Lin v. Solta Medical, Inc. ( 2024 )

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 HSIN LIN, Case No. 21-cv-05062-PJH 8 Plaintiff, 9 v. DISCOVERY ORDER 10 SOLTA MEDICAL, INC., Re: Dkt. No. 84 11 Defendant. 12 13 14 Before the court is a joint discovery letter brief summarizing certain discovery 15 disputes between the parties. Having read the parties’ submission and carefully 16 considered their arguments and the relevant legal authority, and good cause appearing, 17 the court hereby rules as follows. 18 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) provides a broad definition of relevance 19 for purposes of discovery: “Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged 20 matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the 21 case.” “[D]iscovery is not limited to issues raised by the pleadings, for discovery itself is 22 designed to help define and clarify the issues.” Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 23 U.S. 340, 351 (1978). “Nor is discovery limited to the merits of a case, for a variety of 24 fact-oriented issues may arise during litigation that are not related to the merits.” Id. The 25 party resisting discovery “has the burden to show that discovery should not be allowed, 26 and has the burden of clarifying, explaining, and supporting its objections.” Oakes v. 27 Halvorsen Marine Ltd., 179 F.R.D. 281, 283 (C.D. Cal. 1998). 1 RFP 41: (1) whether the search should only return results that include “CPT”, or whether 2 there are better ways to limit the search to communications about that device; 3 (2) whether the search should extend back to 2009 or 2014; and (3) whether defendant 4 must disclose the employees whose emails will be searched. 5 First, the court has previously ordered that “the discovery requests should be 6 limited to materials concerning the model or generation of device at issue in the 7 complaint—not any device with the Thermage name on it.” Dkt. 80 at 4. The parties 8 dispute how best to accomplish this goal using search terms. The court agrees that 9 “CPT” or another unique product identifier (e.g., a model number) must also be included 10 somewhere in the document for it to return as a search result. The court notes that the 11 parties should consider enabling email threading technology, which produces all emails in 12 a chain when one of the emails is returned in the search, to ensure that related emails 13 are produced when one addresses the CPT device. 14 Second, the parties dispute whether the search should extend back to when the 15 product was first put onto the market in 2009, or whether it should extend back to 2014. 16 On March 15, 2023, plaintiff sent defendant a letter regarding RFPs. Dkt. 82-1 at ECF 17 p. 6. In it, plaintiff stated her willingness to agree to “narrow the request to include only 18 communications made from January 1, 2015 to the present.” Id. at ECF p. 14. Given 19 plaintiff’s earlier willingness to agree to an even narrower scope and the court’s belief that 20 a search to 2014 is sufficient and that searching back to 2009 would be excessive, the 21 search should extend to cover 2014 to present, the range to which defendant now 22 agrees. 23 Third, defendant’s portion of the joint discovery letter contained the list of 24 employees whose emails will be searched, thereby mooting the issue raised by plaintiff. 25 IT IS SO ORDERED. 26 Dated: January 11, 2024 27 /s/ Phyllis J. Hamilton