In Byte Fed., Inc. v. Lux Vending LLC, No. 8:23-cv-102-MSS-SPF (M.D. Fla. May 1, 2024), Florida Magistrate Judge Sean P. Flynn found that several of the defendant’s objections were boilerplate objections and should be overruled. He also ordered defendant’s counsel to “pay Plaintiff’s reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, incurred in preparing the portion of the Motion to Compel related to the First RFP.”

Case Discussion and Judge’s Ruling

In this trademark infringement dispute, Plaintiff initially served a third-party subpoena on Cardamone Group in May 2023, before adding them as a defendant in August 2023 and serving their first set of requests for production (RFP) on Cardamone on September 21, 2023. After the Court denied defendant’s motion to quash the subpoena on October 26, 2023 and compelled Cardamone to respond to the subpoena, Plaintiff filed this motion to compel seeking production of documents, contending that defendant Cardamone’s objections were boilerplate objections and should be overruled.

Regarding most requests, Judge Flynn agreed that Cardamone’s objections were boilerplate objections and should be overruled. In Request No. 7, Plaintiff requested: “All documents and electronically stored information that are generated in applying the search terms below to Your corporate email accounts (including but not limited to the email accounts for Nicholas Cardamone, Daniel Cardamone, and Patrick McCloskey): Byte Bitcoin w/s Florida Stanton ByteFederal Bitcoin w/s trademark Branden w/3 Tawil Byte Federal lawsuit Brandon w/3 Mintz Most /5 trusted Scott w/3 Buchanan DKI Google w/s trademark confusion or confused Dynamic w/5 keyword”.

Defendant objected to the request “on the basis that it is vague and incomprehensible as written. For this reason, Cardamone is not providing any documents responsive to this request unless and until it can be clarified.”

Judge Flynn ruled: “The Court finds that Cardamone’s objection to the Request should be overruled. As a preliminary matter, the objection is boilerplate in that it does not explain how the Request is vague or what Cardamone fails to comprehend about the Request… Moreover, while Cardamone’s client might be unfamiliar with electronic discovery practices, it is its counsel’s responsibility to assist with this process.”

In Request No. 8, Plaintiff requested: “Broken down for each month and year in which You provided services to Bitcoin Depot, please produce all documents and electronically stored information pertaining to the traffic by visitors to the…bitcoindepot.com website, including impressions, clicks, and hits. Your production should include traffic by visitors within the state of Florida.”

Cardamone again objected to the Request “on the basis that it is vague and incomprehensible as written. For this reason, Cardamone is not providing any documents responsive to this request unless and until it can be clarified.” In response to Plaintiff’s contention that there was nothing vague or incomprehensible about the Request, Cardamone added:

“The phrase ‘broken down for each month and year…’ has no meaning on its face. Is Plaintiff requesting documents that show website visitor traffic only if it is broken down by month and/or year? Or is Plaintiff requesting that Cardamone generate documents showing a breakdown of website traffic by month and year? Or is Plaintiff requesting documents be produced in and identified by sequential sets of traffic according to the month and year the document was created?”

Judge Flynn stated: “The Court again finds that Cardamone’s objection is boilerplate, and as a result, should be overruled…In addition, the Court finds that the Request is neither vague nor incomprehensible. While Cardamone raises various potential interpretations of the Request in its Response to the Motion to Compel, an attorney receiving a request for documents has a responsibility to “reasonably and naturally interpret” that request…A fair reading of the Request shows that Cardamone wanted documents showing how much traffic Bitcoin Depot’s website received each month and year while it was a client of Cardamone. If Cardamone did not track website traffic in that manner, it should have stated that in its Response. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel is granted with respect to Request Nos. 8 and 9.”

Regarding Cardamone’s contention that their objection to RFP No 11 was valid because the Request seeks financial documents exchanged between the parties, “regardless of whether the transaction was related to the specific alleged wrongful conduct. Furthermore, documents responsive to this Request were produced to Plaintiff on November 9, 2023”, Judge Flynn also ruled their objection was boilerplate, stating: “While this aspect of the Motion is now moot, considering Cardamone has produced the requested documents, the Court includes this analysis as it is relevant to its discussion of attorney’s fees below.” He also found that Cardamone’s objection to Plaintiff Request No. 13 was “boilerplate and is overruled on that basis”.

However, Judge Flynn denied Plaintiff’s motion with regard to Requests 14 and 15, “[t]o the extent Plaintiff is seeking to compel Cardamone to produce privileged communications between its counsel and counsel for Bitcoin Depot after it was added as a party to this action”, but did order Cardamone to “prepare and serve a privilege log within fourteen days of the date of this Order” if they were withholding otherwise responsive documents on the basis of privilege.

Judge Flynn also denied Plaintiff’s request for expenses incurred in compelling Cardamone’s compliance with the Subpoena, finding it moot since Cardamone had ultimately produced documents. However, he did award expenses and attorney’s fees regarding the First RFP, stating: “As discussed above, Cardamone responded to the First RFP by lodging boilerplate objections, which cannot be considered substantially justified. Furthermore, even Cardamone’s post hoc justifications for its boilerplate objections were not persuasive.”

So, what do you think? Do you agree that most of Cardamone’s objections were boilerplate objections and should be overruled? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Case opinion link courtesy of eDiscovery Assistant, an Affinity partner of eDiscovery Today. See Kelly Twigger’s discussion of the case here!

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