Defendants Priority Records, LLC (Priority) and Andre Romelle Young p/k/a Dr. Dre
Mitchell p/k/a Prince Phillip Mitchell d/b/a Hot Stuff Publishing Companys Amended Motion to
Compel (Amended Motion) supplemental discovery responses [DN 83], and state as follows:
The Court should deny Plaintiffs Amended Motion in its entirety. Among other things,
Plaintiffs Amended Motion: mischaracterizes the discovery that has occurred thus far in this
matter; fails to justify why Plaintiff is entitled to financial information beyond the three years for
which he is able to recover damages under the Copyright Acts statute of limitations; ignores the
burdensomeness, time, and expense required for Defendants to gather and produce an additional
25-years-worth of financial information dating back to 1989; and raises non-existent disputes
about information and documents that Defendants have either informed Plaintiff they do not
possess or that they will produce if located. Defendants plan to make a supplemental document
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production to Plaintiff shortly. Defendants submit that the only real discovery dispute before this
Court concerns whether Plaintiff is entitled to financial information dating back to 1989.
BACKGROUND
General Background
Plaintiffs copyright infringement claims against the Defendants arise out of the song If It
Aint Ruff by N.W.A., which was initially published in 1989 and registered in 1990. Plaintiff
claims that the song infringes on his copyrighted work of A Star in the Ghetto by improperly
sampling that composition. Plaintiffs claims arise under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 501 et
seq.
Plaintiff filed his original Complaint in this action on February 26, 2015, and then
subsequently amended the Complaint on July 2, 2015. Priority answered the Amended Complaint
on July 23, 2015. Due to various issues Plaintiff had in effectuating service of process, Young
was not served with the Amended Complaint until April 26, 2016. This case was largely in a
holding pattern until service on Young. The Defendants have dutifully worked to move this case
Discovery-related Background
Plaintiff served his discovery requests on Priority on January 15, 2016. Priority, by agreed
mutual extension of the parties, served its responses to those requests on March 1, 2016. Plaintiff
did not allege a single discovery concern with Priority until almost six months later, when Plaintiff
sent Priority a letter containing alleged discovery deficiencies on August 26, 2016.
Plaintiff served his discovery requests on Young on August 8, 2016. Young, by agreement
of the parties, served his responses to those requests on November 2, 2016. Plaintiff sent an alleged
2
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Throughout the Fall of 2016, the parties engaged in good faith settlement discussions.
When it became clear that the case would not settle at that time, and after subsequent meet-and-
confer discussions on discovery issues, Defendants codified their oral responses to Plaintiffs
alleged discovery deficiencies in writing. Defendants sent a combined response letter to Plaintiffs
alleged discovery deficiencies on December 21, 2016. (See Exh. D to Plaintiffs Amended Motion
to Compel.)
Plaintiffs Amended Motion ignores the December 21 letter in material ways. The
Amended Motion restates alleged deficiencies where there is no dispute. Among other things,
Defendants have informed Plaintiff that they: (i) do not possess (and, therefore, cannot provide)
certain information but would produce the information if located and, (ii) believe several of
Plaintiffs requests are premature because they require expert participation that has not yet
occurred in this matter; and (iii) have not located any privileged documents to include on a
privilege log. (See Exh. D to Plaintiffs Amended Motion to Compel.) Defendants have provided
the information and documents that they possess, but cannot produce information and documents
Defendants have provided written responses to Plaintiffs discovery requests and have
produced documents on multiple occasions. Priority has produced documents in its possession
that relate to the ownership of the copyright and the registration of the copyright for the allegedly
infringing song. Priority has produced Profit/Loss Reports (P/L Reports) for the three years
preceding the filing of the Complaint until the present. The P/L Reports provide detailed
financial information about the revenue, profit, loss, sales (physical and digital), fees, accrued
royalties (domestic and foreign), special market/licensing, and marketing associated with the
allegedly infringing song. It took Priority several months to compile the necessary data to produce
3
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the P/L Reports.1 Priority also has produced SoundScan computations detailing the number of
copies sold of the allegedly infringing song. Furthermore, Young has produced a myriad of royalty
reports, requiring heavy redaction, detailing the relatively minimal amounts he has received as the
co-author, producer and publisher of If It Aint Ruff for the three years preceding the filing of
allegedly infringing song. In Defendants December 21 letter, they explain why many categories
Priority was/is merely the distributor for the allegedly infringing song and album; it had no
involvement in the creation, production, recording, editing or mixing of the song, nor did it have
involvement with the original copyright registration of the song. Priority does not, and would not,
possess much of the information or documents relating to the allegedly infringing song that
Plaintiff seeks to compel from it. And its ability to identify individuals who might have had factual
knowledge about a song created in 1989 is extremely limitedif Priority had more information to
provide, it would provide it. Similarly, even if Priority had documents relevant to the creation of
the song in 1989, the passage of time and normal document maintenance has seriously limited
The length of time since the creation of the song similarly hampers Youngs recollection
of the circumstances surrounding the creation of If It Aint Ruff and any related documents he
has in his possession. Young was involved in the creation and production of the allegedly
infringing song, but does not possess much in the way of documentation relating to the late 1980s,
1
As explained in more detail below, to create a P/L Report for 1989-2012 would place an undue burden on Defendants
and require an extended period of time to accomplish. (See Declaration of Steven Drellishak, attached as Exhibit A.)
4
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through natural passage of time or the lack of any formal recordkeeping during the creation of the
song. The allegedly infringing song was never an immensely popular song, was never released as
a single, and was not as widely distributed or performed as other songs from N.W.A.
Simply stated, Defendants cannot produce information or documents that they do not
ARGUMENT
Plaintiffs Amended Motion fails to raise any issues that would merit this Court compelling
further responses from Defendants. First, Plaintiff is only entitled to recover damages for the three
years preceding the filing of the Complaint under the Copyright Act. Financial information and
related data beyond that timeframe should not be discoverable. Second, the financial information
that Plaintiff seeks all the way back to 1989 is unreasonable, burdensome and disproportional.
Third, Defendants have provided full and complete responses to Plaintiffs remaining discovery
requests based on the information and documents available to them. Fourth, Plaintiffs requests
for a privilege log and to compel documents Defendants already have agreed to produce are
unnecessary. Priority has not withheld any documents based on privilege and has agreed to
produce certain documents to the extent they exist and are located on reasonable search.
I. Defendants should not be required to provide financial data preceding the three
years prior to the filing of the Complaint.
The focal point of Plaintiffs Amended Motion is the claim that Defendants have
improperly limited financial documents and information produced to the three-year time period
preceding the filing of the Complaint.2 Plaintiff asserts he is entitled to financial data and
information since the date the allegedly infringing song was created and initially published, 1989.
2
It should be noted that Defendants have only limited financial and related information to the three years preceding
the filing of the Complaint, but have not otherwise limited their responses and production to that timeframe. Plaintiff
suggests that Defendants have limited all discovery to three years, which is not the case.
5
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This belief is directly contrary to the three-year statute of limitations in the Copyright Act, which
limits damages to the three years preceding the filing of the Complaint. Because the financial
information Plaintiff seeks can only be relevant to determining his damages, financial information
beyond the three-year statute of limitations is irrelevant, unduly burdensome, beyond the scope of
discovery in this matter, and not proportional to the needs of this case.
Plaintiffs claims are unquestionably subject to the Copyright Act. The Copyright Act
states, No civil action shall be maintained under the provisions of this title unless it is commenced
within three years after the claim accrued. 17 U.S.C. 507(b). Plaintiff agrees that this statute
governs his claims here. (See Plaintiffs Amended Motion to Compel, pp. 3-4.)
B. The Supreme Court has held that damages are limited to the three years preceding
the filing of the Complaint under the Copyright Act.
The Supreme Court has analyzed issues related to the three-year statute of limitations. In
134 S.Ct. 1962, 1969-70 (2014) (citation omitted). And the Supreme Court further stated: a
successful plaintiff can gain retrospective relief only three years back from the time of suit. No
recovery may be had for infringement in earlier years. Profits made in those years remain the
theoretically entitled to relief, i.e. damages, for the three years prior to the filing of his Complaint
6
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until the present.3 Because Plaintiffs damages are limited to three years, there is no reasonable
basis to permit him discovery of financial information for an additional 25 years. Plaintiff does
not explain how any of the older financial information requested would have material bearing on
any issue other than damages not otherwise covered by his discovery requests.
C. Even under the discovery rule, the three-year damages period should be applied.
Plaintiffs reliance on the discovery rule and related cases does not demonstrate that he
The Sixth Circuit has not addressed the damages period available to a plaintiff who brings
a copyright infringement claim under the discovery rule. Plaintiff cites to several cases that
discuss the discovery rule in the context of determining the proper accrual date to assess whether
the suit had been timely filed. See, e.g., Lefkowitz v. McGraw-Hill Global Educ. Holdings, LLC,
23 F. Supp. 3d 344, 357 (S.D.N.Y. 2014); Aspen Tech., Inc. v. M3 Tech. Inc., 569 Fed. Appx. 259,
265 (5th Cir. 2014); Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Diamond Time, Ltd., 371 F.3d 883, 889 (6th Cir.
2004). None of the cases, however, addresses the issue whether actual damages are recoverable
Castronuovo v. Sony Music Entmt, 2013 WL 4597038, at *14 (M.D. Tenn. Aug. 29, 2013), is
unavailing. The case was decided prior to Petrella, so it did not have occasion to consider the
3
Even the dissent in Petrella agreed that the limitations period limits damages to the three years preceding the filing
of the Complaint. Id. at 1981 (The majority correctly points out that the limitations period limits the retrospective
relief a plaintiff can recover. It imposes a cap equal to the profits earned during the prior three years, in addition to
any actual damages sustained during this time. Thus, if the plaintiff waits from, say, 1980 until 2001 to bring suit, she
cannot recover profits for the 1980 to 1998 period. But she can recover the defendants profits from 1998 through
2001, which might be precisely when net revenues turned positive).
4
Plaintiffs citation to cases regarding concealment suffer from the same issue. See, e.g., Gomba Music, Inc. v. Avant,
62 F. Supp. 3d 632, 646 (E.D. Mich. 2014). The allegation of concealment only relates to whether the SOL can be
tolled, which is virtually the same inquiry as the discovery rule. Those cases still only bear on the timeliness of the
Complaint rather than providing any insight into what damages are recoverable by statute under the Copyright Act.
7
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Supreme Courts pronouncements. Further, Castronuovo relied on a Ninth Circuit case, Polar
Bear Productions Inc. v. Timex Corp., 384 F.3d 700 (9th Cir. 2004), that other courts within this
circuit have declined to follow under Sixth Circuit law. See, e.g., Goldman v. Healthcare Mgmt.
Sys., Inc., 2008 WL 2559030, at *3 (W.D. Mich. June 19, 2008) (This Court declines Plaintiffs
invitation to follow the Ninth Circuits decision in Polar Bear); Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Robert
Hill Music, 2006 WL 3720349, at * 5 (M.D. Tenn. Dec. 14, 2006) (Even setting aside that this
case [Polar Bear] is not controlling and contradicts Hoste). As the Goldman Court stated,
Although harsh, the purpose of a statute of limitation is to preclude stale claims and to force a
plaintiff to be vigilant about vindicating his or her rightsPlaintiff here, like the plaintiffs in Hoste
and Roger Miller, is limited to seeking damages for infringements which occurred during the three
years prior to the date the complaint was filed. Goldman, 2008 WL 2559030 at *3. Castronuovo
Plaintiffs citation to the unpublished decision from the Middle District of Tennessee in
Frank Betz Associates v. J.O. Clark Construction, L.L.C., 2009 WL 47143, at *1 (M.D. Tenn. Jan.
7, 2009) is also flawed. First, that case was decided prior to the Supreme Courts opinion in
Petrella. Second, the case is prior to the recent amendments to Rule 26, which requires
reasonableness and proportionality. (As explained below, reasonableness and proportionality are
additional and independent reasons the Amended Motion should be denied). Third, the discovery
sought in Frank Betz Associates was not limited to only the type of financial information at issue
here. It appears that the defendant in that case attempted to limit all discovery to within the three-
year time period. Here by contrast, Defendants assert only that the financial and related
8
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period. Defendants have not limited other requested information and documents to the three-year
period.
The case of Wu v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is instructive. There, the defendant in a
copyright infringement case achieved partial summary judgment because the statute of limitations
bars recovery of damages prior to three years before the filing of the original complaint. 2015 WL
5254885, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 10, 2015). The Court used the discovery rule to determine that
the complaint had been timely filed. Id. at *6-7. However, that did not end the inquiry. The Court
stated, citing Petrella: A plaintiff claiming copyright infringement has three years from the date
their claim accrues to sue, and may recover retrospective relief running only three years back
from the date the complaint was filed. Id. at *6 (emphasis added). The Court then went on to
correctly find that plaintiffs recoverable damages were limited to the three years preceding the
filing of the complaint, regardless of when the discovery occurred. Id. at *7 (Following Petrella,
Wu can recover damages only for any Wiley infringing acts that occurred on or after May 16,
2010).
Similarly, the Plaintiff here is only entitled to hypothetical relief for the three years
preceding the filing of the Complaint regardless of when discovery occurred. Plaintiffs
argument to the contrary would effectively erase the Copyright Acts specific limitations of
To hold otherwise, would lead to a ridiculous outcome where a party can claim 30-plus
years of damages, or even more, on a publicly-released song on a famous album that has been
5
See also Roley v. New World Pictures, Ltd., 19 F.3d 479, 481 (9th Cir. 1994) (This interpretation is consistent
with the prevailing view that the statute bars recovery on any claim for damages that accrued more than three years
before commencement of suit); Gaste v. Kaiserman, 669 F. Supp. 583, 584 (S.D.N.Y. 1987) (A victorious
plaintiff is thus limited to recovery of only those monetary damages which accrued within the three-year period
immediately preceding the filing of the lawsuit).
9
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released and re-released on multiple occasions. Such a result is untenable. See Petrella, 134 S.Ct.
at 1976 (Section 507(b)s three-year limitations period, however, coupled to the separate-accrual
rule, avoids such litigation profusion. It allows a copyright owner to defer suit until she can
estimate whether litigation is worth the candle. She will miss out on damages for periods prior to
the three-year look-back, but her right to prospective injunctive relief should, in most cases,
remains unaltered).
Defendants have properly limited their production of financial and related information to
the three years preceding the filing of the Complaint until the present.
Even if this Court were to agree with Plaintiffs legal analysis that he could be entitled to
more than three years of damages under the discovery rule, it still should not require Defendants
to produce any additional financial information outside of the three-year window. It would be
unreasonably burdensome and costly to require Defendants to produce 25 more years of financial
information based solely on Plaintiffs mere statement in his pleading that he did not know about
his claims earlier because of alleged fraudulent concealment by Defendants. Alleged fraudulent
concealment that would have occurred in the form of a song released and re-released on a famous
The three-year limitations period contained in the statute is a default rule, and there should
be some requirement that Plaintiff do more than merely plead that he did not know or should not
have known of the alleged infringement to get financial discovery related to alleged damages going
back three decades.6 This is especially true where, as here, the burdens on the Defendants to
6
Plaintiffs reliance on his bald assertion of fraudulent concealment to toll the limitations period is unhelpful. In order
to show fraudulent concealment, he must establish: (1) wrongful concealment of their actions by the defendants; (2)
10
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produce almost three decades of financial information are unreasonable and disproportionate. (See
Exh. A.)
Plaintiff contends that the Defendants invocation of the proportionality objection to the 25
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 was revised effective December 1, 2015 to include an
emphasis on discovery needing to be proportional to the needs of a case. See FRCP 26(b) (Parties
may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any partys claim or
defense and proportional to the needs of the case) (emphasis added). FRCP 26 lays out the
factors to consider in assessing proportionality as: 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
The 2015 amendments to Rule 26s Advisory Committee Notes, intended to encourage
judges to be more aggressive in identifying and discouraging discovery overuse, establish that the
party seeking to compel discovery must show how the underlying discovery information bears on
the issues, while the party opposing discovery must show that the material sought either falls
beyond the scope of relevance, or is so marginally relevant that the potential harms of production
failure of the plaintiff to discover the operative facts that are the basis of his cause of action within the limitations
period; and (3) plaintiffs due diligence until discovery of the facts. Gomba Music, 62 F. Supp. 3d at 646. There
have been no acts of concealment by Defendants in this case, merely silence, which is not enough to support a
concealment claim for tolling. See University of Pittsburgh v. Townsend, 542 F.3d 513, 526 (6th Cir. 2008) (To
satisfy this burden, the invoking party must point to some affirmative independent act of concealment on the part of
the defendant. In the absence of an affirmative act, mere silence suffices as fraudulent concealment only when there
is a requisite duty to disclose). Further, Plaintiff engaged in absolutely no due diligence or investigation relating to
possible infringements of his composition that could have uncovered the alleged concealment. See Carrier Corp. v.
Outokumpu Oyj, 673 F.3d 430, 448-49 (6th Cir. 2012) (we may dismiss a claim of fraudulent concealment when it
is obvious from the complaint that the plaintiff conducted absolutely no investigation). Thus, Plaintiffs concealment
claim is specious at best and certainly should not give rise to months-and-months of financial discovery gathering by
Defendants based on the current record.
11
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outweigh the presumption in favor of broad disclosure. Bentley v. Highlands Hosp. Corp., 2016
pleading assertions, and not more, constitutes discovery overuse that should be curtailed based on
the statute explained above, the reasonableness and proportionality requirements of Rule 26, and
burdensomeness. See, e.g., Jackson v. E-Z-GO Div. of Textron, Inc., 2016 WL 6211719, at *5 (Slip
Copy) (W.D. Ky. Oct. 24, 2016) (The pretrial process musteliminate unnecessary or wasteful
discovery).
First, as explained above, Plaintiff is not entitled to financial and related information
beyond the three-year limitations period. Thus, it would be clearly disproportional to the needs of
this case to require Defendants to produce financial information and documents beyond that default
timeframe. See also Sky Medical, 2016 WL 4703656 at *13 (in a case in which financial
information was sought from claims limited to a certain time period, the Court found that this
request needs to be narrowly tailored to encompass financial documents limited in scope to the
three-year time period encompassing the 177 claims in this action. To further enlarge this temporal
period would result in the burden outweighing the potential benefit which would contravene the
Second, the 25-additional years of financial information requested by Plaintiff would create
extreme undue burden for Defendants, especially where there has yet to be any finding that he is
7
Notably, although Rule 26 still permits a wide range of discovery based upon relevance and proportionality, the
provision authorizing the courtto order discovery of any matter relevant to the subject matter involved in the action
has been eliminated. The rationale behind the elimination of this phrase is the reality that it has been used by some,
incorrectly, to define the scope of discovery. Sky Med. Supply Inc. v. SCS Support Claim Servs., Inc., 2016 WL
4703656, at *2 (Slip Copy) (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 7, 2016).
12
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entitled to more than three years of damages at most (though Defendants believe he is not entitled
to any damages).
The burden that would be placed on Priority to produce financial information for an
produce financial and related information for the entire period since the song was created in 1989,
including physical and digital sales revenues, licensing revenues, and royalty and other expenses
(assuming such data exists for the entire time period). (Exh. A at 3.) It would take approximately
6 to 8 days of full-time work by an employee just to collect domestic sales data. (Id. at
4.) International sales data prior to 2012 is unavailable, other than Canadian sales data dating back
to 2003. (Id. at 5.) To collect additional artist and publishing royalty statements from the internal
systems of Priority it would take an employee working full time another seven days to complete
the review of three different sets of documents, which would then need to be followed by a lengthy
The information above, as well as other potential information and data, would need to be
collected before Priority would be able to produce the same type of P/L Report for 1989-2012 that
it has already created and produced for 2012-2015. A P/L Report is Prioritys standard method for
providing financial information in litigation. Priority estimates that it would take one employee
working full time approximately two additional weeks to complete a P/L Report dating back to
1989. (Id. at 8.) In total, it would take approximately 5 weeks of full-time work by skilled
employees to complete the P/L Report from 1989-2012. (Id. at 9.) And this estimate, like those
above, assumes that this employee could work full-time and exclusively on this project, rather than
performing his or her regular duties. If the employee is unable to work on a 1989-2012 P/L Report
full-time, a very likely scenario given other work obligations, then the time that would be required
13
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to complete this project would increase significantly. All estimates also assume that the process
runs as efficiently as possible, and that no unexpected issues or difficulties arise (which they
usually do). It took Priority approximately four months in this litigation to gather information and
Similarly, for Young to produce the royalty statements for just the three years preceding
the filing of the Complaint up until now, counsel had to review and redact more than 5830 pages
of statements, two-to-three feet tall when printed, in order to produce only those arguably relevant
to the allegedly infringing song. This resulted in a production of ultimately only 1068 redacted
pages after a substantial number of hours of work reviewing and redacting. The work to produce
redacted statements for an additional 25 years would be immense, burdensome and disproportional
II. Based on information available to them, Defendants have provided full responses
to Plaintiffs discovery requests.
Plaintiffs complaints about the alleged overuse of a proportionality objection with respect
to issues other than the three-year period are overblown and misleading. Defendants have provided
full responses and productions to Plaintiffs discovery requests, based on information and
documents available to them. Defendants have not endeavored to withhold otherwise responsive
information and documents based on the proportionality objection, which was made abundantly
clear in Defendants December 21 letter to Plaintiff. (See Exh. D to Plaintiffs Amended Motion
Plaintiffs complaints about certain responses lacking substance or being incomplete lack
merit. With respect to Interrogatory Nos. 7, 12, and 17, Priority has identified all the individuals
14
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that it is aware of currently who may have knowledge of discoverable information in this matter.
As explained above, the nature of Prioritys relationship with the allegedly infringing song means
that it did not have involvement in the creation, production, or copyright registration of the song.
Priority has provided the names it knows and will certainly supplement if additional names are
uncovered.
Plaintiff also complains about Prioritys responses to Interrogatory Nos. 1 and 11 and RFA
No. 2 and Youngs responses to Interrogatory Nos. 1, 10 and 13. These requests relate to factual
defenses of both Defendants regarding whether there has been sampling or infringing of the
Plaintiffs work. As explained to Plaintiff in the December 21 letter, Defendants have provided
responses to these requests based on all factual information available to or recalled by them from
almost thirty years ago. (See Exh. D to Plaintiffs Amended Motion to Compel, pp. 3, 5.) Any
further, more detailed responses will be the proper subject of expert discovery. (See id.) Plaintiff
wanted to delay expert discovery until Phase II of the litigation after factual discovery and any
initial dispositive motion briefing, so expert work has not yet occurred. Defendants have provided
what they can and will supplement their responses based on a technical analysis that is part of
Plaintiff complains about Prioritys response to Interrogatory No. 15 and Youngs response
to Interrogatory No. 14. The Defendants have responded to these Interogatories regarding the total
number of copies of the allegedly infringing song that have been sold. Defendants have produced
SoundScan computations that total the number of copies of the song sold from the three years prior
to the Complaint until the present. And, Priority produced P/L Reports that contain detailed sales
8
Defendants are at a loss for what they can say currently other than that the alleged infringing song was not a sampling
or otherwise infringing. Plaintiff is asking Defendant to prove a negative as a factual matter, which is not possible.
15
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data and information. The royalty reports produced by Young similarly contain sales information
and data.
Plaintiffs alleged issues with responses to Request Nos. 14, 15, and 20 for Priority and
Request Nos. 14, 15, and 17 for Young are unfounded. As explained in the December 21 letter,
Defendants have produced all of the relevant documents that they have located on reasonable
search. (See Exh. D to Plaintiffs Amended Motion to Compel, pp. 4, 6.) Defendants cannot
produce documents that they do not have and/or that do not exist. And to the extent they are
located, they will be produced. Defendants plan to make a supplemental production to Plaintiff in
the near term (some additional royalty statements from Priority, one license that has been
Plaintiffs request for a privilege log is unnecessary. There is no ripe dispute for the Court
to decide. Defendants December 21 letter to Plaintiff explained that while the attorney-client
privilege and work product doctrine were lodged as objections in written discovery responses out
withheld from production. (See Exh. D. to Plaintiffs Motion to Compel, p. 2.) Accordingly, there
is nothing for Defendants to log. Defendants are perplexed by Plaintiffs continued demand for a
log. Should responsive privileged documents be discovered, they will be logged. Defendants, it
is worth noting, have not received a privilege log from Plaintiff but take Plaintiff at his word that
he has no privileged documents to log. Defendants ask for the same treatment.
IV. Plaintiffs request to compel documents Defendants already have agreed to search
for and produce, to the extent they exist, is redundant and unnecessary.
Plaintiffs request to compel production of documents that Defendants have already agreed
to produce, to the extent they exist and can be located on a reasonable search, is needless and not
16
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the proper subject of a motion to compel. Defendants have agreed to produce any additional
CONCLUSION
For the reasons explained above, Priority respectfully requests that this Court deny
Respectfully submitted,
9
Plaintiffs list of documents Defendants have agreed to produce likely contains several categories of documents that
do not exist and/or cannot be located on reasonable search based on the thirty-year timeframe. Defendants do not
want to leave a misimpression with the Court that all of the documents identified by Plaintiff can be produced.
17
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that on the 31st day of January, 2017, I electronically filed the foregoing
with the Clerk of the Court by using the CM/ECF System, which will send a notice of electronic
filing to all counsel of record:
Michael F. Sutton
Tracey Clemmons Smith
David L. Haney
Caitlin L. McQueen
Gwin Steinmetz & Baird, PLLC
401 West Main Street, Ste. 1000
Louisville, KY 40202
msutton@gsblegal.com
tcsmith@gsblegal.com
dhaney@gsblegal.com
Counsel for Plaintiff, Leroy Mitchell, pka
Prince Phillip Mitchell
0131397.0626408 4811-2966-8925v7
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