Allagas et al v. BP Solar International, Inc. et al

Filing 131

ORDER directing Defendant to produce its proposed random sample of 1,000 warranty claims to Plaintiffs by November 5, 2015 by Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte. (shyS, COURT STAFF) (Filed on 10/29/2015)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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MICHAEL ALLAGAS, et al.,

Case No. 14-cv-00560-SI (EDL)

Plaintiffs,
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v.

ORDER

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United States District Court
Northern District of California

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BP SOLAR INTERNATIONAL, INC., et
al.,

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Re: Dkt. No. 121

Defendants.

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On July 28, 2015, Plaintiffs filed a motion to compel production of international warranty

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claims and soldering instructions. On September 16, 2015, this Court issued an order on that motion

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stating, in part, that if Defendant BP confirms that it will not argue that the defect alleged by Plaintiffs

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is only tied to particular manufacturing plants, then the burden of producing additional international

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warranty claims outweighs Plaintiffs’ need for those documents. Subsequently, Defendant indicated

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that it is unwilling to do so and Plaintiff requested that their motion to compel production of all

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international warranty claims be “granted in full.”

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In response, Defendant proposed that it be ordered to produce a random sample of 1,000
warranty claims for solar panels produced at its plants in Madrid, Spain and Bangalore, India. On
October 9, 2015, Plaintiffs filed a letter indicating that they are “open to accepting a sample, but need
some summary level information to evaluate the adequacy of the sample size, and to be able to draw
inferences from the sample,” including the total number of warranty claims, the total number of panels
at issue, and the number of panels associated with each claim broken down by manufacturing site and
year. Plaintiffs did not file a declaration explaining their need for this information. On October 19,
2015, this Court ordered Defendants to either produce this information or explain why the burden of
production would be disproportionate.

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On October 22, 2015, Defendant filed a letter indicating that “the total universe of relevant

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warranty claims number[s] 5,495, of which the 1,000 claim sample proposed by BP represents 18

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percent.” Defendant estimated based on a statistical analysis of is claims production for panels

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produced in the United States that there are on average five solar panels at issue in each of the 5,495

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claims, for a total 27,475 panels. Further, Defendant indicated that breaking down each panel by

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manufacturing site and year would be burdensome as this information is not easily obtainable from its

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database and compiling this information would require an extensive manual review. Defendant

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estimated that this review will take 685 hours of work at a minimum. As Plaintiffs have not

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established that they have a sufficient need for the manufacturing site and year data to outweigh the

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United States District Court
Northern District of California

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burden of compiling the information, their request for this data is denied. Moreover, it appears based
on Defendant’s declaration that a random sample of 1,000 warranty claims for panels produced in
Defendant’s factories in Madrid and Bangalore is highly likely to identify statistically significant
differences in warranty claim rates, to the extent they exist. Accordingly, if it has not already,
Defendant is ordered to produce its proposed random sample of 1,000 warranty claims to Plaintiffs by
November 5, 2015.

IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: October 29, 2015

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________________________
ELIZABETH D. LAPORTE
United States Magistrate Judge

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