Core Labs. LP v. AmSpec, LLC
Core Labs. LP v. AmSpec, LLC
2017 WL 8294279 (S.D. Ala. 2017)
May 12, 2017
Nelson, Katherine P., United States Magistrate Judge
Summary
The Plaintiffs filed a motion to compel discovery against the Defendant, AmSpec, LLC, for documents and communications related to their business relationship with Chevron in Mobile and Pascagoula. The Court granted the motion, ordering AmSpec to produce communications between Chevron and AmSpec employees concerning the Plaintiffs, their employees, or their business relationship with Chevron in Mobile and Pascagoula, limited to the time period between June 2015 and October 2016. The Court also ordered the parties to meet and confer to determine appropriate search protocols.
Additional Decisions
CORE LABORATORIES LP f/k/a Core Laboratories, Inc., et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
AmSPEC, LLC, et al., Defendants
v.
AmSPEC, LLC, et al., Defendants
CIVIL ACTION NO. 16-00526-CG-N
United States District Court, S.D. Alabama, Southern Division
Filed May 12, 2017
Nelson, Katherine P., United States Magistrate Judge
ORDER
*1 This action is before the Court on the motion to compel discovery under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a) filed by Plaintiffs Core Laboratories LP f/k/a Core Laboratories, Inc. and Saybolt LP (hereinafter, “the Plaintiffs”) against Defendant AmSpec, LLC (Doc. 79). The Court has referred the motion to the undersigned Magistrate Judge for appropriate action under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B), Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(b), and S.D. Ala. GenLR 72(a)(2)(S). See S.D. Ala. GenLR 72(b); (3/6/2017 electronic references). The motion has undergone two rounds of briefing (see Docs. 84, 90, 97, 101, 105), and many of the issues initially raised appear to be moot at this time.
Per the Plaintiffs' sur-sur-reply, the only outstanding discovery issues relate to the Plaintiffs' requests for production (“RFP”) nos. 2, 6, and 7:
2. All documents and communications regarding any work, projects, solicitations, or efforts by AmSpec or any employee of AmSpec to develop business from Chevron Chemical or any Chevron entity in the greater Mobile, Alabama or Pascagoula, Mississippi areas.
6. All communications to, from, between, or among AmSpec, Davenport, Freeman, Stair, Lynch, Perry, Sellers, Driskell, or Hoang related to Saybolt; AmSpec's facility in Mobile County, Alabama; or Chevron work in the Mobile, Alabama or Pascagoula, Mississippi areas.
7. All communications to, from, between, or among any AmSpec employee and any current or former Saybolt employee related to Saybolt; AmSpec's facility in Mobile County, Alabama; or Chevron work in the Mobile, Alabama or Pascagoula, Mississippi areas.
AmSpec prefaces its objection to each of these requests with the same boilerplate language, asserting that each “is overly-broad, vague, unduly burdensome, and not reasonably calculated to lead to admissible evidence.” As to RFP No. 2, AmSpec further “objects on the basis that it seeks confidential, proprietary trade secrets.” As to RFP Nos. 6 and 7, AmSpec further specifies that each of those requests “is not limited in time or subject matter, and would include every single communication of these employees with any other AmSpec employee from the beginning of time to the present.”
In support of its objections to these RFP, AmSpec argues in its sur-reply:
Effectively, Saybolt is requesting every business communication and record for AmSpec's Mobile, Alabama office from its inception to the present...
First, this request is objectionable because it includes most of AmSpec's Mobile, AL office, and is not limited to the three individual defendants who are alleged to have breached their agreements with Saybolt (Freeman, Davenport and Stair). This Court should not allow Saybolt an opportunity to go hunting for a reason to sue Lynch, Perry, Driskell and Hoang by opening up their AmSpec email to discovery without limitation.
Second, the scope of this request is all-inclusive of the listed employees' email boxes because it includes “communications related to AmSpec's facility in Mobile County, Alabama.” Every business related communication by and among these AmSpec employees presumably relates to AmSpec's facility in Mobile. It is, after all, where they work. This request is clearly overly broad and unduly burdensome on this point alone.
*2 AmSpec has been attempting to negotiate a narrower scope of E-Discovery which would resolve this dispute. AmSpec's position is that any discovery should be limited to Chevron (and not any other customers) because Saybolt has only identified Chevron in its Interrogatory answers as a customer from whom it has lost business (Exhibit 2, No. 5). Further in the Complaint, Saybolt only references Chevron and states that Freeman, Davenport and Stair have “caused Saybolt to lose business from a key customer.” See Complaint [Doc. 1 para. 69, 78, and 87]. Saybolt has tentatively agreed to limit its document request to Chevron, but the parties are still negotiating a further narrowing of the request.
To that end, AmSpec has conducted an analysis of the number of emails for custodians Davenport, Freeman, and Stair, which include “Chevron” in the email. Even by excluding all other custodians, and focusing exclusively on Chevron, the number of responsive documents from September 2016 through March 2017 is over 7,000 emails.
Since this is still an unmanageable amount of email, and is only one part of what has been requested in discovery by Saybolt in this matter, AmSpec maintains that the scope of the search should be further narrowed. AmSpec will therefore continue to try to negotiate a resolution of this matter with Saybolt, and hopefully avoid the need for court involvement.2
FN2 - For example, only direct communications between Davenport, Freeman, and Stair with Chevron could be evidence of a “knowing interference with a business relationship between the company [Saybolt] and any customer.” See Complaint [Doc. 1, para 68, 77, and 86]. To the extent Saybolt is seeking internal AmSpec communications mentioning Chevron, or communications from Chevron to AmSpec, Saybolt's request is broader than what might be relevant to prove its claims.
(Doc. 101 at 3 – 5).
The Plaintiffs represent in their sur-sur-reply that “[o]n April 12, 2017, [they] agreed to narrow these requests even further to focus on communications between Chevron and AmSpec employees...Thus, all that is left for the outstanding requests are the AmSpec communications related to Chevron work in the Mobile, Alabama or Pascagoula, Mississippi areas.” (Doc. 105 at 4). The Plaintiffs assert that these communications are both “relevant and “proportional to the needs of the case,” arguing:
AmSpec's communications with and about Chevron's Pascagoula refinery are critical for showing that AmSpec induced seven former Saybolt employees to “knowingly interfere” with this customer relationship. These communications likely will establish tortious interference liability with respect to AmSpec and breach-of-contract liability with respect to the Individual Defendants. See, e.g., Parsons v. Aaron, 849 So.2d 932, 946 (Ala. 2002) (defining elements of tortious interference).
Saybolt has pleaded these theories in great detail in its complaint. See ECF No. 1, at ¶¶ 44–90. Since AmSpec's communications with Chevron are a key issue in the case, the requests at issue call for the production of relevant documents.
(Doc. 105 at 5).
The Plaintiffs also contest AmSpec's proposed scope of production as “unreasonably narrow,” arguing:
AmSpec has proposed “produc[ing] the emails from Freeman, Stair and Davenport to Chevron in the first 30 days of [their] employment.” Ex. 2. This proposal cuts out a significant timeframe. AmSpec began devising its plan to “shut Saybolt down” as early as December 2015.[1] It was identifying targets in early 2016. And it began making formal offers at least as early as July 2016. All of this activity, and the attendant communications to Chevron about it, would be omitted with AmSpec's proposal.
*3 AmSpec's proposal also leaves out significant custodians. The covenant to avoid knowing interference with Saybolt's business relationship applies to five AmSpec employees in addition to the Individual Defendants: Gary Lynch, Patrick Perry, Jordan Sellers, Jimmy Driskell, and Keke Hoang. Their interactions with Chevron are thus also relevant to the tortious interference claim against AmSpec. See, e.g., ECF No. 1, at ¶¶ 45–46. While Saybolt remains willing to work with AmSpec to limit the timeframe and custodial searches for AmSpec and Chevron communications, the Chevron-AmSpec e-mails are too important to agree only to 30-days' worth of Davenport, Freeman, and Stair e-mails.5
FN5 - Saybolt understands from the monthly breakdown in e-mail numbers provided by AmSpec that the 30-days' worth of e-mails for these custodians would be well below 7,000 e-mails. See Ex. 2.
(Doc. 105 at 8).
Unless otherwise ordered, “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties' relative access to relevant information, the parties' resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Information within this scope of discovery need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1).
Upon consideration, the undersigned finds that the Plaintiffs' motion to compel is largely due to be granted as to its remaining request for “AmSpec communications related to Chevron work in the Mobile, Alabama or Pascagoula, Mississippi areas.” (Doc. 105 at 4). Such communications are relevant to the Plaintiffs' claims that AmSpec tortiously interfered with the Plaintiffs' business relationship with Chevron. While such communications may be voluminous, as AmSpec represents, AmSpec has failed to convince the undersigned that the burden of producing them outweighs their likely benefit or that their production is otherwise disproportional to the needs of the case.
However, the undersigned finds that such production should be limited to the time period between Defendant Bobby Davenport's retirement from the Plaintiffs in June 2015 (since AmSpec's plot against the Plaintiffs allegedly began with hiring Davenport to recruit other of Plaintiffs' employees) and October 7, 2016, the date the Plaintiffs initiated this action. Moreover, the communications should be limited to those that specifically concerned the Plaintiffs, their employees, or their business relationship with Chevron in Mobile and Pascagoula.
Accordingly, the Plaintiffs' motion to compel (Doc. 79) is GRANTED in part, DENIED in part, and MOOT in part,[2] such that it is ORDERED as follows:
1. No later than Monday, June 26, 2017, AmSpec must produce to the Plaintiffs “AmSpec communications related to Chevron work in the Mobile, Alabama or Pascagoula, Mississippi areas” made between June 2015 and October 7, 2016, that concern the Plaintiffs, their employees and/or other agents, or the Plaintiffs' business relationship with Chevron in Mobile and Pascagoula.[3]
2. No later than Friday, May 19, 2017, the Plaintiffs and AmSpec must meet and confer in good faith to determine appropriate search protocols for AmSpec to utilize to effect the production ordered in the previous paragraph. To the extent these parties are unable to agree on appropriate search protocols, any of them may move the Court to fashion an appropriate protocol no later than Wednesday, May 24, 2017.
*4 3. To the extent the Plaintiffs represent that certain issues raised in their are moot because AmSpec has promised to produce responsive material, the Plaintiffs may re-raise those issues in another motion to compel in the event AmSpec fails to fulfill its promises, subject to the discovery deadline in the scheduling order.
DONE and ORDERED this the 12th day of May 2017.
Footnotes
If a motion to compel “is granted in part and denied in part, the court...may, after giving an opportunity to be heard, apportion the reasonable expenses for the motion.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5)(C). Given that another other Rule 37 motion to compel (Doc. 93) and a motion for protective order (Doc. 96) remain pending, and in the interest of avoiding piecemeal litigation of the issue, the undersigned will, as with the denial of AmSpec's motion to compel (see Doc. 97 at 3 n.2), stay consideration of such an award until those motions are disposed of as well, at which time all issues regarding “reasonable expense” awards under Rule 37(a)(5) can be addressed simultaneously.
To the extent this directive may cover “confidential, proprietary trade secrets,” AmSpec may move for relief from this order as to such material on that ground.