Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_14-cv-03007/USCOURTS-cand-5_14-cv-03007-6/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 47:227 Telephone Consumer Protection Act

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

E-Filed 4/8/16

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

ALAN BRINKER,

Plaintiff,

v.

NORMANDIN'S, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 14-cv-03007-EJD (HRL)

ORDER ON DISCOVERY DISPUTE 

JOINT REPORT 4

Re: Dkt. No. 81

Alan Brinker (“Brinker”) sues Normandin’s d/b/a Normandin Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram

(“Normandin”) and OneCommand, Inc. (“OneCommand”) in this class action for alleged 

violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. §§ 227 et seq. The putative class 

includes everyone in the United States “to whom: (a) Defendants made one or more nonemergency telephone calls; (b) promoting Defendant Normandin’s goods or services; (c) to their 

cellular telephone number; (d) through the use of an automatic telephone dialing system or an 

artificial or prerecorded voice; and (e) at any time in the period that begins four years before the 

date of filing this Complaint to trial.” Dkt. No. 36 at 4-5. Brinker has not yet moved for class 

certification.

Brinker and OneCommand filed Discovery Dispute Joint Report (“DDJR”) 4; they dispute 

whether OneCommand should produce any unproduced documents, databases, and other 

electronically stored information that identify putative class members or contain contact 

information for those class members. Dkt. No. 81 at 2-3.

Discussion

Brinker argues: (1) OneCommand does not claim that the production of the requested 

discovery would be disproportionate to the needs of this case or unduly burdensome; and (2) 

OneCommand has raised no valid reason to withhold the relevant information Brinker requested. 

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United States District Court

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Dkt. No. 81 at 5-8. OneCommand responds it is appropriate to withhold the requested information 

because: (1) Brinker’s alleged injury is not typical of the injury that may have been suffered by 

people who were called with a different prerecorded message, and so any information about 

people who were called with a different prerecorded message is irrelevant; and (2) Brinker’s 

request for “additional call data” could have been raised “prior to the submission of” DDJR 3, 

which involved a similar issue, and therefore “in keeping with the Court’s standing order on 

discovery disputes . . . [Brinker] should now be precluded from further delaying his motion for 

class certification and from seeking to expand the scope of the class[.]” Dkt. No. 81 at 8-12.

OneCommand does not clearly state why it believes the undersigned’s Standing Order re: 

Civil Discovery Disputes provides a basis for denying Brinker’s request to compel supplemental 

production. That order cautions litigants “not to allow discovery disagreements to drag on 

unresolved until some looming deadline forces them into action,” but that warning does not mean, 

as OneCommand seems to argue, that a litigant waives the ability to raise a discovery dispute if he 

could have discovered and raised that dispute a few months sooner. And although it is true that 

DDJR 3 involved similar issues, that fact does not support OneCommand’s argument that the 

dispute at issue in DDJR 4 should have been raised before DDJR 3 was filed. To the extent that

the dispute in DDJR 4 is distinct from the dispute in DDJR 3, the undersigned’s standing order 

prohibits parties from filing related-but-distinct disputes together in a single DDJR. To the extent 

that the disputes are the same, the order on DDJR 3 already conclusively ruled that Brinker is 

entitled to discover “the name[]” and “phone number” of each putative class member. Dkt. No. 70 

at 3. The undersigned therefore rejects the argument that Brinker violated the Standing Order re: 

Civil Discovery Disputes by failing to discover and raise the discovery dispute at issue in DDJR 4 

a few months sooner.

The court also rejects OneCommand’s typicality argument. The class defined in the 

operative complaint does not narrowly include people who received the same prerecorded message 

as Brinker; instead, the proposed class broadly includes people Defendants called “through the use 

of an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice” in order to 

“promot[e] . . . Normandin’s goods or services[.]” Dkt. No. 36 at 4-5. It would be procedurally 

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United States District Court

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improper to adjudicate the issue of typicality in the context of a discovery dispute rather than in 

the context of a motion for class certification; accordingly, it was improper for OneCommand to 

withhold relevant and discoverable materials related to members of the proposed class based on 

the belief that an impending motion for class certification should eventually be denied for lack of 

typicality.

The court notes that the order on DDJR 3 already ruled on the extent to which Brinker is 

entitled to discover details about the putative class members—names and phone numbers, but not 

other details, are relevant and discoverable for the use of Brinker in support of the impending 

motion for class certification. Dkt. No. 70 at 3. OneCommand shall therefore produce: (1) the

documents, databases, and other electronically stored information that contain the names of any 

members of the proposed class; and (2) the documents, databases, and other electronically stored 

information that contain the phone numbers for any members of the proposed class. Any such 

discovery materials shall be produced regardless of whether they relate to proposed class members 

who were called with messages different from the message used to call Brinker. OneCommand 

shall complete this production no later than April 14, 2016.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: 4/8/16

HOWARD R. LLOYD

United States Magistrate Judge

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