Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_17-cv-00441/USCOURTS-casd-3_17-cv-00441-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 790
Nature of Suit: Other Labor Litigation
Cause of Action: 28:1441ds Removal- Contract Dispute

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17CV441-W (JMA) 

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

JEFF DAUZ, 

Plaintiff,

v. 

AIT WORLDWIDE LOGISTICS, INC., 

etc., et al., 

Defendants.

 Case No.: 17CV441-W (JMA) 

ORDER REGARDING JOINT 

MOTION FOR DETERMINATION OF 

DISCOVERY DISPUTE [ECF No. 17]

 Presently before the Court is a Joint Motion for Determination of Discovery 

Dispute in which Plaintiff Jeff Dauz (“Plaintiff”) seeks an order compelling 

Defendant AIT Worldwide Logistics, Inc. (“Defendant”) to respond to requests for 

production of documents. (ECF No. 17.) For the reasons set forth below, 

Plaintiff’s request is DENIED. 

I. BACKGROUND 

 Plaintiff previously worked for Defendant as an Account Executive. Compl., 

¶ 9. Defendant terminated Plaintiff’s employment on April 6, 2016. Id., ¶ 17. 

Plaintiff asserts claims for breach of contract; breach of the covenant of good 

faith and fair dealing; promissory estoppel; recovery of unpaid vacation time, 

wages, interest, attorney’s fees, and costs; failure to pay commissions owed; 

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17CV441-W (JMA) 

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failure to pay wages at termination; failure to provide a written contract setting 

forth the method by which his commissions were computed and earned; 

conversion; and unfair business practices. Id., at 6-14. At issue in the present 

dispute are Plaintiff’s Requests for Production Nos. 9 and 12 propounded upon 

Defendant: 

Request for Production No. 9: A spread sheet or spread sheets for 

each account handled by PLAINTIFF while employed by YOU and 

following those accounts in the four years preceding PLAINTIFF’s 

termination by YOU to the present date, breaking down each account 

by Total Revenue, Total Profit, Total Number of Shipments, Profit 

Percentage, and Profit Bill. 

Request for Production No. 12: DOCUMENTS sufficient to 

demonstrate how YOU calculated the amounts of all payments, 

whether in the form of salary, commissions, bonus, or compensation 

for accrued but unused compensable time, paid by YOU to 

PLAINTIFF in the last four years from the present date. 

Joint Motion, ECF No. 17 at 3 & Ex. B at 5-6. Defendant objected to both 

requests. Defendant argues Plaintiff’s Complaint limits his unpaid commissions 

claim to those allegedly earned in relation to the CareFusion account, Plaintiff 

testified in his deposition that he was paid for all commissions earned during his 

employment, and the discovery sought is unduly burdensome because not all of 

the data is easily retrievable and data prior to October 2014 has been archived. 

II. DISCUSSION 

 The pleadings define the scope of discovery. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1) 

(“Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant 

to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case . . . .”). 

Rule 8 provides the general rules of pleading, and states that a complaint must 

include “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is 

entitled to relief” in order to “’give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff’s 

claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’” Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 

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17CV441-W (JMA) 

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U.S. 506, 512 (2002) (citing Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)). A 

complaint does not need detailed factual allegations, but a plaintiff’s obligation to 

provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief “requires more than labels and 

conclusions.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007). A 

complaint does not meet the requirements of Rule 8 “if it tenders ‘naked 

assertion[s]’ devoid of ‘further factual enhancement.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 

662, 678 (2009). “Rule 8 . . . does not unlock the doors of discovery for a plaintiff 

armed with nothing more than conclusions.” Id. at 678-79 (citation omitted). 

 In the factual allegations of his Complaint, Plaintiff recounts with specificity 

his efforts in renewing the CareFusion contract. Compl., ¶¶ 15-19. He alleges, 

inter alia, “On information and belief, AIT has earned substantial commissionable 

revenue from the renewal of Plaintiff’s [CareFusion] account. To date, AIT has 

refused to pay Plaintiff any commissions on that account.” Id., ¶ 19. The 

Complaint contains no factual allegations regarding any other accounts for which 

Plaintiff alleges he was not paid his full commissions. Even so, Plaintiff contends 

he is entitled to conduct an audit of each of the accounts for which he was the 

“procuring cause of the business” for Defendant in order to prove the “fact and 

amount” of unpaid commissions owed to him. Joint Motion, ECF No. 17 at 2, 5; 

Compl., ¶ 35. Defendant counters that Plaintiff’s Complaint makes apparent his 

commissions claim is limited to CareFusion account commissions following his 

departure. Joint Motion, ECF No. 17 at 11. 

 The Court agrees with Defendant. The factual allegations in the Complaint 

pertain only to post-termination commissions relating to the CareFusion account. 

There are no factual allegations in the Complaint supporting an assertion that 

Defendant owes Plaintiff pre-termination commissions for any other account. 

Rather, the Complaint contains only bare and conclusory assertions that 

Defendant did not pay Plaintiff all commissions owed. See, e.g., Compl., ¶ 17, 

30, 35. The allegations in the Complaint provide Defendant fair notice of only 

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unpaid commissions relating to the CareFusion account. They do not provide 

any grounds to place Defendant on notice of other accounts for which 

commissions were allegedly unpaid. 

 It is evident Plaintiff seeks to undertake a fishing expedition by conducting 

an audit of all accounts he handled in order to search for unpaid commissions. 

See Joint Motion, ECF No. 17 at 2-3, 5; Rivera v. NIBCO, Inc., 364 F.3d 1057, 

1072 (“District courts need not condone the use of discovery to engage in ‘fishing 

expeditions’”) (citation omitted); see also Grosz v. Lassen Community College 

Dist., 2007 WL 2384444, at *1 (“Conclusory allegations in a complaint . . . are a 

danger sign that the plaintiff is engaged in a fishing expedition.”). He has not 

provided any authority that he is entitled to conduct such discovery, and again, 

has articulated no basis for his assertion that he is owed other commissions. 

Based on the present record, which contains only vague allegations in the 

Complaint of commissions owed for accounts other than the CareFusion 

account, with no factual or legal basis provided to allow the expansive discovery 

sought -- financial data of each account handled by Plaintiff in the four years 

preceding Plaintiff’s termination -- in conjunction with a representation that 

Defendant would need to search its archives to respond to the requests, the 

Court cannot find the discovery sought is proportional to the needs of the case. 

See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). Accordingly, Plaintiff’s request for an order 

compelling Defendant to respond to Request Nos. 9 and 12 is DENIED.

1

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: November 1, 2017 

                                              

1 Because Plaintiff has not established the discovery sought is relevant to a claim asserted in 

the Complaint and proportional to the needs of the case, the Court need not analyze 

Defendant’s arguments relating to Plaintiff’s deposition testimony. 

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