17 Outlets, LLC v. Healthy Food Corporation et al
Filing
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ORDER granting 51 Motion for Protective Order. Motion is granted to the extent that 17 Outlets is barred from pursuing discovery from HFC related to its claims against HFC and Pham and HFCs claim against Landry and ThurKen, except for discovery that seeks information about the amount of damages to be awarded on the breach of contract claim against HFC. So Ordered by Judge Joseph A. DiClerico, Jr.(gla)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
17 Outlets, LLC
v.
Healthy Food Corporation
d/b/a Frozurt and Tai H. Pham
Civil No. 15-cv-101-JD
Opinion No. 2016 DNH 207
v.
ThurKen III, LLC and
Richard E. Landry, Jr.
O R D E R
Healthy Food Corporation d/b/a Frozurt (“HFC”) moves for a
protective order to bar all discovery requests from 17 Outlets,
LLC, because 17 Outlets’s claims against HFC and Tai H. Pham
have been decided.
17 Outlets objects and contends that HFC has
waived any objection to its pending requests for production of
documents and that HFC has not shown grounds for a protective
order.
Background
17 Outlets, LLC brought suit against Healthy Food
Corporation, d/b/a Frozurt, (“HFC”) and Tai H. Pham after HFC
failed to pay rent due under a lease for commercial space in
Merrimack, New Hampshire.
In its claim against Pham, 17 Outlets
sought to enforce a lease guaranty signed by Pham.
HFC brought
a third-party complaint against ThurKen III, LLC and ThurKen’s
manager, Richard E. Landry, Jr., arising from the original lease
agreement with ThurKen.
Summary judgment has been granted in favor of 17 Outlets on
its breach of contract claim against HFC, although the amount of
damages is yet to be proved.
Summary judgment has also been
granted in favor of Pham on 17 Outlets’s breach of guaranty
claim.
Therefore, HFC’s liability on 17 Outlets’s breach of
contract claim is established, and 17 Outlets’s claim against
Pham is dismissed.
HFC withdrew its claims for breach of contract and
promissory estoppel against ThurKen and Landry.
The only claim
that remains in the case is HFC’s claim for fraudulent
misrepresentation against ThurKen and Landry.
The amount of
damages on the breach of contract claim against HFC also remains
to be determined.
On August 29, 2016, while Pham’s motion for summary
judgment was pending, 17 Outlets served its first request for
production of documents on HFC.
The document includes thirty-
one requests as follows:
1. All documents relating to the creation of HFC including,
but not limited to, Articles of Incorporation, Stock
Ledger, etc.
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2. All documents relating to the stockholders of HFC.
3. All documents relating to the operation of HFC
including, but not limited to, business conducted in
Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
4. All documents relating to any and all leasehold
interests held by HFC including, but not limited to, the
business called "Frozurt" located in Lowell, MA.
5. All communications by and between you and Tai H. Pham
relating to HFC including, but not limited to, the business
operations of HFC.
6. All communications by and between you and Tai H. Pham
relating to the Lease.
7. All communications by and between you and Tai H. Pham
relating to the Premises.
8. All communications by and between you and Tai H. Pham
relating to the Guaranty.
9. All communications by and between Huong Pham and Tai H.
Pham relating to the Lease.
10. All communications by and between Huong Pham and Tai H.
Pham relating to the Guaranty.
11. All communications by and between you and Dustin
("Dusty") Burke, Jr. relating to the Guaranty.
12. All communications by and between you and Dustin
("Dusty") Burke, Jr. relating to the Lease.
13. All communications by and between you and Dustin
("Dusty") Burke, Jr. relating to Healthy Food Corporation.
14. All communications by and between you and Dustin
("Dusty") Burke, Jr. relating to Tai H. Pham including, but
not limited to, the Guaranty.
15. All communications by and between you and Dustin
("Dusty") Burke, Jr. relating to Tram Dang.
16. All communications by and between you and Tram Dang
relating to the Tenant Estoppel Certification attached
hereto as Exhibit A.
17. All communications by and between you and anyone, other
than Tram Dang, relating to the Tenant Estoppel
Certification attached hereto as Exhibit A.
18. All rent payments paid by, or on behalf of, Healthy
Food Corp. in relation to the Premises.
19. All documentation that relates to the corporate make-up
of the Healthy Food Corporation (e.g. Articles of
Incorporation, etc.).
20. All communications by and between you and anyone that
relates to the Premises at issue in this lawsuit.
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21. All communications by and between you and 17 Outlets,
LLC (including its predecessor) in relation to the Lease.
22. All communications by and between you and 17 Outlets,
LLC (including its predecessor) in relation to the Tenant
Estoppel Certificate attached hereto as Exhibit A.
23. All communications by and between you and 17 Outlets,
LLC (including its predecessor) in relation to the
Guaranty.
24. All communications by and between you and 17 Outlets,
LLC (including its predecessor) in relation to Healthy Food
Corp.
25. All communications by and between Dustin ("Dusty")
Burke, Jr. and Tram Dang.
26. All communications by and between Dustin ("Dusty")
Burke, Jr. and Tai H. Pham.
27. All communications by and between Dustin ("Dusty”)
Burke, Jr. and Healthy Food Corp.
28. All communications by and between you and Franklin
Savings Bank regarding Frozurt.
29. All documents that relate to the trademark: "FROZURT"
registered at the United States Patent and Trademark
Office.
30. All documents that relate to Odom Eang's ownership
interest in HFC.
31. All documents that relate to the dissolution of Healthy
Food Corp.
On the day HFC’s responses were due, counsel for HFC asked for
an additional thirty days to respond.
did not respond to HFC’s request.
Counsel for 17 Outlets
On October 3, 2016, counsel
for HFC notified counsel for 17 Outlets that HFC would be
seeking a protective order and asked for counsel’s assent.
HFC filed a motion for a protective order on October 14,
2016, and 17 Outlets filed an objection.
17 Outlets filed a surreply.
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HFC filed a reply, and
I.
Waiver
17 Outlets contends that HFC has waived any objection to
the requests for production of documents by not filing its
objections within the thirty days allowed under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 34(b)(2)(A).
Unlike Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 33, which governs interrogatories, Rule 34 does not
include a waiver provision.
In the event a party fails to serve its responses to
requests under Rule 34, the court may order sanctions pursuant
to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(d)(1)(a)(ii).
When
seeking sanctions, however, a party must provide “a
certification that the movant has in good faith conferred or
attempted to confer with the party failing to act in an effort
to obtain the answer or response without court action.”
Fed. R.
Civ. P. 37(d)(1)(B).
17 Outlets has not sought sanctions under Rule 37 and has
not provided the required certification.
Instead, 17 Outlets
relies on West v. Bell Hellicopter Textron, Inc., 2011 WL
6371791, at *7 (D.N.H. Dec. 20, 2011), to argue that HFC has
waived its objections to the requests for production.
In West,
however, the defendants objected to Rule 34 requests but failed
to raise privilege as a ground for objecting.
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The defendants
then waited until the plaintiff moved to compel their responses
to raise privilege.
Under West, the sanction of waiver is reserved for cases
“where the offending party committed unjustified delay in
responding to discovery.”
occurred in this case.
Id.
No unjustified delay has
Counsel for HFC contacted counsel for 17
Outlets to extend the time for responses within the time
allowed.
Counsel for 17 Outlets did not respond to the request.
Sanctions are not appropriate here.
II.
Motion for a Protective Order
“A party or any person from whom discovery is sought may
move for a protective order in the court where the action is
pending . . . .”
Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(1).
“The court may, for
good cause, issue an order to protect a party or person from
annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense
. . . .”
Id.
“To show good cause, the party seeking the
protective order must demonstrate a particular need for
protection; ‘[b]road allegations of harm, unsubstantiated by
specific examples or articulated reasons, do not satisfy the
Rule 26(c) test.’”
Heagney v. Wong, 2016 WL 2901731, at *3 (D.
Mass. May 18, 2016) (quoting Cipollone v. Liggett Gr., Inc., 785
F.2d 1108, 1121 (3d Cir. 1986)).
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HFC seeks a protective order to bar all discovery from 17
Outlets.
In support, HFC points out that all of the claims
involving HFC, Pham, and 17 Outlets have been resolved, leaving
only HFC’s claim against Landry and ThurKen.
HFC also points
out that it, as a corporation, was dissolved on December 30,
2015.
For those reasons, HFC contends that 17 Outlets’s
discovery requests are not seeking information about matters
that are relevant to existing claims and that the requests are
burdensome for a dissolved corporation.
HFC also contends that
17 Outlets is seeking information to support a new liability
theory based on piercing the corporate veil.
17 Outlets objects to the motion and argues that its
requests relate to HFC’s claim against Landry and ThurKen and
seek information to show that HFC and Tram Dang were alter egos.
It also argues that its requests are not oppressive or overly
burdensome. In its surreply, 17 Outlets argues that its requests
properly seek information about HFC for the purpose of
collecting its judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
69(a)(2).
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), “[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.”
To determine whether discovery is
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proportional, the court considers “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.”
Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1).
The
court may alter the limits provided in the discovery rules and
“must limit the frequency or extent of discovery otherwise
allowed by these rules or by local rule if it determines that
. . . (ii) the party seeking discovery has had ample opportunity
to obtain the information by discovery in the action; or (iii)
the proposed discovery is outside the scope permitted by Rule
26(b)(1).”
In this case, there is no reason for 17 Outlets to pursue
discovery related to liability on its claims against HFC and
Pham, which has been resolved.
It is too late for 17 Outlets to
pursue new theories of liability against HFC and Pham or other
potential parties under the lease guaranty or through veil
piercing and corporate alter ego claims.
Similarly, to the
extent 17 Outlets is seeking discovery pertaining to HFC’s claim
against Landry and ThurKen, it has not shown that its discovery
is important in resolving that claim.
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Therefore, discovery
related to claims that have been resolved and claims that do not
exist in this case is not proportional to the needs of the case.
Although 17 Outlets might seek discovery related to the
amount of damages to be awarded under its breach of contract
claim against HFC, the thirty-one requests do not address the
amount of damages to be awarded.
Rule 69 applies to execution
on a judgment, but because no judgment has been entered in this
case, at this point the rule does not apply.
Therefore, HFC is granted a protective order that precludes
17 Outlets from pursuing discovery from HFC related to 17
Outlets’s claims against HFC and Pham and HFC’s claim against
Landry and ThurKen.
For that reason, HFC need not provide
responses to the thirty-one requests for production served by 17
Outlets.
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, HFC’s motion for a protective
order (document no. 51) is granted to the extent that 17 Outlets
is barred from pursuing discovery from HFC related to its claims
against HFC and Pham and HFC’s claim against Landry and ThurKen,
except for discovery that seeks information about the amount of
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damages to be awarded on the breach of contract claim against
HFC.
SO ORDERED.
__________________________
Joseph DiClerico, Jr.
United States District Judge
November 16, 2016
cc:
James F. Laboe, Esq.
Christopher P. Mulligan, Esq..
David K. Pinsonneault, Esq.
Lisa Snow Wade, Esq.
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