prejudice to Collins because the motion to dismiss had already been fully briefed and the stay was unlikely to last long.

Disposition

The court granted Pearson’s letter motion at docket 24 and stayed discovery pending resolution of Pearson’s motion to dismiss. It then directed the clerk to terminate the letter motion at docket 24. The order did not rule on whether Pearson’s motion to dismiss should be granted or denied.

Classification

This is a procedural order because it addressed discovery while a motion to dismiss was pending and did not decide the underlying Video Privacy Protection Act claim.