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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

SHERMAN DIVISION

NOE RAMIREZ,

 Plaintiff,

v.

EQUIFAX INFORMATION SERVICES, 

LLC, et al.,

 Defendants.

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Civil Action No. 4:24-cv-94-SDJ-KPJ

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Pending before the Court is Defendant Experian Information Solutions, Inc.’s (“Experian”)

Opposed Motion for a Stay of Discovery Pending Resolution of Motion to Compel Arbitration or, 

in the Alternative, for a Protective Order (the “Motion to Stay”) (Dkt. 38), to which Plaintiff Noe 

Ramirez (“Plaintiff”) filed a response in opposition (the “Response”) (Dkt. 43) and Defendant filed 

a reply in support (the “Reply”) (Dkt. 49). For the reasons that follow, the Motion to Stay (Dkt. 38) 

is GRANTED.

I. BACKGROUND

On February 1, 2024, Plaintiff filed the Complaint (Dkt. 1) against Defendants Experian, 

Equifax Information Services, LLC (“Equifax”), Trans Union, LLC (“Trans Union”), First Premier 

Bank (“First Premier”), and Comenity Capital Bank (“Comenity”) (collectively, “Defendants”) 

alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1681, et seq. Dkt. 1 

at 1. In the Complaint (Dkt. 1), Plaintiff alleges that he is a victim of identity theft and that his 

“claims arise out of the Defendants’ plainly deficient reinvestigations considering Plaintiff’s 

multiple disputes and repeated notice that he was a victim of identity theft.” Dkt. 1 at 4.

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On May 14, 2024, Experian contemporaneously filed its Opposed Motion to Compel 

Arbitration and Memorandum of Law (the “Motion to Compel Arbitration”) (Dkt 37) and the 

Motion to Stay (Dkt. 38). In the Motion to Compel Arbitration (Dkt. 37), Experian seeks an order 

compelling all claims against Experian to arbitration pursuant to an arbitration agreement that 

Experian asserts Plaintiff agreed to when he enrolled in CreditWorks. See Dkt. 37 at 2, 4. In the 

Motion to Stay (Dkt. 38), Experian seeks an order staying discovery pending the Court’s decision 

on the Motion to Compel Arbitration (Dkt. 37) because Experian asserts that “the parties will be 

dealing with burdensome discovery” and “[r]equiring Experian to engage in discovery in federal 

court would deprive it of the benefit of the bargain it struck with Plaintiff and vitiate the terms of 

the parties’ agreement.” Dkt. 38 at 1–2.

On May 28, 2024, Plaintiff filed the Response (Dkt. 43), opposing Experian’s request to 

stay discovery because Experian has failed to meet its burden of demonstrating the necessity of 

the requested stay. See Dkt. 43 at 9. Plaintiff further argues that the Motion to Compel Arbitration

(Dkt. 37) “is more a delaying tactic than a good-faith assertion of Experian’s rights.” Dkt. 43 at 2. 

On June 4, 2024, Experian filed the Reply (Dkt 49), asserting that “Plaintiff has failed to 

adequately rebut [its] arguments in support of a stay of discovery.” Dkt. 49 at 5. 

II. LEGAL ANALYSIS

The Court has “broad discretion and inherent power to stay discovery until preliminary 

questions that may dispose of the case are determined.” Fujita v. United States, 416 F. App’x 400, 

402 (5th Cir. 2011) (quoting Petrus v. Bowen, 833 F.2d 581, 583 (5th Cir. 1987)); see also Landis 

v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254 (1936) (“[T]he power to stay proceedings is incidental to the 

power inherent in every court to control the disposition of the causes on its docket with economy 

of time and effort for itself, for counsel, and for litigants.”). “To determine whether a stay is 

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appropriate[,] a district court ‘must balance the harm produced by the delay in discovery against 

the possibility that the motion will be granted and entirely eliminate the need for such discovery.’” 

Bickford v. Boerne Indep. Sch. Dist., No. 15-cv-1146, 2016 WL 1430063, at *1 (W.D. Tex. Apr. 8, 

2016) (quoting Feldman v. Flood, 176 F.R.D. 651, 652 (M.D. Fla. 1997)). Furthermore, “[t]he 

court may, for good cause, issue an order to protect a party or person from . . . undue burden or 

expense,” such as granting a stay of discovery. See FED. R. CIV. P. 26(c)(1); see also Landry v. Air 

Line Pilots Ass’n Int’l AFL-CIO, 901 F.2d 404, 435 (5th Cir. 1990), opinion modified on denial of 

reh’g (Apr. 27, 1990). “[W]hen one issue may be determinative of a case, the court has discretion 

to stay discovery on other issues until the critical issue has been decided.” 9A CHARLES ALAN

WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE, § 2040 (3d ed. 2024).

The Motion to Compel Arbitration (Dkt. 37) is currently pending before the Court. The 

Fifth Circuit has observed that “[i]t was ‘Congress’s clear intent, in the [Federal Arbitration Act], 

to move the parties to an arbitrable dispute out of court and into arbitration as quickly and easily 

as possible.’” Bell v. Koch Foods of Miss., LLC, 358 F. App’x 498, 500–01 (5th Cir. 2009) (quoting 

Moses H. Cone Mem’l Hosp. v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 22 (1983)). Thus, when a 

motion to compel arbitration is pending, “[c]ourts have demonstrated a proclivity to stay 

proceedings.” Williams v. Bankers Life & Cas. Co., No. 21-293, 2022 WL 187809, at *1 (M.D. 

La. Jan. 20, 2022) (first citing Patel v. Regions Bank, No. 18-796, 2018 WL 6422110, at *2 (M.D. 

La. Dec. 6, 2018); then citing Norman v. Travelers Ins. Co., No 19-2351, 2019 WL 6250782, at *2 

(N.D. Tex. Nov. 22, 2019)).

Experian argues that if it is required to participate in discovery prior to the decision on the 

Motion to Compel Arbitration (Dkt. 37), it would be deprived of “the benefit of the bargain it 

struck with Plaintiff.” Dkt. 38 at 1. Plaintiff contends that Experian “has not shown that a stay will 

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fundamentally change the burden [of discovery] on the parties.” Dkt. 43 at 5. Plaintiff also asserts 

that he will be prejudiced by a stay because “[t]he longer that Plaintiff is forced to wait to conduct 

necessary discovery, the more likely it is that important memories will fade, witnesses will become 

difficult to locate, and essential documents will be lost” and “Experian has demonstrated that it 

will aggressively seek to foreclose Plaintiff’s procedural and substantive rights in an arbitration 

forum.” Id. at 6–8. In response to Plaintiff’s argument, Experian asserts that Plaintiff will not suffer 

prejudice “from a short stay of discovery while the Court decides a threshold issue of whether the 

case should proceed in arbitration.” Dkt. 49 at 4. The Court agrees with Experian.

One of the many asserted benefits of arbitration is less intrusive discovery. See Coinbase, 

Inc. v. Bielski, 599 U.S. 736, 743 (2023). Experian asserts that CreditWorks Terms incorporate the 

rules of the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”), which requires production of only the 

documents a party plans to submit as exhibits at the arbitration hearing. See Dkt. 49 at 2. Experian 

further asserts that discovery pursuant to the AAA’s rules does not involve interrogatories, requests 

for production, requests for admission, or depositions as a matter of right; instead, the parties must 

request leave from the arbitrator for such discovery. See id. Experian proffers that “[a]t this time, 

Plaintiff has served upon [Experian] twenty-three Requests for Admission, forty-eight Requests 

for Production, and twenty-three Interrogatories.” Id. at 4. Thus, if a stay is not entered, Experian 

faces the burden of discovery in federal court and loses the potential advantage of less intrusive 

discovery pursuant to the purported arbitration agreement. Klepper v. SLI, Inc., 45 F. App’x 136, 

139 (3d Cir. 2002) (“[R]equiring the parties to submit to full discovery under the Federal Rules of 

Civil Procedure may unnecessarily subject them ‘to the very complexities, inconveniences and 

expenses of litigation that they determined to avoid.’” (quoting Suarez-Valdez v. Shearson 

Lehman/Am. Exp., Inc., 858 F.2d 648, 650 (11th Cir. 1988) (Tjoflat, J., concurring))).

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In contrast, the risk of loss of information raised by Plaintiff is only slight because the 

proposed stay will be relatively short—continuing until the Court decides the threshold issue of 

whether the case should be referred to arbitration. See In re CenturyLink Sales Pracs. & Sec. Litig., 

No. 17-2795, 2018 WL 2122869, at *2 (D. Minn. May 8, 2018) (finding a temporary stay of 

discovery, pending the determination of a motion to compel arbitration, would not prejudice 

Plaintiffs); Mahamedi IP L., LLP v. Paradice & Li, LLP, No. 16-cv-2805, 2017 WL 2727874, 

at *1 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 14, 2017) (same). Plaintiff further argues Experian’s primary objective, in 

seeking to enforce the purported arbitration agreement, is to “prohibit[] discovery altogether.” 

Dkt. 43 at 7. As such, Plaintiff argues that at least limited discovery of “certain preliminary issues” 

should be allowed to continue. See id. at 8. However, the Court does not agree. As detailed above, 

the discovery procedures and requirements in arbitration do not prohibit discovery altogether, but 

rather, impose lesser requirements on the parties allowing for less intrusive discovery, the purpose 

of which is the more efficient and speedy resolution of the claims. Further, Plaintiff has provided 

no argument as to what “preliminary issues” should continue to discovery at this time. Thus, the 

Court finds there is good cause to stay discovery pending the resolution of the Motion to Compel 

Arbitration (Dkt. 37).

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Motion to Stay (Dkt. 38) is GRANTED. 

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that all pretrial and discovery deadlines are STAYED

pending a decision on the Motion to Compel Arbitration (Dkt. 37).

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