Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_11-cv-02828/USCOURTS-casd-3_11-cv-02828-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Other Contract

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

RICK DOLFO and SUSAN DOLFO, on

behalf of Themselves, All Others

Similarly Situated and the General

Public,

Civil

No.

11-CV-2828-DMS (BGS)

Plaintiffs,

ORDER IN RE JOINT MOTION

FOR DETERMINATION OF

DISCOVERY DISPUTE

REGARDING PLAINTIFFS’

REQUEST TO COMPEL

DISCLOSURE OF CLASS

MEMBER CONTACT

INFORMATION

v.

BANK OF AMERICA, N.A.; and BAC

HOME LOANS SERVICING, LP,

Defendants.

On March 18, 2013, counsel for all parties contacted the Court regarding a

discovery dispute. Plaintiffs seek to compel Defendant Bank of America to produce

a list of the names and addresses of those individuals identified by Bank of America as

likely class members. Pursuant to Court order, the parties filed a joint motion for

determination of this discovery dispute on March 22, 2013. (Doc. No. 68.) 

For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies without prejudice Plaintiffs’

request to compel production of this information. 

I. Relevant Background

On December 5, 2011, Plaintiffs filed this putative class action alleging 

causes of action against Defendants Bank of America, N.A. and BAC Home Loans

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Servicing, LP for breach of contract, violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law,

violation of California’s Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, violation of

California’s Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act, conversion, and declaratory

relief. (Doc. No. 1.) Plaintiffs’ complaint is based upon allegations that Bank of

America created impound accounts1

 for residential mortgage loan customers without

prior notice to or consent of the customer. On February 7, 2013, Plaintiffs filed a first

amended complaint (“FAC”), which defines the proposed class as:

All persons who entered into a residential mortgage loan with Bank of

America secured by property located in the State of California, where

Bank of America created an impound account up until May 31, 2011,

as a result of Bank of America’s evaluation of eligibility for a loan modification pursuant to the Home Affordable Modification Program,

and not because of a circumstance permitted by Civil Code §2954.

Excluded from the Class are those who entered a “trial period program”

pursuant to the Home Affordable Modification Program and defendants

and any of their officers, directors and employees.

(Doc. No. 57, FAC ¶40.) 

On June 29, 2012, Plaintiffs served interrogatory requests, the first of which

is the subject of the present dispute. (Doc. No. 68 at 7.) Plaintiffs asked Defendant to

identify all members of the class by providing: the name of the class member; the

current or last known mailing address of the class member; the current or last known

email address of the class member;the residential property address secured by the loan;

and the loan number. (Doc. No. 68-1 at 5.) Defendant timely objected to this

interrogatory on the grounds that it sought confidential, personal, and/or financial

information that is protected from disclosure by statutes governing the privacy rights

of consumers and other person and was premature prior to a ruling on class

certification. (Doc. No. 68 at 7; Doc. No. 68-1 at 5.) Defendant did, however, agree

to produce data sufficient to establish the potential size of the putative class. (Id.) After

1

An impound account is an account maintained by a lender to collect insurance and tax payments

required for the mortgaged property. (See FAC at ¶¶15-16.) 

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receiving these objections, the parties did not contact the Court within 30 days

regarding a discovery dispute pursuant to Judge Skomal’s chambers’ rules. 

On October 31, 2012, Bank of America provided Plaintiffs’ counsel with a

spreadsheet containing information about roughly 9,200 potential members of the

putative class. (Doc. No. 68 at 7.) Thereafter, the parties agreed to a representative

sample of 221 Servicing Records. (Id.) The Sample Servicing Records produced

contain the following loan information: loan amounts; property values; payment

histories; schedules of fees and charges; escrow/impound records; and summaries of

calls with each borrower. (Id. at 7-8.) Bank of America redacted the borrower names,

addresses, and account numbers to protect consumer privacy. (Id. at 8.) The parties did

not contact the Court regarding any discovery dispute concerning the production of the

spreadsheet or the redacted Sample Servicing Records. 

Following seven months of discovery and several extensions of time, Plaintiffs

filed their motion to certify the class on January 11, 2013. (Doc. No. 48.) Defendants

filed their response in opposition to the motion to certify the class on February 15,

2013. (Doc. No. 62.) On February 28, 2013, the day before Plaintiffs’ reply was due,

Plaintiffs filed an ex parte motion to continue the class certification hearing so that

Plaintiffs could have sufficient time to take additional discovery, namely a deposition

of Bank of America pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 30(b)(6) relating to issues raised in Bank

of America’s opposition to class certification. (Doc. No. 64 at 1.) Nowhere in

Plaintiffs’ ex parte motion to continue or the attached declaration of counsel was it

mentioned that Plaintiffs were also seeking discovery of class member contact

information in order to reply to Defendant’s opposition. (See id. & Doc. No. 64-1,

O’Reardon Decl.) On March 1, 2013, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ ex parte motion,

continuing Plaintiffs’ reply deadline to April 5, 2013 and the hearing on the motion to

certify to April 19, 2013. (Doc. No. 65.) 

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On March 18, 2013, the parties first contacted the Court regarding a discovery

dispute concerning Plaintiffs’ Interrogatory No. 1 seeking class member contact

information. 

II. Discussion

A. Waiver

Plaintiffs served the interrogatory seeking class member contact information

on June 29, 2012. Bank of America served timely objections and thereafter also

produced a spreadsheet containing information about roughly 9,200 putative class

members and 221 Sample Servicing Records. This information was used by Plaintiffs

in their motion for class certification filed on January 11, 2013, and therefore received

by Plaintiffs in advance of that date. 

Judge Skomal’s chambers’ rules state that, “[u]nder no circumstances will

Judge Skomal rule on a discovery dispute that is brought to his attention more than

thirty (30) days after the date upon which the even giving rise to the dispute occurred

absent good cause.” For written discovery, the event giving rise to the discovery

dispute is service of the response or the time for such service if no response is given. 

The Court finds that Plaintiffs have waived their request to compel production

of class member contact information that was sought by Interrogatory No. 1. The

parties brought this dispute to Judge Skomal’s attention on March 18, 2013. To say

that this date exceeds Judge Skomal’s thirty day deadline is an understatement. 

Plaintiffs first received objections to Interrogatory No. 1 in August 2012. Plaintiffs

received the spreadsheet data concerning putative class members in October 2012. 

Plaintiffs received the 221 Sample Servicing Records at least before January 11, 2013. 

All of these dates are more than thirty days before March 18, 2013. Accordingly, the

Court finds Plaintiffs have waited too long to bring this dispute to the Court’s attention.

The Court also does not find good cause to excuse this late submission of the

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discovery dispute. Plaintiffs sought discovery of specific class member contact

information in June 2012 and must have at that time thought it was relevant to a claim

or defense in this case. However, Plaintiffs sat on the issue and did not pursue

production of this information they sought in their first interrogatory. Now, over eight

months later, Plaintiffs assert that they require this discovery in order to reply to Bank

of America’s opposition to class certification. Plaintiffs, however, failed to even

mention this discovery was outstanding or necessary in Plaintiffs’ February 28, 2013

ex parte motion to continue the class certification hearing, which request was based on

Plaintiffs’ need for other discovery. Class member contact information was not

mentioned in that request and was only brought to the Court’s attention after an

extension of the reply deadline was granted for other reasons. Accordingly, the Court

denies Plaintiffs’ request to compel production of class member contact information. 

B. Relevance

Even if the Court were to determine that Plaintiffs’ request to compel class

member contact information was timely brought to the Court’s attention, the Court

finds Plaintiffs fail to show how the information sought is relevant to refuting Bank of

America’s defenses to class certification. The Court ordered the parties in their joint

motion for determination of discovery dispute to address, “the relevancy of this

information to any party’s claim or defense, including the specific relevancy of this

information to Plaintiffs’ reply to Defendant’s opposition to class certification.” (Doc.

No. 66 ¶2.) 

Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1) allows parties to “obtain discovery regarding any

matter, not privileged, that is relevant to the claim or defense of any party. Once the

moving party establishes that the information requested is within the scope of

permissible discovery, the burden shifts to the opposing party to specify how the

discovery request is irrelevant, overly broad, burdensome, or oppressive. Khalilpour

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v. CELLCO P’ship, 2010 WL 1267749, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 1, 2010); see also

Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 353 fn. 17 (1978); Ellison v.

Patterson-UTI Drilling, 2009 WL 3247193, at *4 (S.D. Tex. Sept. 23, 2009). 

Furthermore, prior to class certification, discovery lies entirely within the

discretion of the court. Vinole v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 571 F.3d 935, 942

(9th Cir. 2009) (“Our cases stand for the unremarkable proposition that often the

pleadings alone will not resolve the question of class certification and that some

discovery will be warranted.”). The plaintiff has the burden to either make a prima

facie showing that the class action requirements are satisfied, or to show “that discovery

is likely to produce substantiation of the class allegations.” Manolete v. Bolger, 767

F.2d 1416, 1424 (9th Cir. 1985). 

Plaintiffs assert that Bank of America’s response in opposition to class

certification rests largely on an analysis of the Sample Servicing Records conducted

by one of Defendant’s attorneys and the inferences drawn therefrom. (Doc. No. 68 at

1.) Plaintiffs want the contact information of the 221 putative class members because

they assert the Sample Servicing Records do not tell the entire story of those loan files,

as they do not accurately memorialize certain telephone conversations or completely

fail to memorialize conversations. (Id. at 3.) Plaintiffs argue the contact information

is relevant because it will afford Plaintiffs an opportunity to speak to these class

members about those conversations, which in turn will allow Plaintiffs to refute Bank

of America’s defensesto class certification based on the Sample ServicingRecordsthat

individual issues about causation and injury predominate. (Id. at 3.) 

Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification seeks to certify a Rule 23(b)(2) class.

(Doc. No. 48 at 17; Doc. No. 68 at 2.) Rule 23(b)(2) applies when “the party opposing

the class has acted or refused to act on grounds that apply generally to the class, so that

final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief is appropriate respecting the

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class as a whole.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b)(2); Zinser v. Accufix Research Inst., Inc., 253

F.3d 1180, 1195 (9th Cir. 2001) (“Class certification under Rule 23(b)(2) is appropriate

only where the primary relief sought is declaratory or injunctive.”).

As the Supreme Court has held, “[t]he key to the (b)(2) class is ‘the indivisible

nature of the injunctive or declaratory remedy warranted—the notion that the conduct

is such that it can be enjoined or declared unlawful only as to all of the class members

or as to none of them.’” Wal–Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, ––– U.S. ––––, ––––, 131

S.Ct. 2541, 2557 (2011). Therefore, “Rule 23(b)(2) applies only when a single

injunction or declaratory judgment would provide relief to each member of the class.

It does not authorize class certification when each individual class member would be

entitled to a different injunction or declaratory judgment against the defendant.” Id. at

2557 (emphasis in original). Finally, a Rule 23(b)(2) class “does not authorize class

certification when each class member would be entitled to an individualized award of

money damages.” Id.; see Ellis v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 657 F.3d 970, 986 (9th Cir.

2011) (noting the proposition that “monetary damage requests are generally allowable

only if they are merely incidental to the litigation” has been “called into doubt by the

Supreme Court”) (citing Dukes, 131 S.Ct. at 2560).

In its opposition to class certification, Bank of America argues that Plaintiffs’

twelve-part injunctive remedy fails to meet this standard because the injunctive relief

requested requires Bank of America to audit all accounts to make certain

determinations and also to individually remedy any allegedly improper behavior. (Doc.

No. 62 at 16-17.) Bank of America argues that this relief would require an

individualized inquiry to determine whether the alleged harm resulted from Bank of

America opening an impound account for the borrower, and not for any other reason,

such as the borrower’s failure to pay on his or her account. (Id. at 17.) Bank of

America argues that this individualized inquiry prevents a Rule 23(b)(2) class and also

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fails to satisfy Rule 23(a)’s requirement that Plaintiffs’ claims are typical of the putative

class. In support, Bank of America references the Sample Servicing Records as

evidence thatsomemembers ofthe putative classmade timelymortgage payments after

their loans were impounded, raising individualized issues regarding injury and

causation. Bank of America also uses the Sample Servicing Records to argue that

putative class members did not suffer common harm, as approximately 40% of

borrowers from the sample were never delinquent, and therefore unlikely placed in

default, assessed fees or penalties, or reported to a credit agency based on the

impounding of their loan. (Id. at 21.) Additionally, Bank of America references the

Sample Servicing Recordsto argue that individual inquiriesreveal reasonsfor late fees

or default that have nothing to do with the establishment of an impound account, such

as Chapter 7 bankruptcies. (Id. at 21-22.) 

In the joint motion for determination of discovery dispute, Plaintiffs fail to

specify what use of the Sample Servicing Records they seek to refute and what

information they will likely obtain by contacting the individual putative class members

that will rebut Bank of America’s arguments. For example, Plaintiffs have not offered

what they would ask and what a class member may say that is relevant to refuting Bank

of America’s arguments concerning the individualized nature of injunctive relief and

the atypicality of Plaintiffs’ claims.2

 Bank of America relied solely on the information

contained in the Sample Servicing Records to make its arguments in opposition to class

certification and did not use any redacted or other information not produced. (Doc. No.

68 at 8.) Plaintiffs have access to this same pool of information. In light of the privacy

concerns surrounding the class member contact information and the lack of relevancy

proffered by Plaintiffs, the Court alternatively denies their request to compel production

2

Plaintiffs have also failed to make any argument as to the relevancy of this information in relation

to their burden in moving to certify a Rule 23(b)(2) class action. 

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on this ground.

III. Conclusion

For the reasons set forth above, the Court denies without prejudice Plaintiffs’

request to compel production of class member contact information. If a class is

certified in this matter, the parties may revisit class member contact information if

relevant. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: March 29, 2013 

BERNARD G. SKOMAL

United States Magistrate Judge

COPIES TO: 

Plaintiffs’ Counsel

Defendant Bank of America, N.A.’s Counsel 

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