Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_15-cv-04456/USCOURTS-cand-4_15-cv-04456-4/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 710
Nature of Suit: Fair Labor Standards Act
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Fed. Question: Fair Labor Standards

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

KYLE L. CAMPANELLI,

Plaintiff,

v.

IMAGE FIRST UNIFORM RENTAL 

SERVICE, INC., et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 15-cv-04456-PJH 

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO 

COMPEL

Re: Dkt. No. 43

Before the court is plaintiff Kyle L. Campanelli’s motion to compel answers to his 

first set of discovery requests. Dkt. 43. Having read the parties’ papers and carefully 

considered their arguments and the relevant legal authority, and good cause appearing, 

the court hereby DENIES the motion to compel.

BACKGROUND

This is putative class action based on the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and

the California Labor Code. Plaintiff Kyle Campanelli was formerly employed by an 

ImageFIRST entity as a delivery person from March 2014 to March 3, 2015. First 

Amended Complaint (“FAC”) ¶ 4, 33. The complaint names three ImageFIRST 

companies as defendants: (1) ImageFIRST Uniform Rental Service, Inc. (“IF Uniform”); 

(2) ImageFIRST Healthcare Laundry Specialists, Inc. (“IF Healthcare”); and (3) 

ImageFIRST of California, LLC (“IF California”). Campanelli alleges that he worked over 

forty hours a week but was denied meals and rest periods, and was never paid overtime 

compensation required under the FLSA and California law. FAC ¶ 36. Campanelli seeks 

to represent all similarly situated ImageFIRST delivery persons. FAC ¶¶ 4, 37–51.

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IF California and IF Healthcare have separately answered the complaint. Dkt. 23, 

25. IF California has admitted to employing Campanelli. Answer at ¶ 3. IF Uniform, 

however, filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, which came on for 

hearing on March 30, 2016. Dkt. 22. Following the hearing, the court issued an order 

permitting “limited jurisdictional discovery on the issue [of] whether IF Uniform has 

sufficient, if any, contacts, with the forum state.” Dkt. 40 at 1 (hereinafter the “March 30 

Order”). However, the court denied leave for discovery into a possible “agency 

relationship between IF Uniform and ImageFIRST of California.” Id.

The close of jurisdictional discovery was May 31, 2016. Campanelli was to file any

supplemental brief based on the discovery by June 14, 2016. Instead, Campanelli 

bought the instant motion to compel. Campanelli’s motion to compel seeks an order 

compelling IF Uniform to provide further answers to interrogatories and requests for 

production of documents, and a Rule 26 conference to commence discovery on the 

answering defendants. Mot. at 1–2. Per a prior order, the court vacated the June 14 

deadline for supplemental briefing and indicated that the deadlines would be reset after 

the motion to compel was resolved. Dkt. 44.

DISCUSSION

A. Legal Standard

A party may bring a motion to compel discovery when another party has failed to 

respond adequately to a discovery request. Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(3). A party “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, considering the importance of the 

issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to 

relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving 

the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its 

likely benefit.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b). As the moving party, plaintiff must inform the court 

which discovery requests are the subject of his motion to compel, why defendants’ 

objections are not justified or why the response provided is deficient, and how 

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proportionality and the other requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b) are 

met. See Civil Local Rule 37-2.

B. Analysis

The essence of this discovery dispute is the parties’ differing interpretations of the 

scope of the court’s March 30 Order. In opposing IF Uniform’s motion to dismiss, 

Campanelli asserted two principal theories of specific personal jurisdiction: (1) based on 

IF Uniform’s own contacts with California; (2) based on IF Uniform having “a Single 

Enterprise, Joint Employer, and/or Agency” relationship with the other IF entities. Dkt. 

35-1 at i-ii. The key evidence offered by Campanelli in support of personal jurisdiction 

was: (i) an unsigned employment agreement listing IF Uniform as an one of many 

“employers” (the “Employment Agreement”), (ii) a passive website that does not 

distinguish between the different ImageFIRST entities (the “Website”); and (iii) an 

Associate Handbook, whose authorship is unclear, that is allegedly used by ImageFIRST 

employees in a number of states, including California.

At the hearing on the motion to dismiss, the court made clear that “I don't think that 

the plaintiffs have made a prima facie case with regard to any kind of agency theory.” 

Dkt. 42 at 20 (emphasis added). However, the court found that “with regard to [IF] 

Uniform's contacts,” Campanelli had made “a sufficient showing to warrant some 

jurisdictional discovery.” Dkt. 42 at 22–23. The court emphasized that the jurisdictional 

discovery would be “very limited” and focused on “whether or not [IF] Uniform itself has 

sufficient minimum contacts . . . that give rise to the allegations in the complaint such that 

an exercise of jurisdiction would be reasonable.” Dkt. 42 at 23. The March 30 Order 

made this distinction clear, denying Campanelli leave for discovery into any possible 

“agency relationship between IF Uniform and ImageFIRST of California.” Dkt. 40. Under 

the March 30 Order, Campanelli was thus permitted to seek discovery into IF Uniform’s 

own specific contacts with California, if any, that give rise to this case. 

Campanelli has propounded 22 interrogatories and 23 requests for the production 

of documents pursuant to the court’s order permitting limited jurisdictional discovery. 

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Mot. at 6. Campanelli seeks a compelled response to 21 of the interrogatories and 19 of 

the document requests, which “fall into two main categories: (1) those in which 

ImageFirst Uniform is entirely refusing to answer by claiming that the subject matter 

purportedly is beyond the scope of what the Court allowed; and (2) those in which 

ImageFirst Uniform has responded by re-writing the discovery resulting in answers that 

are meaningless.” Mot. at 8. In general, Campanelli’s discovery requests seek general 

information on the “relationships” between the three defendants, purportedly relevant to 

his “joint employer” and “single enterprise” theories of personal jurisdiction. Mot. at 9–10. 

For example, Campanelli seeks discovery on whether IF Uniform and the other 

defendants have common directors or common ownership. See Dkt. 43-1 at 6-8, 15.

Campanelli has misinterpreted the scope of the court’s March 30 Order. In 

Campanelli’s view, the March 30 Order “only reject[ed] the specific personal jurisdiction 

agency theory,” but, by silent implication, allowed discovery into any of his other theories 

of jurisdiction. Mot. at 6. That is simply not what the court ruled. Instead, the court 

permitted discovery into a single issue: “whether IF Uniform has sufficient, if any, 

contacts, with the forum state.” Dkt. 40 at 1. The court denied discovery into “any kind of 

agency theory.” Dkt. 42 at 20; accord Dkt. 40 at 1 (“Plaintiff has not, however, 

demonstrated a prima facie case . . . to justify jurisdictional discovery into a possible 

agency theory.”). Campanelli’s supposed “single enterprise” and “joint employer” 

theories are bases for liability, not personal jurisdiction. See, e.g., E.E.O.C. v. Bass Pro 

Outdoor World, LLC,884 F. Supp. 2d 499, 525–26 (S.D. Tex. 2012) (“The integrated 

enterprise theory . . . is a liability standard . . . not a jurisdictional standard.”); Langlois v. 

Deja Vu, Inc., 984 F. Supp. 1327, 1334 (W.D. Wash. 1997) (“[T]his Court must first find 

that jurisdiction exists over an out-of-state Defendant before the Court labels the out-ofstate Defendant an ‘employer’ under the FLSA.”).

Campanelli’s discovery requests were therefore outside of the scope of the court’s 

March 30 Order. Accordingly, it was proper for IF Uniform to refuse to answer these

requests, or to limit their scope to the critical issue: whether IF Uniform, itself, has 

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contacts with California. It was further proper for IF Uniform to limit its responses to the 

date range of September 28, 2011 to the present, as that corresponds to the applicable 

four year statute of limitations.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, plaintiff’s motion to compel is DENIED. Campanelli’s 

request for an immediate Rule 26 conference with the answering defendants is DENIED. 

Campanelli shall have until July 18 to file a supplemental brief on IF Uniform’s

pending motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. IF Uniform may file a 

response 14 days thereafter, at which time IF Uniform’s motion to dismiss will be deemed 

submitted.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: July 1, 2016

__________________________________

PHYLLIS J. HAMILTON

United States District Judge

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