Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_11-cv-00432/USCOURTS-azd-2_11-cv-00432-6/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 470
Nature of Suit: Civil (Rico)
Cause of Action: 18:1962 Racketeering (RICO) Act

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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Cellco Partnership doing business as

Verizon Wireless, 

Plaintiff, 

vs. 

Jason Hope, et al., 

Defendants.

No. CV11-0432 PHX DGC

ORDER 

 Having reached the end of six-week criminal trial, the Court has time to turn to the 

parties’ discovery disputes as set forth in matrixes provided to the Court in January. The 

Court’s decisions are set forth below. 

A. Plaintiff’s discovery issues. 

 1. Defendants’ agreement to withdraw all AEO designations from the 

cloaking software-related documents has resolved this issue. 

 2. The Court concludes that Defendants have largely complied with the 

language from the TRO quoted in this issue. To the extent Plaintiff needs additional 

information regarding the imaging process, it may conduct a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition. 

 3. Defendants have stated they are willing to pay half the cost of repairing or 

restoring the hard drives at issue, providing the costs are reasonable. The parties indicate 

that this willingness effectively resolves issue 3. 

 4. Defendants state that they are in the process of producing additional 

responsive documents. If those documents have not yet been produced, they shall be 

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produced to Plaintiff on or before March 9, 2012. Defendants assert that chats were not 

saved unless a user copied a particular communication into or attached it to an email or 

other document. To the extent Defendants assert that they do not have chats responsive 

to Plaintiff’s document requests, this statement shall be clearly made, on or before 

March 9, 2012, in an appropriate response under Rule 34(b), signed pursuant to Rule 

26(g). With respect to customer data described in request 12, Defendants identify 

particular server locations where the information can be located. Plaintiff asserts that 

extracting the data from these sources would be an enormous undertaking. If the 

information sought by request 12 is not contained in a more accessible location, 

Defendants shall clearly state this fact, on or before March 9, 2012, in an appropriate 

Rule34(b)(2) response, signed pursuant to Rule 26(g). Because Rule 34(b)(2)(E)(i) 

permits a party to produce information as it is kept in the usual course of business, the 

Court will not require Defendants to extract the customer data from the servicers if such 

data is not available in some other form or location. 

 5. Defendants state that to the extent they can locate actual landing pages that 

were used, they have produced them or are in the process of producing them. Defendants 

further state that to the extent they can locate images of landing pages that were created 

in the ordinary course of business, as testified to by Mr. Erkkila, Defendants have 

produced them or are in the process of producing them. To the extent Defendants have 

not completed this production, they shall do so by March 2, 2012. Both parties discussed 

the recreation of landing pages. Both parties seem to agree that recreation of landing 

pages is a difficult and time-consuming process. Plaintiff argues that Defendants are 

required to recreate the landing pages under the provision of Rule 34(a)(1)(A) which 

requires “translation by the responding party into a reasonably usable form.” The Court 

does not agree that translation of data into a usable form requires a responding party to 

recreate documents through an expensive and time-consuming process. The Court 

therefore will not require Defendants to recreate landing pages. Defendants concede that 

a number of landing pages were recreated by Mr. Erkkila in preparation for the 

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preliminary injunction hearing. Defendants assert that these pages constitute work 

product. This assertion appears to be correct. The Court concludes, however, that the 

landing pages actually used by Defendants are critical to this litigation. The Court also 

concludes that Plaintiff cannot, without undue hardship, obtain their substantial 

equivalent by other means. Not only do both parties agree that the recreation of landing 

pages is an expensive and time-consuming process, but Defendants also assert that any 

such recreation is almost certain to be an inaccurate representation of the landing pages 

actually used. Because the Court concludes that Plaintiff has substantial need for the 

landing pages used by Defendants, and that Plaintiff cannot, without undue hardship, 

obtain their substantial equivalent by other means, the Court concludes that Defendants’ 

work product protection in the landing pages created by Mr. Erkkila for the preliminary 

injunction hearing has been overcome pursuant to Rule 26(b)(3)(A)(ii). Defendants shall 

produce the Erkkila-produced landing pages to Plaintiff on or before March 9, 2012. 

B. Defendants’ discovery disputes.

NUI No. 1: Defendants assert that the information sought in this interrogatory is 

relevant to their antitrust and tortuous interference claims. Because these claims have 

been dismissed (Doc. 273), no further response will be required of Plaintiff. 

NUI No. 2: Defendants assert that the information sought in this interrogatory is 

relevant to their antitrust and tortuous interference claims. Because these claims have 

been dismissed (Doc. 273), no further response will be required of Plaintiff. 

NUI No. 3: The Court concludes that some of the information sought in this 

interrogatory is relevant to Defendants’ defense – to show that there is always a certain 

percentage of customers who express dissatisfaction with and cancel mobile text services. 

The Court will therefore require Plaintiff to provide the following information: with 

respect to all Verizon subscriptions, alerts, downloadable applications, or 

messaging/mobile content services (collectively “Services”), Plaintiff shall provide, in 

the form of monthly totals from January 1, 2010 to the present, (1) the number of new 

customer sign-ups (for all Services in the aggregate), (2) the number of customer 

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cancellations for all Services, and the total active customer count for all Services. To the 

extent available, Plaintiff shall provide the monthly total charge-backs/refunds for all 

Services for this same time period. This information shall be provided on or before 

March 2, 2012. 

 NUI No. 7: Plaintiff states that it will produce two additional spreadsheets by 

January 17, 2012, that it will serve supplemental responses containing dollar figures for 

Aegis Mobile’s investigation of Defendants’ practices, and Stroz Friedberg’s forensic 

analysis, and further states that it will produce the underlying data for its expert analysis 

within 15 days of the matrix having been created. If Plaintiff has not produced all of this 

information, it shall do so on or before March 9, 2012. The Court will not otherwise 

require Plaintiff to produce an expert analysis of its damages until the expert disclosure 

date. 

NUI No. 11: This interrogatory seeks communications related to the Walker class 

action case in Illinois. The Court has already concluded that the claims asserted in this 

case were not asserted in, or settled by, the Walker litigation, and that the Walker

litigation has no res judicata effect on this case. Doc. 251-2 at 40-44. The Court 

accordingly concludes that the information sought in this interrogatory is not relevant and 

need not be produced by Plaintiff. 

NUI No. 17: This interrogatory seeks information regarding Plaintiff’s efforts “to 

comply with the MMA Guidelines and the Verizon Playbook” when Plaintiff advertises 

Services. Plaintiff’s response asserts that MMA Guidelines do not apply to any text 

messaging services offered by Plaintiff. Plaintiff’s statement of its position in the matrix 

asserts that there is no “Verizon Playbook.” If Plaintiff has not stated these facts in a 

Rule 33(b) answer, signed under oath as required in Rule 33(b)(3), it shall do so on or 

before March 2, 2012. Because Plaintiff asserts (or will assert) under oath that it is not 

subject to the MMA Guidelines and that there is no Verizon Playbook, there is no 

additional information Plaintiff must provide in response to this interrogatory, which 

focuses solely on these sources of guidance. 

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NUI No. 19: Plaintiff states that it will provide the answer to the second subpart 

of this interrogatory by January 16, 2012. If it has not already done so, it shall provide 

this answer on or before March 9, 2012. By March 9, 2012, Plaintiff shall provide a full 

and complete response to the first part of this interrogatory showing all amounts of 

money that Plaintiff has collected from its customers for Jawa services but that Plaintiff 

has withheld from Jawa and/or any aggregator, specifying the total amount collected, any 

money Plaintiff has deducted from funds that otherwise would have been paid to Jawa or 

an aggregator, and the specific reasons for such deductions. 

NUI No. 20: To the extent this interrogatory seeks information regarding 

Plaintiff’s damages, the Court incorporates its ruling with respect to NUI No. 7. To the 

extent this interrogatory asks Plaintiff to describe the basis for its causation allegations 

with particularity, Plaintiff shall do so on or before March 9, 2012. 

NUI No. 21: Plaintiff’s reference to the deposition testimony of Mr. Salkoff is not 

sufficient. Plaintiff shall respond completely to this interrogatory on or before March 9, 

2012.

NUI No. 22: Plaintiff’s reference to the deposition testimony of Mr. Salkoff is not 

sufficient. Plaintiff shall respond completely to this interrogatory on or before March 9, 

2012.

NUI No. 23: In connection with the information called for with NUI No. 3, 

Plaintiff shall, with respect to each month’s total number of customer cancellations, 

identify how many cancellation charges were waived. This information shall be 

produced on or before March 9, 2012. 

RFP No. 2: The Court concludes that the documents sought in this request are 

not sufficiently “relevant to any party’s claim or defense” to warrant production. Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 

RFP No. 3: The Court concludes that its ruling on NUI No. 7 adequately covers 

this issue. 

RFP No. 4: Plaintiff states that it “will be producing responsive documents on a 

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rolling basis.” Plaintiff shall complete all production responsive to this request on or 

before March 9, 2012. To the extent Plaintiff contends that documents may be withheld 

as privileged or work product, it shall identify those documents in a privilege log 

pursuant to Rule 26(b)(5). 

RFP No. 5: Plaintiff states that it “will be producing documents on a rolling 

basis.” Plaintiff shall complete its production of all documents responsive to this request 

on or before March 9, 2012. 

RFP No. 7: Plaintiff’s objections are not well taken. Plaintiff shall produce all 

documents responsive to this request on or before March 9, 2012. If Plaintiff has 

previously produced such documents, it shall identify the documents, by Bates number, 

that are responsive to this request on or before March 9, 2012. 

RFP No. 8: Plaintiff states that it “will be producing any other non-privileged 

documents on a rolling basis.” Plaintiff shall produce all documents responsive to this 

request on or before March 9, 2012. If it has previously produced such documents, it 

shall identify them by Bates number. If Plaintiff withholds documents pursuant to the 

attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine, it shall identify those documents in 

a privilege log pursuant to Rule 26(b)(5). 

RFP No. 9: Plaintiff again states that it “will be producing responsive documents 

on a rolling basis.” Plaintiff shall produce all documents responsive to this request on or 

before March 9, 2012. 

RFP No. 11: Plaintiff again states that it “will be producing responsive documents 

on a rolling basis.” Plaintiff shall produce all documents responsive to this request on or 

before March 9, 2012. 

RFP No. 12: Plaintiff again states that it “will be producing responsive documents 

on a rolling basis.” This response is not sufficient. Plaintiff shall produce all documents 

responsive to this request on or before March 9, 2012. 

 RFP No. 13: The Court concludes that the documents sought in this request are 

not sufficiently “relevant to any party’s claim or defense” to warrant production. Fed. R. 

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Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 

RFP No. 14: Plaintiff states it will produce responsive documents within 15 days 

of the matrix having been prepared. If Plaintiff has not done so, it shall produce such 

documents on or before March 9, 2012. If Plaintiff withholds documents pursuant to the 

attorney-client privilege or work product doctrine, it shall identify those documents in a 

privilege log pursuant to Rule 26(b)(5). 

RFP No. 15: Plaintiff states that it shall produce a “handful of responsive 

recordings within 15 days.” Plaintiff shall produce all responsive recordings on or before 

March 9, 2012. 

RFP No. 16: Plaintiff states that it “will be producing responsive documents on a 

rolling basis.” Plaintiff shall produce all responsive documents on or before March 9, 

2012. If Plaintiff withholds documents pursuant to the attorney-client privilege or work 

product doctrine, it shall identify those documents in a privilege log pursuant to Rule 

26(b)(5). 

RFP No. 19: Defendants assert that the information sought in this request is 

relevant to their counterclaims. The Court has dismissed all counterclaims other than 

business disparagement and unjust enrichment. Doc. 273. The Court concludes that 

these documents are not relevant to the remaining counterclaims. 

RFP No. 20: Defendants assert that the information sought in this request is 

relevant to their counterclaims. The Court has dismissed all counterclaims other than 

business disparagement and unjust enrichment. Doc. 273. The Court concludes that 

these documents are not relevant to the remaining counterclaims. 

C. Plaintiff’s use of AEO designations. 

On or before March 9, 2012, Defendants shall identify for Plaintiff each category 

of document that Defendants believe should be de-designated. Plaintiff shall consider 

these categories and provide a written response to Plaintiff on or before March 16, 2012. 

If the parties cannot reach agreement on this issue, they shall place a conference call to 

the Court. The Court will then review selected AEO documents provided by Defendants. 

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The Court agrees with Judge Martone’s view of the rare applicability of AEO 

designations. See American Traffic Solutions, Inc. v. Redflex Traffic Systems, 2010 

WL481408 at *2 (D. Ariz. Feb. 8, 2010). 

 Dated this 22nd day of February, 2012. 

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