*1 Pending before the Court is Non-Party's Motion to Quash or Modify Defendants’ Subpoena (Doc. 101), as well as Defendant's Memorandum in Support of Request to Compel Plaintiff's Production of recorded statements (Doc. 112). For the following reasons, the motion to quash is granted, and the request to compel recorded statements is denied.

In response to Defendants’ discovery requests, Plaintiff produced a privilege log here, identifying three statements dated September 11, 2017, October 18, 2017, and January 25, 2018. These three statements were documented by a court reporter in the law firm representing plaintiff in this action. They contain recitations of various facts communicated to Plaintiff's attorney that support her underlying complaint.

Separately, Defendants requested that a non-party, Shea Watson, provide various communications with twenty-four individuals over a period of four years, in addition to copies of any social media posts that pertain to those individuals. In response to complaints from the non-party that the request was unduly burdensome, Defendants seek to voluntarily limit the scope of the subpoena to three requests. The first of these three requests still would require production of over 65,000 text messages including 10.11 GB of transmitted data. The other, more limited requests would require review of communications with twenty-four individuals over a period of four years. Plaintiff here has already complied with a similar request from Defendants, which has allegedly cost over $11,000. In their response, Defendants request the Court to direct Ms. Watson to produce all of these documents within seven days of ruling.

Defendants have filed a memorandum here in support of their request to compel the statements prepared by the court reporter. Ms. Watson has filed a motion to quash the discovery request as unduly burdensome.

I. Legal Standard

“The attorney-client privilege protects confidential disclosures made by a client to an attorney in order to obtain legal advice.” U.S. v. Ruehle, 583 F.3d 600, 607 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal citation omitted). The assurance of confidentiality promotes open attorney-client communications, which are “central to the legal system and the adversary process.” United States v. Hodge & Zweig, 548 F.2d 1347, 1355 (9th Cir. 1977). Typically, an eight-part test determines whether information is covered by the attorney-client privilege: “(1) [w]here legal advice of any kind is sought (2) from a professional legal adviser in his capacity as such, (3) the communications relating to that purpose, (4) made in confidence (5) by the client, (6) are at his instance permanently protected (7) from disclosure by himself or by the legal adviser, (8) unless the protection be waived.” Id. A party asserting the attorney-client privilege has the burden of establishing the relationship and the privileged nature of the communication. Id.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 imposes limits on discovery when “the discovery sought is unreasonably cumulative or duplicative or can be obtained from some other source that is more convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive.” Fed.R.Civ.P. Rule 26(b)(2)(C)(i). This rule applies to non-parties, who may not have the ability to control the scope of litigation and discovery. See United States v. Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc., 666 F.2d 364, 371 (9th Cir. 1982) (“Nonparty witnesses are powerless to control the scope of litigation and discovery and should not be forced to subsidize an unreasonable share of the costs of a litigation to which they are not a party.”)

II. Analysis

A. Three Court Reporter Transcripts

*2 Defendants seek to compel three separate transcripts produced by a court reporter for purposes of analyzing potential Rule 11 violations. These communications fall within the attorney client privilege and therefore the Court will not require that Plaintiff produce them. Plaintiff has indicated that these statements were made, among other reasons, for Plaintiff's counsel to determine whether “Plaintiff presented a set of facts sufficient for a case to be pursued in this Court, and to advise the client whether they did or not.” Ninth Circuit precedent protects all “communications relating to” statements made to obtain legal advice. In re Grand Jury Investigation, 974 F.2d 1068, 1071 n.2 (9th Cir. 1982). Because these communications relate to Plaintiffs attempt to get legal advice about her underlying claim, they are privileged and will not be produced.

B. Motion to Quash

Defendants’ request here presents Ms. Watson with an unenviable Catch-22: either hire a forensic expert to produce the documents that Defendants seek or turn over her cell phone for an undetermined period of time to Defendants’ law firm.

Much of the information that Defendants seek from this request is likely available from other sources. Defendants have already requested that Plaintiff Alyssa Jones produce all cell phone communications between her and Ms. Watson, though Defendants allege that Plaintiff may not have provided all of those communications. And Defendants can still obtain many, if not all of the communications between Ms. Watson and their employees, including Defendant Ryan Hibbert. Most importantly, Defendants can still depose Ms. Watson ask her questions regarding the complaint, including whether Ms. Watson overheard conversations between Plaintiff and other employees of Riot Hospitality Group about the alleged incidents. When considering the various other avenues available to Defendants to obtain the information sought in the subpoena, it becomes clear that the request is “unreasonably cumulative or duplicative or can be obtained from some other source that is more convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(C)(i). As such, the Court will grant the Motion to Quash.

It appears from Defendants’ response here that both Plaintiff and an individual Defendant Ryan Hibbert may not have preserved all communications with Ms. Watson before the lawsuit was filed. If that information is truly unavailable from Plaintiff or Mr. Hibbert, then Defendants may request cell phone information from Ms. Watson with a specified date range at a later time. However, if the costs of compliance with those subpoenas are still significant, as they are here, the Court will consider further requests from Ms. Watson to shift the costs of compliance to Defendants. See Fed. R. Civ. P. Rule 45(d)(2)(B)(ii).

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendants’ request to compel (Doc. 112) is DENIED.

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Non-Party's Motion to Quash or Modify Defendants’ Subpoena (Doc. 101) is GRANTED.