IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS 

EASTERN DIVISION 

FIDELITY BROKERAGE SERVICES 

LLC, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

JENNIFER TAYLOR, 

Defendant. 

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No. 20 CV 2133 

Judge John J. Tharp, Jr. 

ORDER 

Plaintiff’s motion for limited expedited discovery [6] is granted in part. Expedited 

discovery will be conducted on the schedule set forth in the parties’ joint status report [17]. See 

Statement below for details. 

STATEMENT 

 In a complaint filed on April 3, 2020, plaintiff Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC claims that 

defendant Jennifer Taylor, who was until March 6, 2020, a vice president and financial consultant 

with Fidelity, is misusing Fidelity’s confidential and trade secret customer information to solicit 

Fidelity customers to follow her to her new employer, Fairhaven Wealth Management. Taylor 

denies misusing Fidelity information and soliciting investment management business from her 

former Fidelity customers. 

Both parties agree that this dispute is subject to arbitration before a FINRA (Financial 

Industry Regulatory Authority) Arbitration Panel. They also agree that FINRA arbitration rules 

permit parties to seek a “temporary injunctive order” from a court, in advance of a hearing on 

“permanent” injunctive relief before an arbitration panel. FINRA Rule 13804. Citing this rule, 

Fidelity filed a motion for a preliminary injunction along with its complaint and seeks “limited 

expedited discovery” in connection with that motion. 

Taylor opposes Fidelity’s request for discovery for several reasons. She first argues that 

Fidelity is operating in bad faith by seeking discovery in connection with a motion for a 

preliminary injunction because FINRA rules generally allow only limited discovery and do not 

provide for discovery at all prior to a hearing on “permanent” injunctive relief. Taylor maintains 

that the temporary injunctive order that Rule 13804 permits is a temporary restraining order and 

that the hearing on permanent injunctive relief that follows entry of a TRO is—notwithstanding 

its description in the Rule—akin to a preliminary injunction hearing. This matters, says Taylor, 

because TRO motions are typically decided without discovery whereas it is more likely that 

discovery would be permitted in connection with a preliminary injunction motion. By eschewing 

a TRO motion in favor of a preliminary injunction motion, Taylor asserts that Fidelity is trying to 

obtain discovery that is not authorized by the FINRA rules. 

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This argument is not persuasive. Not only does it contravene the seemingly clear meaning 

of FINRA’s rules—“permanent” is not typically understood to mean preliminary or temporary—

but the FINRA rules expressly define “temporary injunctive order” to include not only temporary 

restraining orders but also preliminary injunction orders. See FINRA Rule 13100(dd). Moreover, 

Taylor’s argument ignores the import of FINRA’s rule permitting parties to seek such relief in 

court, where discovery is not subject to FINRA’s discovery limitations. Permitting parties to go to 

court to litigate concerning a request for temporary injunctive relief necessarily also permits those 

parties to employ the rules and procedures of those courts in ruling on that request. FINRA has no 

authority to modify the rules of procedure that govern this or any other court’s evaluation of a 

request for temporary injunctive relief. It makes no sense to say FINRA allows parties to seek 

temporary injunctive relief in court while also maintaining that FINRA does not permit discovery 

in connection with seeking temporary injunctive relief. To permit the one is to countenance the 

other. 

Taylor also objects that by waiting five weeks to file its complaint and seeking a 

preliminary injunction without first seeking a TRO, Fidelity has shown that there is no need for 

expedited discovery. Again, the Court finds the argument to be unpersuasive. As her brief 

otherwise acknowledges, expedited discovery is often permitted in connection with motions for 

preliminary injunctions; as a motion for temporary injunctive relief premised, in part, on a claim 

that irreparable harm is occurring, there is a clear temporal urgency to the need to permit some 

limited discovery of information central to the allegations of the complaint. That Fidelity waited 

five weeks to file its complaint and motion, and opted not to seek an immediate TRO, may have 

some relevance to its claim that Taylor’s conduct is causing irreparable harm, but that is a question 

to consider in the context of the preliminary injunction motion. Irreparable harm is not the standard 

for obtaining discovery. 

Taylor’s argument that Fidelity does not need discovery because it should already know 

the information that its discovery requests seek is specious. The filing of a complaint does not 

require complete knowledge of the facts bearing on the nature, scope, and form of the defendant’s 

alleged misconduct; rather, it requires nothing more than allegations made in good faith that 

plausibly suggest that the plaintiff has a viable claim. Taylor has not yet answered the complaint, 

and it remains open to her to seek to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim, but she has 

not made such an argument in opposing discovery; at this juncture, there is no reason to believe 

that discovery cannot yield relevant and material information bearing on Fidelity’s claim (or on 

Taylor’s defenses). 

The Court also agrees with Fidelity that conducting some limited discovery will diminish 

the need for an evidentiary hearing on the motion. That is a particularly salient point given the 

ongoing burdens and restrictions imposed on litigants, attorneys, and witnesses (as well as the 

courts) by the COVID-19 pandemic. Discovery or no, a hearing may be necessary, but discovery 

may obviate the need for a hearing or streamline the evidentiary presentation required at a hearing. 

To that end, permitting limited expedited discovery will serve Taylor’s interests as well as 

Fidelity’s. 

The parties have filed a joint status report setting forth the scope and schedule for expedited 

discovery should the Court permit it. The one area of disagreement noted in that regard is whether 

30(b)(6) depositions of Fidelity and Fairview will be permitted. In the Court’s view, the burdens 

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associated with those depositions outweigh their utility in the context of this case. “Limited 

expedited discovery” is just that. It is not intended to leave no stone unturned, but rather to provide 

an opportunity to develop the evidence that is most relevant and material to the dispute. In that 

regard, Ms. Taylor will be able to depose the two individuals central to Fidelity’s claim, and 

Fidelity will be able to depose Ms. Taylor. Depositions of Fidelity and Fairhaven would require 

substantial and exhaustive document searches and reviews that are not consistent with a limited 

and expedited process and would not likely produce significant information that is not already 

known to, and available from, the individual witnesses who are central to this dispute. 

Finally, the Court expects each party to cooperate in good faith in conducting this 

discovery. All document requests should be narrowly targeted and described to obtain information 

at the heart of this dispute—that is, whether Ms. Taylor has used Fidelity’s information improperly 

to solicit her former clients at Fidelity to follow her to Fairhaven. Any disputes about the breadth 

and burden of discovery requests will be evaluated in that light. 

 /s/ John J. Tharp, Jr. 

Dated: May 22, 2020 John J. Tharp, Jr. 

 United States District Judge 

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