United States District Court, N.D. California
DISCOVERY ORDER RE: DKT. NOS. 158, 159, 161, 163,
164, 165, 169, 174, 176, 177
THOMAS
S. HIXSON UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
The
Court had a telephonic hearing this morning concerning a
number of discovery letter briefs. This order follows.
A.
ECF No. 158: Barracuda's RFAs to Optrics
RFA 13.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 36(a)(4) states that
“[a] denial must fairly respond to the substance of the
matter; and when good faith requires that a party qualify an
answer or deny only a part of a matter, the answer must
specify the part admitted and qualify or deny the
rest.” So, it's fine for Optrics to deny that it
withdrew a “registration” for something it never
had a registration for, but Optrics still has to admit the
remainder of the RFA, which asks Optrics to admit that it
withdrew class 9 from the trademark application.
Likewise,
for RFA 16, Optrics can deny that the transfer was
“back” to Barracuda, but still must admit or deny
as to whether there was a transfer.
For RFA
17, Optrics doesn't have to admit something just because
its CEO said it in an email. Maybe the CEO was being
insincere. Indeed, the tenor of the email suggests that
Barracuda itself was skeptical of the CEO's
characterization of the reason for registering the domain.
RFAs 22
and 40. The documents don't establish that these things
are true such that Optrics would need to admit them. And for
RFA 45, again, just because someone said something in an
email doesn't mean it actually happened. A formal record
of a vote might be a different situation, but one sentence in
a long email could be a mistake or a misstatement of fact.
For RFA
30, Optrics is free to deny the words
“negotiations” and “transfer” and
instead call it all extortion, but the thrust of the RFA is
whether Optrics was represented by counsel during this time,
and Optrics must admit or deny that. For RFA 34, just because
Optrics is unsure if McDonald reviewed the entire agreement
doesn't mean Optrics can do an outright denial. If
McDonald reviewed part of the agreement, Optrics must admit
that, and if it is reasonably clear which parts are among
those he reviewed (such as clause 14.13 and section 3.8), it
must admit that.
Optrics'
response to RFA 71 doesn't make sense. OI00908803 appears
to have been produced by Optrics, and it provides sufficient
information to admit or deny. The email contains the words
“they have been truly professional, ” so unless
the subject matter of the email is really about something
else entirely, there is no justification for a flat-out
denial. Grammatically, “they” seems to refer to
Britt and Sophia, so if it is truthful that the comment was
directed only to them, Optrics can admit that.
The
Court sustains Optrics' relevance objections to RFAs 52
and 53.
The
Court orders Optrics to serve amended responses to RFAs 13,
16, 30, 34 and 71 within seven days.
B.
ECF No. 159: Barracuda's RFPs, Interrogatories and
Deposition Notices to Optrics
RFP 74.
Barracuda stated at the hearing that this RFP is no longer in
dispute.
RFP 89.
The Court orders Optrics to file a status report on this ...