Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_13-cv-02219/USCOURTS-cand-4_13-cv-02219-18/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Fed. Question

---

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

TRUE HEALTH CHIROPRACTIC INC, et 

al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

MCKESSON CORPORATION, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 13-cv-02219-JST 

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO 

BIFURCATE DISCOVERY

Re: ECF No. 145

Before the Court is Defendants’ Motion to Bifurcate Discovery. ECF No. 145. For the 

reasons set forth below, the Court will deny the motion.

I. BACKGROUND

On May 15, 2013, Plaintiffs brought this case as a class action under the Telephone 

Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), alleging that Defendants sent to Plaintiffs unsolicited faxes 

in violation of the TCPA. ECF No. 1. In relevant part, the TCPA prohibits the sending of faxes 

without the “prior express permission or invitation” of the recipient. 47 U.S.C. § 227. 

Defendants ask the Court to bifurcate discovery so as to allow the parties to resolve 

whether the named class representatives, True Health Chiropractic Inc. and McLaughlin 

Chiropractic Associates, Inc., received unsolicited faxes (as opposed to solicited ones), and 

therefore whether they are able to represent a class of individuals, each of whom allegedly 

received unsolicited faxes. ECF No. 145. Defendants ask for a forty-five-day period in which to 

conduct discovery regarding the individual named plaintiffs and then to file a motion for partial

summary judgment as to True Health and McLaughlin’s adequacy as class representatives. Id. at 

2. Defendants effectively seek to stay class discovery during this period. 

Defendants assert that if discovery reveals that True Health and McLaughlin are not 

representative of the class, bifurcation will mean that “the expense and prolonged process of class 

Case 4:13-cv-02219-HSG Document 157 Filed 01/20/15 Page 1 of 6
2

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

discovery, expert discovery and class certification may be avoided in their entirety.” Id. at 5. 

Moreover, Defendants surmise that, in the event that McLaughlin and True Health are deemed 

adequate class representatives, bifurcation will not affect the parties’ ability to conduct class 

discovery or Plaintiffs’ ability to file a class certification motion by the June 8, 2015 deadline. Id.

at 9 (“Applying a [forty-five-day] individual discovery period will not affect the schedule of this 

case or complicate the issues in this matter . . . .”). 

Both parties contend that discovery on the merits will show that their respective positions

regarding the adequacy of the named class representatives are correct. See ECF No. 145 at 1; ECF 

No. 151 at 4-7.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

The decision to bifurcate discovery in putative class actions prior to certification is 

committed to the discretion of the trial court. Del Campo v. Kennedy, 236 F.R.D. 454, 459 (N.D. 

Cal. 2006) (citations omitted); see, e.g., Medlock v. Taco Bell Corp., No. 1:07-cv-01314-SAB, 

2014 WL 2154437, at *1 (E.D. Cal. May 22, 2014) (noting bifurcation of discovery as to classcertification and merits issues). Among the matters the court may consider in deciding whether to 

bifurcate are: (1) the overlap between individual and class discovery, (2) whether bifurcation will 

promote Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23’s requirement that certification be decided at “an 

early practicable time,” (3) judicial economy, and (4) any prejudice reasonably likely to flow from 

the grant or denial of a stay of class discovery. See 1 McLaughlin on Class Actions § 3:10 (11th 

ed. 2014).

III. ANALYSIS

A. Overlap Between Individual and Class Discovery

The parties have not extensively briefed the issue of the overlap between individual and 

class discovery. Typically, however, the two do overlap, and the Court concludes that the same 

will be true here. See, e.g., Gusman v. Comcast Corp., 298 F.R.D. 592, 595 (S.D. Cal. 2014)

(“[T]he merits/certification distinction is not always clear. Facts that are relevant to the class 

determination frequently will overlap with those relevant to the merits of the case.”). 

This factor weighs against bifurcation.

Case 4:13-cv-02219-HSG Document 157 Filed 01/20/15 Page 2 of 6
3

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

B. Promoting Certification at “an Early Practicable Time”

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 indicates that class certification should occur “[a]t an 

early practicable time after a person sues or is sued as a class representative . . . .” Fed. R. Civ. P. 

23(c)(1)(A). Currently, the case schedule requires motions on class certification to be filed by 

June 8, 2015. ECF No. 142. The Court has already continued that deadline once; the original 

deadline was October 1, 2014. ECF No. 66. 

The Court finds that granting Defendants’ motion to bifurcate would not allow class 

certification motions to be filed by June 8, 2015. If the Court bifurcates discovery and grants 

Defendants forty-five days to conduct discovery solely as to individual issues, that discovery will 

likely not be complete until late March. Defendants would then have to prepare and file a motion 

for summary judgment; assuming this would require approximately a month, the motion would be 

filed in late April, and heard in early June. The Court would then have to issue an order on 

summary judgment, and only then—assuming McLaughlin and True Health remained in the 

case—could class discovery even begin. A motion for class certification would not be ready for 

hearing until class discovery was complete. In short, bifurcation would render the filing of class 

certification motions by June 8, 2015 impossible. And, given that this case was filed in mid-2013, 

further continuing class certification would not lead to a decision on class certification “[a]t an 

early practicable time.”

This factor weighs against bifurcation.

C. Judicial Economy

Defendants’ main assertion in support of the motion to bifurcate is that permitting 

discovery only as to the individual named plaintiffs has the potential to streamline this litigation 

by preventing: (1) needless discovery on class issues that will not be relevant when the named 

plaintiffs are dismissed from the case (as Defendants contend they will be), and (2) the Court and 

parties from having to proceed after the named plaintiffs are dismissed.

The Court acknowledges that, assuming the named plaintiffs are not adequate class 

representatives, bifurcating discovery could prevent unnecessary discovery. But the Court also 

finds that bifurcation has the potential to complicate this litigation further, even if the named 

Case 4:13-cv-02219-HSG Document 157 Filed 01/20/15 Page 3 of 6
4

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

plaintiffs are not adequate class representatives.1 And if the named plaintiffs are adequate class 

representatives, bifurcation will not have streamlined anything or otherwise served the interest of 

judicial economy. 

First, the Court finds that bifurcation has the potential to further complicate this 

litigation—even if Defendants are correct that True Health and McLaughlin do not meet the class 

definition—because, as Judge Ryu explained in her order on the parties’ letter briefs in this case, 

“the line between ‘class certification discovery’ on the one hand, and ‘pure merits’ discovery on 

the other, can be difficult to discern.” ECF No. 127 at 2. Thus, bifurcation could raise a slew of 

issues as to what discovery relates to the class, as opposed to the named plaintiffs, thereby causing 

additional litigation regarding the distinction between the two. See Makaeff, 2014 WL 3490356, 

at *7 (discussing Plaintiffs’ belief that “the overlap between class and merits discovery in this case 

is such that bifurcation would lead to needless litigation over the distinction between the two, and 

inefficiencies in the discovery process.”) (emphases omitted); In re Rail Freight Surcharge 

Antitrust Litig., 258 F.R.D. 167, 174 (D.D.C. 2009) (“Bifurcated discovery fails to promote 

judicial economy when it requires ongoing supervision of discovery. If bifurcated, this Court 

would likely have to resolve various needless disputes that would arise concerning the 

classification of each document as ‘merits’ or ‘certification’ discovery.”) (internal citation and 

quotations omitted). Nothing prevents the parties from simultaneously engaging in both class and 

individual discovery, which will not result in the common problem identified by the courts cited 

above. See Manual for Complex Litigation (4th) § 11.213 (“Discovery may proceed concurrently 

if bifurcating class discovery from merits discovery would result in significant duplication of 

effort and expense to the parties.”)

Second, even if discovery proves that True Health and McLaughlin should not represent 

the class, Defendants appear to assume that the case will be dismissed, and therefore that neither 

the parties nor the Court will have anything left to do in the case. See ECF No. 145 at 8 (“[I]f 

 

1

The Court will not attempt to evaluate the merits of whether McLaughlin and True Health are

adequate class representatives or what further discovery will show. Any such assessment would 

be speculative.

Case 4:13-cv-02219-HSG Document 157 Filed 01/20/15 Page 4 of 6
5

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

Plaintiffs do not fit into the definition of the class, then they cannot serve as class representatives 

and the class claims should be dismissed.”). In reality, however, if True Health and McLaughlin 

are found to not meet the class definition, Plaintiffs will likely seek to proceed with the case by 

finding other, adequate representatives.

Third, the Court finds that it must weigh the possibility that discovery will show that True 

Health and McLaughlin are adequate class representatives. In that event, the parties and the Court 

would have needlessly undertaken several steps in this case, resulting in inefficiency and a lack of 

judicial economy.

Finally, the Court notes that Judge Tigar’s Standing Order for All Civil Cases, which is 

available at http://cand.uscourts.gov/jstorders, provides that the Court will only consider one 

motion for summary judgment per party in a case, and that any party that hopes to exceed this 

limit must request leave of the Court and show good cause. The Court issued this standing order 

in the interest of judicial economy. Thus, if Defendants believe that—if this case would not end 

after the Court decides their proposed motion for partial summary judgment—they would like to 

file a second motion for summary judgment, they should be aware that some judicial-economybased-obstacles stand in the way of them doing so.

Overall, this factor weighs against bifurcation.

D. Prejudice

The potential for prejudice resulting from granting or denying the motion to bifurcate runs 

both ways. Bifurcation could delay Defendants’ production in response to Plaintiffs’ outstanding 

discovery requests, which have already been extensively litigated. Defendants have also explained 

that they will potentially be prejudiced if their motion is not granted because they will have to 

engage in unnecessary discovery. 

Accordingly, the Court finds that this factor is neutral.

E. Other Considerations

An additional consideration weighs against bifurcating individual and class discovery in 

this case—namely, the relatively late date of the request, especially given that the parties initially 

agreed not to bifurcate discovery. It was not unforeseeable at the outset of the litigation that 

Case 4:13-cv-02219-HSG Document 157 Filed 01/20/15 Page 5 of 6
6

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

United States District Court

Northern District of California

Defendants might wish to challenge the named class representatives, since that is a potential issue 

in a considerable percentage of putative class actions. Cf. Flores v. Velocity Express, Case No. 

3:12-cv-05790-JST, ECF No. 122 at 3 (noting the “unique circumstances associated with this 

case” that merited bifurcation, “most of which could not be foreseen at the time the Court entered 

the original schedule”). 

The Court finds that this additional consideration weighs against bifurcation.

CONCLUSION

Having weighed the foregoing factors, the Court finds that bifurcation of discovery at this 

time is not warranted. Accordingly, the Court hereby denies Defendants’ motion and orders the 

parties to proceed with both class and individual discovery. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: January 20, 2015

______________________________________

JON S. TIGAR

United States District Judge

Case 4:13-cv-02219-HSG Document 157 Filed 01/20/15 Page 6 of 6