Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-mc-80197/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-mc-80197-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Hideto Tomabechi
Movant

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

IN RE EX PARTE APPLICATION OF 

HIDETO TOMABECHI,

Applicant. 

Case No.19-mc-80197-JSC 

ORDER RE: EX PARTE 

APPLICATION FOR JUDICIAL 

ASSISTANCE PURSUANT TO 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1782

Re: Dkt. No. 1

Applicant Hideto Tomabechi filed an ex parte application to take discovery pursuant to 28 

U.S.C. § 1782. (Dkt. No. 1.)1 Mr. Tomabechi seeks an order granting him permission to issue a 

subpoena to non-party Google, LLC to obtain “documents and information” for use in an 

anticipated defamation lawsuit in Japan. (Id. at 2.) Upon consideration of Mr. Tomabechi’s

application and the relevant legal authority, the Court GRANTS the application. 

BACKGROUND2

Mr. Tomabechi is a Japanese citizen and Tokyo resident who was appointed head of the 

Japanese branch of a centuries-old “Roman Catholic dynastic knighthood” (the “organization”) in 

January 2019. (Dkt. No. 2 at ¶¶ 4-6.) In November and December 2018, “an anonymous 

individual perpetrating [sic] an attorney named Dr. Kiyoshi Mihori emailed the Grand Chancellor” 

of the organization, stating disparaging and false information about Mr. Tomabechi that the 

 

1 Record citations are to material in the Electronic Case File (“ECF”); pinpoint citations are to the 

ECF-generated page numbers at the top of the documents. 

2 Mr. Tomabechi submits the declaration of Takashi Wakita, “an attorney duly licensed to practice

law in Japan,” in support of the instant application. (See Dkt. No. 2.) Mr. Wakita’s declaration 

includes as exhibits the Japanese-language emails at issue in the anticipated litigation. (See Dkt. 

No. 2, Ex. A at 10-11, Ex. B at 13-15.) Mr. Tomabechi also submits the declaration of Marianne 

Mu, legal assistant to Mr. Tomabechi’s United States-based attorney; Ms. Mu translated the 

subject emails from Japanese to English and provides those translations as exhibits to her 

declaration. (See Dkt. No. 3, Ex. A-1 at 4-6, Ex. B-1 at 8-9.) The Background section is taken 

from those declarations and accompanying exhibits. 

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individual asserted would make Mr. Tomabechi unfit for his position. (Id. at ¶¶ 7-8.) The 

statements include: 

[Mr. Tomabechi’s] Father in Law and friend . . . is Shoko Asahara[,]

leader of the Aum Cult who in March 20, 1995 carried out a terrorist 

attack at a Tokyo Subway station with Sarin gas and killed 27 people 

and injured thousands of others.

[Mr.] Tomabechi married Shoko Asahara’s eldest daughter, whose 

name was changed so as not to be identified as Shoko Asahara’s 

daughter. 

[Mr. Tomabechi’s] secretary . . . was on a TV program and made fun 

of the [organization] . . . and [misused] photos of Dama Yoko Abe 

(Mother of Prime Minister Abe).

There is an incidence of rape [involving Mr. Tomabechi] in the USA.

(Id. at ¶¶ 9(1)-(3), 12(2).) 

The emails were sent from a Google email account (“gmail account”) identified as 

ossml.japan@gmail.com. (Id. at ¶ 8; see also Dkt. No. 3, Ex. A-1 at 4, Ex. B-1 at 8.) Mr. 

Tomabechi hired legal counsel in Japan after the first email in November 2018, “to defend his 

name and prove to the Grand Chancellor that the allegations were false.” (Dkt. No. 2 at ¶ 10.) His 

attorney located Dr. Kiyoshi Mihori, who “declared that he did not write the defamatory [email] to 

the Grand Chancellor.” (Id. at ¶ 11.) Mr. Tomabechi now seeks to “determine the true identity of 

the unknown person” behind the anonymous gmail account. (Id.) 

Mr. Tomabechi’s Japanese counsel attests that the subject emails “constitute[ ] defamation 

and harassment” as well “unlawful business interference” under Japanese law. (Id. at ¶ 13.) Thus, 

Mr. Tomabechi “intend[s] to bring a lawsuit in Japan against the person(s) associated with the 

Google account of the unknown defendant as soon as the person(s) identity [is] ascertained 

through the discovery . . . sought in this application.” (Id. at ¶ 14.) Mr. Tomabechi’s Japanese 

counsel is “not aware of any restrictions imposed by or any policies under Japanese law limiting” 

the requested discovery. (Id. at ¶ 19.) The proposed subpoena seeks the following:

1. ALL DOCUMENTS showing the login histories of [the subject 

gmail account] from June 1, 2019 to the present, including dates, 

times, IP addresses, and access type for each login.

2. ALL DOCUMENTS identifying the users of [the subject gmail 

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account] from June 1, 2019 to the present, including all names, 

addresses, e-mail addresses (including email corresponding with 

gmail account, email address for recovery or alternate purpose), 

telephone numbers.

(Dkt. No. 4 at 6-7.) 

LEGAL STANDARD

The purpose of Section 1782 is “to provide federal-court assistance in gathering evidence 

for use in foreign tribunals.” Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 542 U.S. 241, 247

(2004). The statute provides, in pertinent part: 

The district court of the district in which a person resides or is found 

may order him to give his testimony or statement or to produce a 

document or other thing for use in a proceeding in a foreign or 

international tribunal, including criminal investigations conducted 

before formal accusation. The order may be made pursuant to a letter 

rogatory issued, or request made, by a foreign or international tribunal 

or upon the application of any interested person and may direct that 

the testimony or statement be given, or the document or other thing 

be produced, before a person appointed by the court. 

28 U.S.C. § 1782(a). Thus, Section 1782 requires that: (1) the person from whom discovery is 

sought resides or is found in the district of the district court where the application is filed; (2) the 

requested discovery is for “use in a foreign or international tribunal”; and (3) the request is made 

“by a foreign or international tribunal or . . . any interested person.” Id. To apply for discovery 

pursuant to Section 1782, a formal proceeding in the foreign jurisdiction need not be currently 

pending, or even imminent. See Intel, 542 U.S. at 258-59. Instead, it is sufficient if such 

proceedings are “within reasonable contemplation.” Id. at 259 (finding discovery proper under 

Section 1782 even though applicant’s complaint was still in investigative stage). 

District courts retain wide discretion to grant discovery under Section 1782. Id. at 260-61. 

In exercising that discretion, courts consider the following factors: (1) whether the “person from 

whom discovery is sought is a participant in the foreign proceeding”; (2) “the nature of the foreign 

tribunal, the character of the proceedings underway abroad, and the receptivity of the foreign 

government or the court or agency abroad to U.S. federal court judicial assistance”; (3) whether 

the request “conceals an attempt to circumvent foreign proof-gathering restrictions or other 

policies of a foreign country or the United States”; and (4) whether the request is “unduly intrusive 

or burdensome.” Id. at 264-65. “A district court’s discretion is to be exercised in view of the twin 

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aims of [Section] 1782: providing efficient assistance to participants in international litigation, and 

encouraging foreign countries by example to provide similar assistance to our courts.” In re 

Request for Int’l Judicial Assistance from the Nat’l Ct. Admin. of the Republic of Korea, No. C15-

80069 MISC LB, 2015 WL 1064790, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 11, 2015) (citing Schmitz v. Bernstein 

Libehard & Lifshitz, LLP, 376 F.3d 79, 85 (2d Cir. 2004)).

DISCUSSION

In considering a Section 1782 application, courts must “first determine whether Section 

1782’s three statutory requirements are satisfied,” and next consider whether the discretionary 

factors set forth in Intel “support issuing a subpoena.” In re Ex Parte Application of Qualcomm 

Inc., 162 F. Supp. 3d 1029, 1035 (N.D. Cal. 2016). 

A. Statutory Requirements

Mr. Tomabechi’s application meets the minimum statutory requirements of Section 1782. 

First, Google is headquartered in Mountain View, California, which is in this district. Second, the 

requested discovery is intended for use in a defamation lawsuit that Mr. Tombabechi intends to 

bring in Japan, which is a proceeding before a foreign tribunal that is “within reasonable 

contemplation.” See Intel Corp., 542 U.S. at 259. Third, as a prospective litigant, Mr. Tomabechi 

is “an interested person” for purposes of Section 1782. See Akebia v. Therapeutics v. Fibrogen, 

Inc., 793 F.3d 1108, 1110 (9th Cir. 2015) (noting that “interested person[s]” under Section 1782 

include “litigants before foreign or international tribunals,” as well as any person with “a 

reasonable interest in obtaining judicial assistance”) (internal quotation marks and citation 

omitted) (alteration in original). It also bears noting that Mr. Tomabechi’s ex parte application is 

an acceptable method of requesting discovery under Section 1782. See In re Letters Rogatory 

from Tokyo Dist., Tokyo, Japan, 539 F.2d 1216, 1219 (9th Cir. 1976). 

B. Intel Factors 

The Court finds good cause to exercise its discretion to authorize the requested discovery. 

See Intel, 542 U.S. at 260-61. First, Google will not be “a participant in the [anticipated] foreign 

proceeding.” See id. at 264 (noting that “nonparticipants in the foreign proceeding may be outside 

the foreign tribunal’s jurisdictional reach; hence, their evidence, available in the United States, 

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may be unobtainable absent [Section] 1782(a) aid”). Thus, the need for judicial assistance under 

Section 1782 is apparent. Second, the discovery sought—information regarding the gmail account 

of the unknown defendant, from which that individual sent the allegedly defamatory messages—is 

relevant and indeed critical to the anticipated lawsuit. Further, there is nothing to suggest that a 

Japanese court would not be receptive to the “U.S. federal-court judicial assistance” Mr. 

Tomabechi seeks. See id.; see also In re Frontier Co., Ltd., No. 19-mc-80184-LB, 2019 WL 

3345348, at *4 (N.D. Cal. July 25, 2019) (“Case law suggests that Japanese courts are generally 

receptive to discovery taken in the United States pursuant to [S]ection 1782) (citing In re Letters 

Rogatory, 539 F.2d at 1219; In re Med. Corp. H&S, No. 19-MC-80107-SVK, 2019 WL 2299953, 

at *3 (N.D. Cal. May 30, 2019)). Third, and similarly, the request does not appear to “conceal an 

attempt to circumvent proof-gathering restrictions or other policies of a foreign country or the 

United States.” See Intel, 542 U.S. at 264-65. Finally, the discovery sought does not appear 

unduly burdensome or intrusive; it is instead appropriately tailored to obtain the identity of the 

individual who wrote the allegedly defamatory statements. 

If Google disagrees with the subpoena or its scope, then it can file a motion to quash or 

narrow the subpoena and the Court can address any such concerns at that time. See In re Letters 

Rogatory, 539 F.2d at 1219 (noting that a subpoenaed party can “raise[ ] objections and exercise[ ] 

their due process rights by motions to quash the subpoena”). 

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, the Court GRANTS Mr. Tomabechi’s application with the 

following conditions: 

1. Mr. Tomabechi may only use the information obtained for the sole purpose of the 

anticipated litigation in Japan and may not release any identifying information without a 

court order authorizing its release.

2. Within 7 calendar days after service of the subpoena, Google shall notify the account 

holder that his or her identity is sought by Mr. Tomabechi and serve a copy of this Order 

on the account holder. The account holder may, within 21 days from the date of the notice, 

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file any motions in this Court contesting the subpoena (including a motion to quash or 

modify the subpoena). If the account holder contests the subpoena, Google must preserve 

(but not disclose) the information sought by subpoena pending this Court’s resolution of 

any motion to quash. 

3. The date of production for the subpoena shall be set no earlier than 30 days from the 

date of this Order to allow Google to contest the subpoena if it has a good faith basis for 

doing so. Should Google file a motion to quash, this action shall automatically be 

reopened. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: August 19, 2019

JACQUELINE SCOTT CORLEY

United States Magistrate Judge

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