FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION | OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY | FILED 2/26/2021 | OSCAR NO. 600807 | PUBLIC

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

BEFORE THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 

OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGES 

In the Matter of 

HEALTH RESEARCH LABORATORIES, LLC, 

a limited liability company, 

DOCKET NO. 9397 

WHOLE BODY SUPPLEMENTS, LLC, 

a limited liability company, and 

KRAMER DUHON, 

individually and as an officer of HEALTH 

RESEARCH LABORATORIES, LLC and 

WHOLE BODY SUPPLEMENTS, LLC 

RESPONDENTS’ RESPONSE TO COMPLAINT COUNSEL’S MOTIONS 

TO COMPEL ANSWERS TO INTERROGATORIES AND RESPONSES 

TO DOCUMENT REQUESTS 

Complaint Counsel’s motions to compel should be denied. 

I. BRIEF RESPONSE 

Within two months of losing its motion for contempt in FTC and State of Maine v. 

Health Research Laboratories, LLC, et al., 2:17-cv-00467-JDL (“Maine Action”), the 

FTC filed this action and has undertaken a course of action to destroy Respondents’ 

business. 

Under the FTC Act, this action is supposed to be for a cease-and-desist order to 

prevent Respondents from “disseminat[ing] or caus[ing] to be disseminated advertising 

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and promotional materials”1 for four supplements that the Commission contends were 

“not substantiated at the time the representations were made.”2 However, instead of 

actually seeking a cease-and-desist order, Complaint Counsel has used this action to 

punish Respondents because they exercised their First Amendment rights to contest the 

FTC’s request for contempt in the Maine Action. 

In an effort to drive Respondents from business, the FTC served 14 subpoenas on 

every vendor and business partner connected to Respondents for the last decade, 

including a subpoena to the law firm that represented Respondents in the very claims that 

are the subject to this action. FTC also served requests for production and interrogatories 

that would take hundreds of hours to answer. 

Respondents’ business is a small operation with only two employees. It is easier 

for vendors and business partners to elect not to do business with Respondents than face 

harassment from the government. It is against this backdrop that Respondents decided 

that they could not continue to fight the FTC. 

Rather than continue a fight that has been ongoing for more than six years, 

Respondents elected to admit all material facts in the Part III Administrative Complaint – 

an action expressly permitted by 16 C.F.R. § 3.12. 

On February 12, 2021, Respondents filed a motion for leave to amend to elect to 

admit all material facts in the Complaint. One week later, on February 19, 2021, the 

1 See Complaint, ¶¶ 7, 9, 11 and 13. 

2 See Complaint, ¶¶ 15, 17, 19, and 21. 

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FTC filed (a) a Motion to Compel Respondents to Produce Documents; and (b) a Motion 

to Compel Respondents to Supplement Interrogatory Responses. All of the discovery is 

directed to facts that Respondents elected not to contest and are no longer in dispute. See 

Ex. A (Declaration of Joel W. Reese). 

CONCLUSION 

For the reasons set forth herein, the ALJ should deny the Motion to Compel 

Respondents to Produce Documents and the Motion to Compel Respondents to 

Supplement Interrogatory Responses. 

Dated: February 26, 2021 Respectfully submitted, 

REESE MARKETOS LLP 

By: /s/ Joel W. Reese 

Joel W. Reese 

Texas Bar No. 00788258 

joel.reese@rm-firm.com 

Joshua M. Russ 

Texas Bar No. 24074990 

josh.russ@rm-firm.com 

750 N. Saint Paul St., Suite 600 

Dallas, TX 75201-3201 

Telephone: (214) 382-9810 

Facsimile: (214) 501-0731 

ATTORNEYS FOR RESPONDENTS 

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 

I hereby certify that on February 26, 2021, I filed the foregoing document 

electronically using the FTC’s E-Filing system, which will send notification to: 

April J. Tabor The Honorable D. Michael Chappell 

Acting Secretary Administrative Law Judge 

Federal Trade Commission Federal Trade Commission 

600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Rm. H-113 600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Rm. H-110 

Washington, DC 20580 Washington, DC 20580 

ElectronicFilings@ftc.gov 

Elizabeth Averill 

eaverill@ftc.gov 

Jonathan Cohen 

jcohen2@ftc.gov 

COMPLAINT COUNSEL 

/s/ Joel W. Reese 

Joel W. Reese 

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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION | OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY | FILED 2/26/2021 | OSCAR NO. 600807 | PUBLIC PUBLIC

EXHIBITA	
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION | OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY | FILED 2/26/2021 | OSCAR NO. 600807 | PUBLIC

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

BEFORE THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 

OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGES 

In the Matter of 

HEALTH RESEARCH LABORATORIES, LLC, 

a limited liability company, 

DOCKET NO. 9397 

WHOLE BODY SUPPLEMENTS, LLC, 

a limited liability company, and 

KRAMER DUHON, 

individually and as an officer of HEAL TH 

RESEARCH LABORATORIES, LLC and 

WHOLE BODY SUPPLEMENTS, LLC 

DECLARATION OF JOEL W. REESE 

I, Joel W. Reese, hereby declare: 

1. My name is Joel W. Reese. I am counsel for the Respondents, Health 

Research Laboratories, LLC, Whole Body Supplements, LLC and Kramer Duhon. I make 

this declaration based on personal knowledge of the facts set forth herein. 

2. I have carefully reviewed the Interrogatories and the Requests for Production 

that are the subject of Complaint Counsel's Motion to Compel Respondents to Produce 

Documents and their Motion to Compel Respondents to Supplement Interrogatory 

Responses ("Motions"). I compared the Interrogatories and the Requests for Production 

against the allegations in the Complaint. Pursuant to 16 C.F.R. § 3.12(6)(2), Respondents 

have elected to admit all material facts in the Complaint. After carefully reviewing the 

Complaint, I am not aware of an issue that is relevant to the remaining proceedings in this 

case that are covered by any of the Interrogatories or Requests for Production. In other 
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words, the admitted facts now save the Respondents and Complaint Counsel from having 

to incur the cost, hassle, and expense of proving or disputing facts through the discovery 

process. 

Pursuant to 28 U.S. C. § 1746, I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing 

is true and correct based on my personal knowledge. 

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