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6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

7 DISTRICT OF NEVADA

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9 INDEPENDENT TECHNOLOGIES, LLC, a Delaware Corporation, d/b/a ANOVA, 10 3:20-cv-00072-RJC-CLB Plaintiff,

11 ORDER vs.

12 OTODATA WIRELESS NETWORK, INC., a 13 Quebec, Canada Corporation, et al.,

14 Defendants.

15 16 Plaintiff seeks to compel Defendants to comply with an “emergency” request for 17 production of documents pertaining to Plaintiff’s allegation that Defendants solicited its client in 18 violation of the Court’s temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.1 Finding that 19 Defendants must respond to the request (as Defendants concede) but not on the expedited 20 timeframe that Plaintiff seeks, the Court grants in part and denies in part the motion. 21 /// 22 /// 23

1 The parties also move to seal parts of their briefs and exhibits. Having already found the 24 information they seek to seal to be trade secrets, the Court grants these motions. See Kamakana v. 1 DISCUSSION 2 The Court adopts the substantive facts of this case from its Order granting the preliminary 3 injunction, (ECF No. 86). On February 19, 2020, the Court issued a temporary restraining order 4 which restrained Defendants from

5 Directly or indirectly soliciting . . . any [Plaintiff] customer who the Rechenmachers served or whose name become known to the Rechenmachers 6 during their employment with [Plaintiff] and/or through their misappropriation of [Plaintiff]’s confidential and trade secret information. Solicit means to initiate any 7 contact or communication, of any kind whatsoever, for the purpose of inviting, encouraging, or requesting any [Plaintiff] customer, to withdraw, curtail, or cancel 8 any of its business or relations with [Plaintiff].

9 (ECF No. 26 at 3:6–13.) After full briefing and a hearing, the Court granted a similar preliminary 10 injunction but further limited the injunction to only cover the list of identified clients provided by 11 Plaintiff with some exceptions. (ECF No. 86.) 12 Plaintiff alleges Defendants solicited one of the companies on this list (the Company),2 13 which the exceptions did not cover. The Company is one of Plaintiff’s largest clients, and the 14 Rechenmachers served this client while working for Plaintiff. (ECF No. 97 Ex. 1 at ¶ 4.) In 15 December 2019, Defendant Steven Rechenmacher sent an email to Defendant Otodata’s agents 16 using his Plaintiff work email, which stated that the Company was “one of my first sales for” 17 Plaintiff. (ECF No. 97 Ex. 3.) Plaintiff learned that Defendant Otodata had recently offered the 18 Company a “trade-in” deal, where Defendant Otodata would provide a discount for its devices if 19 the Company would provide them with Plaintiff’s devices. (ECF No. 97 Ex. 1 at ¶ 5.) The 20 Company “effectively stopped purchasing” Plaintiff’s devices by March 5, 2020 and a few weeks 21 later, “cancel[ed] service for certain Plaintiff products . . . that were soon to be obsolete.” (Id. at 22 ¶ 6.) 23 /// 24 1 Four days before the Rule 26(f) conference held on March 31, Plaintiff sent an 2 “emergency” request to produce documentation regarding the communications between the 3 Company and Defendants within thirty days (which would have been April 27). (ECF No. 97 Ex. 4 5.) Defendants declined stating, “Your demand that Defendants agree to some unnecessary

5 ‘emergency’ discovery related to [the Company] is rejected.” (ECF No. 97 Ex. 6.) On the same 6 day, they filed a motion to limit the scope of the preliminary injunction seeking to remove the 7 Company (among other clients) from the injunction. (ECF No. 90.) Then, again at the Rule 26(f) 8 conference, Defendants declined to comply with the discovery request, “but noted that [Defendants 9 were] not opposed to discovery into [the Company] generally.” (ECF No. 97 Ex. 1 at ¶ 19.) 10 Defendants claim that their responses merely amounted to a denial to comply with the 11 request on an emergency basis. (ECF No. 104 at ¶ 2.) According to them, Plaintiff should not have 12 issued the request until after the Rule 26(f) conference, which occurred four days later. (Id. at ¶ 1.) 13 Thus, Defendants do not contend that they should not respond to the request but that they are 14 entitled to three extra days to do so, from April 27 to April 30. (Id. at ¶ 1–2.) However, the denial

15 in Defendants’ letter was ambiguous and never explicitly stated that they would respond to the 16 request. (ECF No. 97 Ex. 6.) 17 Even with Defendant’s agreeing to respond or object by April 30, the parties have not 18 resolved this issue and continue to argue over the three-day difference in the deadline. These facts 19 do not constitute an emergency requiring the Court to expedite discovery by three days. The Court 20 reminds the parties that they should “engage in two-way communication . . . to meaningfully 21 discuss each contested discovery dispute in a genuine effort to avoid judicial intervention.” Shuffle 22 Master, Inc. v. Progressive Games, Inc.,

(D. Nev. 1996). Thus, the Court 23 denies the motion in that regard—nevertheless, Defendants must still respond or object to the

24 request to produce, (ECF No. 97 Ex. 5), by April 30, 2020. 1 CONCLUSION 2 IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Defendants’ Response to 3 || Emergency Requests for Production (ECF No. 96) is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN 4 || PART. 5 IT IS FURTHER ORDER that Plaintiff's Motion to Seal (ECF No. 97) is GRANTED. 6 IT IS FURTHER ORDER that Defendants’ Motion to Seal (ECF No. 103) is GRANTED. 7 IT IS FURTHER ORDER that Plaintiff’s Motion to Seal (ECF No. 106) is GRANTED. 8 IT IS SO ORDERED. Dated: May 4, 2020. he 11 . ROBERT/G JONES 12 United Stateg istrict Judge 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24