Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_03-cv-04447/USCOURTS-cand-3_03-cv-04447-35/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:271 Patent Infringement

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

KEVIN KEITHLEY,

Plaintiff,

 v.

THE HOME STORE.COM, INC., et. al.,

Defendants. /

No. C-03-04447 SI (EDL)

ORDER DENYING WITHOUT

PREJUDICE AS PREMATURE

PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR

SANCTIONS REGARDING REQUESTS

FOR ADMISSION AND DENYING

DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR

SANCTIONS 

Plaintiff seeks evidentiary and monetary sanctions based on Homestore.com’s responses to

requests for admissions served on March 5 and 7, 2007. Plaintiff contends that Defendants

improperly denied outright or denied with baseless qualifications the vast majority of the requests

for admissions, thereby requiring Plaintiff to substantially expand his discovery efforts to establish

facts that should have been admitted in response to those requests for admissions. Plaintiff points to

the deposition of Phillip Dawley, Defendants’ Chief Technology Officer, in April 2007 and January

2008, during which Mr. Dawley freely admitted many of the same facts, often in response to

questions posed in the same language as requests for admission that had previously been denied. In

response to Plaintiff’s motion, Defendants filed their own motion for sanctions on the grounds that

Plaintiff failed to meet and confer.

The Court held a hearing on Plaintiff’s motion on March 18, 2008. The Court ordered

additional briefing, which was filed on March 21, 25 and 27, 2008. For the reasons set forth in this

order and at the hearing, the Court denies Plaintiff’s motion for sanctions without prejudice as

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premature and Defendants’ motion for sanctions with prejudice. 

Plaintiff filed his motion for sanctions on January 29, 2008. On February 11, 2008,

Defendants informed Plaintiff by letter that they believed the motion was filed without proper meet

and confer. See Notice of Withdrawal Ex. A. On that same day, Plaintiff offered to meet and confer

and gave Defendants until the next day at 3:00 p.m. EST to agree to do so. See id. On February 12,

2008, Defendants sent a letter to Plaintiff stating that they would welcome an opportunity to meet

and confer. See Opp. to Notice to Withdrawal Ex. C. 

Also on February 12, 2008, Defendants timely filed their opposition to Plaintiff’s motion for

sanctions, arguing, inter alia, that Plaintiff failed to meet and confer prior to filing the motion. 

Plaintiff concedes as much. See Mot. for Sanctions at 14:1-4 (“Although it would ordinarily be

appropriate for Plaintiffs first to demand Homestore’s compliance with the discovery rules before

filing this motion, the damage had already been done through Homestore’s willful evasion of

discovery by its improper denials of information it knew to be true.”). In an apparent attempt to cure

this defect, on February 12, 2008 at 4:20 p.m. PST, Plaintiff filed a pleading withdrawing the motion

for sanctions and re-noticing it for a new hearing date. 

Plaintiff did not properly meet and confer in advance of filing his motion as required by the

Local Rules. See Civil L.R. 37-1 (“The Court will not entertain a request or a motion to resolve a

disclosure or discovery dispute unless, pursuant to FRCivP 37, counsel have previously conferred

for the purpose of attempting to resolve all disputed issues.”); Civil L.R. 1-5(n) (“‘Meet and confer’

or ‘confer’ means to communicate directly and discuss in good faith the issue(s) required under the

particular Rule or order. Unless these Local Rules otherwise provide or a Judge otherwise orders,

such communication may take place by telephone. The mere sending of a written, electronic or

voice-mail communication, however, does not satisfy a requirement to ‘meet and confer’ or to

‘confer.’ Rather, this requirement can be satisfied only through direct dialogue and discussion -

either in a face to face meeting or in a telephone conversation.”). Instead of withdrawing the motion

for a sufficient time to allow good faith meet and confer efforts, he gave Defendants a short deadline

within which to meet and confer, and then filed the motion for sanctions the next day. The Court

does not condone this conduct. 

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Even if the parties had adequately met and conferred, Plaintiff’s motion for sanctions is

premature. Plaintiff seeks sanctions pursuant to Rule 37(c)(2), which states:

If a party fails to admit what is requested under Rule 36 and if the requesting party

later proves a document to be genuine or the matter true, the requesting party may

move that the party who failed to admit pay the reasonable expenses, including

attorney's fees, incurred in making that proof. The court must so order unless:

(A) the request was held objectionable under Rule 36(a);

(B) the admission sought was of no substantial importance;

(C) the party failing to admit had a reasonable ground to believe that it might prevail

on the matter; or

(D) there was other good reason for the failure to admit.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(2). Pursuant to the Advisory Committee Notes: “. . . Rule 37(c) is intended to

provide posttrial relief in the form of a requirement that the party improperly refusing the admission

pay the expenses of the other side in making the necessary proof at trial.” See Rule 37 (Advisory

Committee Notes (1970 Amendment)); see also Wright, Miller & Marcus, Federal Practice and

Procedure Civil 2d § 2290 (“If a party has failed to admit a matter when requested to do so under

Rule 36, and the requesting party thereafter proves the truth of the matter, the requesting party may

move after trial for an order that the party refusing to admit pay the reasonable expenses incurred in

making that proof, including reasonable attorney’s fees.”); 7 James Wm. Moore, et al., Moore’s

Federal Practice ¶ 37.75 (3d ed. 1997) (“However, the rule which provides for such sanctions is

intended to provide post-trial relief and in the vast majority of circumstances, it would be

inappropriate for counsel to seek expense shifting sanctions prior to completion of trial. As a

practical matter, it generally is necessary to complete a proceeding before a court would be able to

conclude that the moving party had proven the truth of the matter for which an admission was

requested, because a court must consider all rebuttal evidence before it may determine what has

been proven.”). Accordingly, the Court ordered further briefing on the issue of whether Plaintiff’s

motion for sanctions in advance of trial or at least summary judgment was premature. 

Plaintiff argued in his supplemental brief that courts have considered requests under Rule

37(c)(2) before trial. Most of the cases cited by Plaintiff, however, are inapposite. For example,

some courts have considered awards under Rule 37(c)(2) following the grant of summary judgment,

which is a final disposition akin to a trial, which similarly enables the Court to determine that the

matter asked about has been proven true and that the exception under Rule 37(c)(2) for insubstantial

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matters does not apply. See Chemical Engineering Corp. v. Essef Indus., Inc., 795 F.2d 1565, 1575

(Fed. Cir. 1986) (affirming the district court’s award of fees after the matters were proven true on a

motion for summary judgment, which was granted, resulting in entering judgment); Read-Rite Corp.

v. Burlington Air Express, Ltd., 183 F.R.D. 545 (N.D. Cal. 1998) (denying fees under Rule 37(c)(2)

after summary judgment granted in part because the plaintiff did not incur costs as a result of the

defendant’s failure to admit and because the requested admissions were not of substantial

importance); but see Orleman v. Jumpking, Inc., 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11081 (D. Kan. July 11,

2000) (awarding reasonable expenses under Rule 37(c)(2) for responses to the plaintiff’s requests for

admission that were not sufficiently forthcoming in explaining the extent of denials, as revealed by a

subsequent deposition without addressing the issue of whether Rule 37(c)(2) applies prior ro

summary judgment or trial); In re The Matter of Central Gulf Lines, Inc., 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS

5948 (E.D. La. May 3, 2001) (affirming magistrate judge’s ultimate denial of fees and costs in

connection with denials of requests for admission due to failure to comply with the local rules but

finding that, with trial fast approaching, the initial determination to grant fees and costs was not

clearly erroneous, without addressing whether Rule 37(c)(2) applies prior to summary judgment or

trial). 

Moreover, the Court cannot conclusively determine at this stage of the litigation whether any

of the admissions fall within an exception to the otherwise mandatory fee award, such as whether the

admission sought was of no substantial importance. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(2)(B). In Read-Rite,

for example, the court denied expenses under Rule 37(c)(2) in part because certain requests for

admission were not of substantial importance to the litigation in light of the district court’s ruling on

summary judgment. See Read-Rite, 183 F.R.D. at 547 (“Since these requests [for admission] were

based on the ‘entire shipment’ theory of liability and Judge Wilken found that that theory did not

apply, these requested admissions were not substantially important to the litigation.”). 

Finally, although Plaintiff’s motion is denied for failure to meet and confer, the Court does

not condone Defendants’ inadequate response to Plaintiff’s requests for admission and is troubled by

Defendants’ conduct regarding this motion. Following receipt of Defendants’ responses to the

requests for admission, Plaintiff deposed Phillip Dawley on two different occasions in April 2007

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and January 2008. A comparison of the responses to the requests for admission and his testimony

reveals numerous instances in which Mr. Dawley affirmatively and without difficulty answered

questions that were previously denied when posed in requests for admissions. For example, request

for admission number 1 states: “Admit that Move.com receives information on real properties for

sale.” Mosko Decl. Ex. A at 6. Defendants responded:

Homestore objects to this request to the extent it seeks conclusions of law rather than

the admission or denial of a specific fact. The construction of claim terms is

determined by the Court as a matter of law. [citations omitted]. The terms “receive”

and “information” have not yet been construed by the Court in the present lawsuit. 

Homestore further objects to this request to the extent the terms “Move.com,”

“receives,” “information” and “real properties” are vague and ambiguous. 

Accordingly, Homestore denies this request. 

Mosko Decl. Ex. C at 4. Yet Mr. Dawley’s deposition testimony states: “Q: Okay, and Move

receives information on real properties for sale, of course? A: Of course.” Mosko Decl. Ex. G at

658:7-9 (emphasis added). 

Defendants’ objection on the grounds that the terms “receive” and “information” had not yet

been construed by the district court is without merit. Those terms were not even on Defendants’

proposed list of claim terms and alternate claim terms for construction, which was dated March 16,

2007, at least two weeks before Defendants served its responses to Plaintiff’s requests for admission. 

See Mosko Decl. Ex. L. Therefore, Defendants knew that the universe of terms that they had asked

the district court had been asked to construe did not include the terms “receive” and “information.” 

Further, even if the terms were to be construed by the Court, Defendants could simply have

responded to the requests with qualified admissions that explained in detail why certain portions of

the requests could or could not be admitted based, for example, on Defendants’ proposed

construction of disputed claim terms. See Marchaud v. Mercy Medical Center, 22 F.3d 933, 938

(9th Cir. 1994) (approving qualified responses to requests for admission: “. . . parties should not

seek to evade disclosures by quibbling or objection. They should admit to the fullest extent

possible, and explain in detail why other portions of a request may not be admitted.”) (citing Fed. R.

Civ. P. 36(a)). 

Defendants also rely on the statement in Tulip Computers v. Dell Computer Corp., 210

F.R.D. 100 (D. Del. 2002) that “requests [for admission] directed towards applying the claims of the

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patent or requiring application of the claims prior to any Markman ruling are not the application of

law to facts relevant to the case, but in reality are requests for legal conclusions and therefore,

improper.” Tulip, 210 F.R.D. at 108. However, the opinion does not set out the text of the disputed

requests for admission, stating only that three of the disputed requests for admission “rely upon what

the alleged invention claims in the patent-in-suit is.” Defendants has made no showing that the

requests for admission in this case are similar to those in Tulip. Furthermore, even if they were

similar, Markman should not be used as an excuse to evade the responsibility to fully and fairly

respond to requests for admission, using qualifications as necessary, rather than seeking “to evade

disclosure by quibbling and objection.” See Marchaud, 22 F.3d at 938. While the construction of

claim terms has been labeled a question of law, the requests for admission here call at most for the

application of law to facts, which is a proper subject of requests for admission. See Fed. R. Civ. P.

36(a). 

Despite having objected to many requests for admission on the grounds that terms found in

those requests had not yet been construed by the district court, at the hearing Defendants could only

point to one claim term, “server,” that they objected to on this basis and had proposed to the district

court for construction. See, e.g., Mosko Decl. Ex. A at 6 (Request for Admission number four:

“Admit that Move.com has a file server.”); Mosko Decl. Ex. C at 6 (“Homestore objects to this

request to the extent it seeks conclusions of law rather than the admission or denial of a specific fact. 

The construction of claim terms is determined by the Court as a matter of law. [citations omitted]. 

The term “file server” has not yet been construed by the Court in the present lawsuit. Homestore

further objects to this request to the extent the term “Move.com” is vague and ambiguous. 

Accordingly, Homestore denies this request.”). Yet its Rule 30(b)(6) witness readily admitted that

Defendant has a file server. See Mosko Decl. Ex. E at 214:20-21 (“Q: So Move has a file server? 

A: Yes.”). Moreover, Defendants’ counsel acknowledged at the hearing that the response to the

request for admission regarding a server may well have been the same under either party’s proposed

construction of that term. Tr. at 5:18-21; 7:12-15. Therefore, a denial on the basis that claim

construction had not yet occurred, without any qualification, was improper. Further, as Plaintiff’s

counsel pointed out at the hearing, Defendants’ own documents make reference to the fact that

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Defendants’ system contains a server. See Tr. at 7:17-20; Mosko Supp. Decl. Ex. O. Yet

Defendants flatly denied requests for admission, such as number four, containing the term “server,”

instead of qualifying their response based on their proposed construction of the term or on their

interpretation of the term in their own documents. 

In an effort to justify its objection based on future claim construction, Defendants have since

argued in its supplemental briefing that terms such as “receive” and “information” were part of the

terms that were construed by the district court. See Pleune Decl. Re: Pl.’s Request for Relief at ¶ 8. 

For example, a form of “receive” was part of the term, “File server means for receiving data from

said media means, receiving data inquiries and transferring data in response to said data inquiries.” 

However, the parties did not propose that “receive” itself be construed, and in his September 10,

2007 claim construction order, Judge Jenkins did not construe “receive” separately. Moreover,

Defendants’ declaration in support of its supplemental briefing is somewhat misleading; the

declaration purports to establish that Plaintiff’s requests contained many disputed claim terms, but in

fact, with the exception of “server,” the requests instead contained words that also happened to be in

construed phrases but that were not the disputed terms in these phrases. See, e.g., Pleune Decl. re:

Pl.’s Request for Relief at ¶ 8 (stating that claim term “user” was contained in ten requests for

admission, but the term “user” was not itself separately construed; while the phrases “said end user

inquiries being the retrieving and viewing of test and/or graphic data from a database” and

“compiling and merging a plurality of first end user inquires” were construed, both constructions

maintained the word “user,” and in one case, both parties included the word “user” in their

respective proposed constructions). Tellingly, Defendants did not seek agreement of Plaintiff or

leave of Court to amend their responses to requests for admission after the Court issued its claim

construction. See March 18, 2008 Hearing Tr. at 6:6-16 (Defendants’ counsel conceded that

Defendants did not revisit their responses to requests for admission after claim construction). 

Defendants’ cross-motion for sanctions is denied with prejudice for the failure to meet and

confer and for lack of merit. Despite Defendants’ argument that Plaintiff failed to properly meet and

confer prior to filing his motion for sanctions, Defendants are guilty of the same conduct. Although

Defendants rely on two letters that it sent to Plaintiff purportedly in satisfaction of its meet and

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confer obligations, the exchange of written communications does not satisfy the meet and confer

requirement. See Civil L.R. 37-1; Civil L.R. 1-5(n). Defendants are also not entitled to sanctions

given their own failure to fairly respond to Plaintiff’s requests for admission both before and after

the claim construction. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: May 8, 2008 

ELIZABETH D. LAPORTE

United States Magistrate Judge

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