Golan et al v. Veritas Entertainment, LLC et al

Filing 222

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Motion for Sanctions and to Compel against Defendants Freeeats.com, Inc., AIC Communications, LLC, and Gabriel S. Joseph, III [ECF No. 199 ] is DENIED. Signed by District Judge E. Richard Webber on 1/19/17. (KXS)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION
RON GOLAN, et al.,
Plaintiff,
v.
VERITAS ENTERTAINMENT, LLC, et al.,
Defendants.

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No. 4:14CV00069 ERW

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiff Ron Golan’s Motion for Sanctions and to
Compel against Defendants Freeeats.com, Inc., AIC Communications, LLC, and Gabriel S.
Joseph, III [ECF No. 199].
On October 5, 2016, this Court ordered Defendants Freeats.com, Inc., AIC
Communications, LLC, and Gabriel S. Joseph, III (“Defendants”) to produce an electronic list of
all people called by Defendants in this matter. Plaintiff Ron Golan (“Plaintiff”) asks the Court to
order Defendants to obey the order issued on October 5, 2016, and to sanction Defendants for
their willful failure to obey the order. Plaintiff’s document request which prompted the prior
motion to compel and order requested as follows:
Request (1): Please produce (without redaction) all documents which state the
name or telephone number for some or all of the households or persons
telephoned by Defendant AIC Communications, LLC for the Last Ounce of
Courage movie campaign.
In response to the Court’s order, Defendants produced five files, four of which include telephone
numbers but no names or addresses, and one of which includes telephone numbers, names and
addresses.

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Defendants have complied with Plaintiff’s discovery request to the best of their ability.
According to Defendants, they have produced all responsive documents; they do not have any
additional lists of telephone numbers with names and addresses to produce. Defendants received
telephone numbers from a database licensed from Axiom Telephone Services, LLC. The name
and address from the database for all of the telephone numbers called by Defendants was not
recorded, only contact information for those who answered the telephone and completed the
survey was recorded. Therefore, Defendants only have the names and addresses for a small
portion of the telephone numbers. There is no other information to be provided to Plaintiff.
Plaintiff argues Defendants are guilty of spoliation of evidence. According to Plaintiff,
Defendants were subpoenaed and deposed in 2013, when they were not yet defendants in this
matter. At this time, there is no evidence Defendants are guilty of spoliation of evidence. There
is no evidence Defendants destroyed this evidence, because there is no evidence they were ever
in possession of the database with all of the names and numbers. Secondly, Plaintiff has not
produced any support for the argument Defendants should have anticipated being a party; when
Defendants were subpoenaed and deposed, they were not defendants in this matter. Therefore, at
this time, the Court will deny Plaintiff’s Motion for Sanctions and to Compel.
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Motion for Sanctions and to Compel against
Defendants Freeeats.com, Inc., AIC Communications, LLC, and Gabriel S. Joseph, III [ECF No.
199] is DENIED.
Dated this 19th Day of January, 2017.

E. RICHARD WEBBER
SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
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