Opinion ID: 613084
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: e360's Motion to Compel

Text: Having said that, it is more than a little ironic that e360's next argument concerns the district court's refusal to compel Spamhaus to respond to some of e360's own discovery requests. In October 2008, after sanctions were imposed on e360, e360 moved to compel Spamhaus to answer a number of pending interrogatories. e360 had requested that Spamhaus: (1) identify the individuals involved in the Spamhaus decision to list e360's IP addresses on its list of known spammers; (2) identify all Spamhaus employees and volunteers and provide their job functions, salary, and other compensation; and (3) identify where data and other assets are stored. The district court denied this motion because its July order had informed the parties that the only discovery left would be the depositions of [Linhardt] and [e360's] 30(b)(6) representative. We review the district court's denial of e360's motion to compel for an abuse of discretion. Packman v. Chicago Tribune Co., 267 F.3d 628, 646 (7th Cir. 2001). Generally speaking, a district court's decision will be considered unreasonable if it was lacking a basis in law or fact, such that it clearly appears arbitrary. Walker v. Sheahan, 526 F.3d 973, 978 (7th Cir.2008), citing Reynolds v. Jamison, 488 F.3d 756, 761 (7th Cir.2007). Even if the district court's decision was unreasonable, however, we will not grant any relief absent a clear showing that the denial of discovery resulted in actual and substantial prejudice. Searls v. Glasser, 64 F.3d 1061, 1068 (7th Cir.1995). Here, e360 argues that these standards were met because the July order said only that, aside from the depositions of Linhardt and e360's corporate representative, No new discovery may be propounded by either party. The denied motion to compel was not new discovery, e360 says, but merely a request to compel previously propounded [discovery] requests. Even if we treated the July order as ambiguous, e360 was playing with fire by waiting three months to file its motion to compel. And even if we were to assume that the district court misinterpreted its own order and erred by treating e360's motion to compel as new discovery forbidden by its July order, which we doubt, we see no basis for finding that e360 suffered actual and substantial prejudice from the denial of that motion. See Searls, 64 F.3d at 1068. First, Spamhaus employees' salaries and compensation were clearly irrelevant to the amount of e360's damages. The mere location of Spamhaus's data and other assets would say nothing about any losses e360 suffered. The district court's July order certainly would have prevented e360 from conducting any follow-up discovery based on the answers. The remaining information e360 soughtthe identities of Spamhaus employees and the individuals who were involved in placing e360's IP addresses on the list of spammersprimarily concerned Spamhaus's liability, which had already been established by the default judgment. e360 claims that it was prejudiced because these employees might have known who used Spamhaus's list of known spammers or how many of e360's emails were blocked as a result. We see little reason to think that Spamhaus employees would have such knowledge, however. Spamhaus itself did not actually block any email. It merely provided a list of IP addresses that ISPs in turn used to block emails originating from those addresses. As Spamhaus explained in its interrogatory responses, it provided its list of known spammers for free on the Internet, without collecting names or other information about the individuals who viewed that list. It seems most unlikely, then, that any Spamhaus employees would have any meaningful knowledge about who actually used its list or exactly how many of plaintiff's emails were blocked by users of that list. The speculative possibility that some Spamhaus employees might have possessed such information does not rise to the level of actual and substantial prejudice required under our case law. Searls, 64 F.3d at 1068. [4]