Judge: Craig Griffin, Case: "Smart Source of Boston, LLC vs. Source Connect LLC", Date: 2022-09-19 Tentative Ruling

The motion by plaintiff Smart Source of Boston, LLC (“plaintiff”) for an order compelling third party Coast Sales & Development, Inc.  (“Coast”) to comply with plaintiff’s deposition subpoena is GRANTED.

The deposition subpoena for production of Coast’s business records was issued on 3/14/2022. (LeBoff Decl. ¶5, Ex. 2) Coast did not object to the subpoena. It did not produce any documents, and it did not respond to plaintiff’s meet and confer efforts. (LeBoff Decl. ¶¶6-7)

However, defendants objected and unsuccessfully moved to quash the subpoena on overbreadth, relevancy and privacy grounds, the same grounds raised in opposition to the present motion. (See ROA #307)

Overbroad/vague/burdensome

Consistent with this court’s ruling on defendants’ motion to quash:

The 11 categories of documents sought from Coast shall be limited in scope to those evidencing the business relationship between Coast and defendants related to Source Connect for the relevant time period.

Relevancy

The court finds that the categories of documents sought in the Coast subpoena are relevant to, among other matters, defendant’s procurement of gloves for plaintiff and the basis for selecting Coast to procure those gloves. (See Banuelos Decl. Ex. D at 85:15-19 - defendants used Coast to “basically facilitate the order and the paperwork and the import of the gloves.”)

The records are also relevant to defendants contention that all of the product secured by Coast was delivered to plaintiff. The complaint is not so narrowly tailored as defendants argue to limit discovery to only Vietnamese vendors.

Privacy

As the court previously ruled, with regard to privacy, the framework for evaluating a potential invasion of privacy requires the party asserting the privacy right to establish a legally protected interest, an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the given circumstances and a threated intrusion that is serious. (Williams v. Superior Court (2017) 3 Cal.5th 531, 552 citing Hill v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1, 35).

Defendants argue that the records sought are those of private business dealings. However, they have not established a reasonable expectation of privacy or a threatened intrusion which is serious.

Notably, Allen does not testify that defendants had any prior or subsequent business with Coast or any business with Coast other than in connection with procuring gloves for plaintiffs. Nor have defendants presented any other evidence for the court to find that defendants have a legitimate interest in the privacy of its business dealings with Coast.

Where, as it appears to be here, the only business dealings between Coast and defendants relate to securing product for plaintiff, any potential privacy right is outweighed by plaintiff’s need to discover what happened to its money (LeBoff Decl. Ex. 1) and what agreements existed between Coast and defendants to procure gloves for plaintiff.

Defendants argument lacks merit that the records are available from another source simply because some of them have been produced by defendants in response to written discovery. 

For all of these reasons, the motion is GRANTED.

Coast is ordered to produce all responsive documents for all categories in the subpoena consistent with this ruling within 10 days.

Plaintiff to provide Notice of Ruling.