1 2 3 4 5 6 7 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 8 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 9 10 MARTHA LETICIA CASTANON Case No. 24-cv-00058-VC (TSH) GARCIA, et al., 11 Plaintiffs, DISCOVERY ORDER 12 v. Re: Dkt. No. 109 13 ST. MARY'S MEDICAL CENTER, et al., 14 Defendants. 15 16 Defendant Katherine Tran has a theory. She observes that in the Complaint, First 17 Amended Complaint and Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiffs allege that “[a] timely Notice of 18 Intent to Sue letter was submitted to St. Mary’s Medical Center regarding the conduct of 19 Defendant Katerine Tran.” ECF Nos. 1 ¶ 16 (Complaint), 26 ¶ 16 (FAC), 85 ¶ 18 (SAC). If that 20 unchanging allegation is true, she thinks the notice was defective because it was supposed to be 21 sent to a different address, and therefore (she believes) the claim against her is time-barred. 22 Imagine her surprise when she received in discovery a picture of a purportedly timely notice of 23 intent to sue (ECF No. 110, .pdf page 14) accompanied by a proof of service that listed what she 24 claims is her correct mailing address (id., .pdf page 18). Tran’s theory is that Plaintiffs’ counsel, 25 Stanley Goff, had no idea he mailed the notice to what Tran thinks is the wrong address until he 26 got her motion to dismiss, which raised this issue, and then he created the second notice of intent 27 to sue and proof of service and fraudulently back dated them to October 3, 2023. 1 It’s quite an accusation. Tran asked for the notices and the metadata of the notices in 2 discovery, but all she got were pictures that someone took with their phone. Tran now seeks 3 several items: the notices themselves (not just pictures of them); metadata for the notices, 4 meaning electronic information about the documents, which would presumably include their 5 creation date; and metadata for the pictures.1 The Court DENIES the request for metadata of the 6 pictures because it doesn’t matter when the pictures were taken, and also because the time and 7 date stamp is on the top right of each picture already. The Court GRANTS the request as to the 8 notices, as Tran is entitled to documents, not just pictures of documents. 9 Now let’s turn back to the metadata about the notices. There is no need for metadata about 10 the notice and proof of service concerning the letter that went to St. Mary’s, as no one claims that 11 was fraudulently back dated. The real issue is the metadata for the notice and proof of service that 12 allegedly went to Bon Air Road. 13 In response, Plaintiffs make two arguments: the metadata is work product, and it doesn’t 14 exist anymore. For the sake of argument, the Court will assume that metadata for documents 15 created by litigation counsel is attorney work product. The Court thinks that Tran has shown she 16 has a substantial need for the materials to prepare her defense and cannot, without undue hardship, 17 obtain the substantial equivalent of this metadata by other means. See Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 18 26(b)(3)(A). The metadata for the notice and proof of service is likely the only way to show 19 whether those documents are back dated, short of Plaintiffs’ counsel confessing. Still, the Court 20 “must protect against disclosure of the mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories 21 of a party’s attorney or other representative concerning the litigation.” Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 22 26(b)(3)(B). In the specific context of this case, the Court does not think that the creation date for 23 the notice and the proof of service reveal any of that type of information. The creation date does 24 not even reveal when counsel was retained or what claims he was investigating because the notice 25 mailed to St. Mary’s already revealed that. The Court does not know what other information 26 might be contained in the metadata, but the Court thinks that if any of it would reveal 26(b)(3)(B) 27 1 material, Plaintiffs may redact that portion of the metadata (but again, Plaintiffs cannot redact the 2 creation date because the Court has determined that in the context of this case that is not 3 26(b)(3)(B) material.).2 4 So now we come to Plaintiffs’ counsel’s claim that he “changed his work computer in 5 2024 – after his previous computer crashed. Plaintiffs’ counsel has been unable to recover the 6 original Notice of Intent to Sue files. As such, no such metadata exists.” ECF No. 109 at 6. 7 At the hearing, Goff stated that the computer at issue was his work laptop, which was an 8 old HP model. He said that one day it wouldn’t turn on. He spoke to some IT professionals over 9 the phone and they advised him just to get a new computer, so he threw the old one in the trash. 10 Goff was not able to identify what exactly went wrong with his computer, but said the IT 11 professionals mentioned some sort of tech thing, and he couldn’t remember what it was. He said 12 that all of his work documents were on that laptop, and many but not all were backed up to flash 13 drives. He said he irretrievably lost not just the notice of intent in this case but also work 14 documents in other cases he has. He said he did not have any IT professional look at or inspect his 15 laptop to see if it could be fixed or the documents on it retrieved. 16 The Court does not believe the computer crash story. Preliminarily, the story starts with an 17 implausible background assumption that Goff does not automatically back up his work documents, 18 for example, by storing them in cloud storage. The idea is that he literally saved his legal 19 documents on his laptop, rather than on any sort of network, and they existed only on that laptop 20 until he copied them over to flash drives for back up. No one would manage their legal practice 21 that way. Laptop computers get stolen all of the time, and cloud storage is dirt cheap. Not just 22 responsible attorneys, but also irresponsible attorneys, or really anyone at all with common sense, 23 understand why you wouldn’t want a unique copy of a document that you care about to exist on 24 only one specific machine. 25 Second, the vaguely described computer crash is implausible. Bad things can happen to 26 27 2 Plaintiffs alternatively argue that because their claim against Tran arises under state law, California Code of Civil Procedure 2018.030 applies. However, the Court’s analysis applies 1 computers, for sure, but they generally don’t become suddenly inoperable in a way that makes the 2 data on them unrecoverable. If your laptop gets stolen, then yes, it’s gone. Or if you drop it in 3 lava in an active volcano, then yes, it’s destroyed. But the idea that you still have your computer, 4 and it wasn’t physically destroyed, and it just stopped operating in a way that prevents an IT 5 professional from obtaining data on it, and this fact can be confirmed in a phone call, is not 6 believable. The IT professionals, without even looking at the laptop, concluded nothing could be 7 done? An attorney irretrievably loses work documents in multiple matters, and he just throws the 8 laptop in the trash without taking it to an IT professional to attempt to get access to the important 9 documents on it? Oh, come on. 10 The Court notes that Goff has a pattern of using alleged computer crashes as an excuse, 11 which bolsters the Court’s conclusion that the computer crash story in this case is also made up. 12 See Pumphrey v. Battles,

(N.D. Cal. Aug. 8, 2022) (referring Goff to Standing 13 Committee on Professional Conduct because, under penalty of perjury, he blamed a computer 14 crash for his late filing but made a filing in another case on the same day as his alleged computer 15 crash, and noting that Goff had similarly blamed computer crashes for his late filings in two other 16 cases). 17 Accordingly, the Court ORDERS Plaintiffs’ counsel to produce the metadata (subject to 18 the guidance provided above) for the notice of intent and proof of service for the notice sent to 19 Bon Air Road. 20 Now let’s talk about timing. Fact discovery closes on October 13, 2025, which is four 21 days from now. ECF No. 94. As that is a federal holiday, the Court ORDERS Plaintiffs’ counsel 22 to produce the items required by this order by October 14, 2025. The Court expects there could be 23 further disputes that arise from this order. As a reminder, under Civil Local Rule 37-3, any 24 discovery-related motions concerning fact discovery (including any joint discovery letter briefs) 25 are due no later than October 20, 2025 (that is, seven days after the close of fact discovery). The 26 commentary to the local rule provides a description of what “discovery-related motions” include. 27 It’s unfortunate that this metadata issue was raised so late in discovery, but if either side wants to 1 ask Judge Chhabria whether he will modify the case schedule to allow that. 2 IT IS SO ORDERED. 3 4 || Dated: October 9, 2025 5 THOMAS S. HIXSON / 6 United States Magistrate Judge 7 8 9 10 11

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