Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:24-cv-00646
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Strike 3 Holdings v. Doe, Judge Schofield partly granted and partly denied Plaintiff’s request about early discovery and the initial scheduling conference.
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC and the unidentified John Doe defendant. The order controls when Plaintiff may file its anticipated early-discovery motion and how the initial pretrial conference will proceed while the defendant remains unidentified.
What happened
In Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, Strike 3 Holdings asked to file a motion for permission to subpoena Verizon Fios before the parties’ required discovery-planning conference. The company said it knew the defendant only through an Internet Protocol address and needed the provider’s records to learn the defendant’s identity in its copyright case.
The company also asked the court to delay the initial pretrial conference until the defendant was identified and served. The opinion describes the request as a pre-motion application and says the company anticipated filing a separate motion about the subpoena.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield granted the application in part and denied it in part. She directed Plaintiff to file its anticipated motion by February 20, 2024, but kept the March 20 initial pretrial conference on schedule. If the defendant had not been identified and served by March 13, Plaintiff could request an adjournment by letter instead of filing conference materials.
The detailed version
- Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe · No. 1:24-cv-00646
- Lorna Schofield
- Feb. 12, 2024
Background
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued a John Doe defendant for alleged copyright infringement. The opinion states that the defendant was known only by an Internet Protocol address and that the address had allegedly been used to infringe Strike 3’s copyrighted works through the BitTorrent file-distribution network.
Strike 3 asked for permission to file a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1) seeking early discovery. Early discovery is information-gathering before the parties’ usual discovery-planning conference. The anticipated request would seek permission to serve a third-party subpoena on Verizon Fios, the Internet service provider associated with the address, to obtain information identifying the defendant. Strike 3 also asked to postpone the initial Rule 16 scheduling conference until the defendant was identified and served.
Ruling
The court’s order states: “Application GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.” The court directed Plaintiff to file its anticipated motion by February 20, 2024. The order did not itself authorize service of the subpoena; it addressed the request to file the anticipated motion.
The initial pretrial conference scheduled for March 20, 2024, was to proceed as scheduled. If the defendant had not been named and served by March 13, 2024, Plaintiff was directed to file a letter by that date requesting an adjournment of the conference instead of filing conference materials. The Clerk of Court was directed to close the motion at Docket No. 7.
The opinion does not decide whether the alleged copyright infringement occurred or whether Strike 3 would ultimately receive the requested identifying information.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.