Anhui Konka Green Lighting Co. v. Green Logic Led Elec. Supply

ANHUI KONKA GREEN LIGHTING CO., LTD. Plaintiff, v. GREEN LOGIC LED ELECTRICAL SUPPLY, INC., Defendant.

No. 1:18-cv-12255 (MKV) (KHP)

United States District Court, S.D. New York

September 20, 2021

ORDER OVERRULING IN PART

AND SUSTAINING IN PART

OBJECTIONS TO RULING OF

THE MAGISTRATE JUDGE

MARY KAY VYSKOCIL, United States District Judge:

Defendant Green Logic LED Electrical Supply, Inc (“GLL”) objects [ECF Nos. 219, 241] to discovery-related orders [ECF No. 214, 238] of Magistrate Judge Katharine A. Parker, to whom this case is referred for supervision of pretrial proceedings and discovery. First, GLL objects to Magistrate Judge Parker's decision to award $2, 600 to Plaintiff Anhui Konka Green Lighting Co., Ltd. (“Konka”) in connection with a successful motion to compel the production of documents. See Objection, ECF No. 219, at 2. Second, GLL objects to Magistrate Judge Parker's order permitting Konka to inspect three LED lighting panels which were the subject of a report prepared by GLL's expert witness. See Objection, ECF No. 241, at 2. For the reasons stated herein, Magistrate Judge Parker's decision is AFFIRMED, and Defendant's Objection is OVERRULED and DENIED.

GLL also objects [ECF No. 243] to Magistrate Judge Parker's decision and report and recommendation [ECF No. 242] to the extent she granted Plaintiff leave to file a Third Amended Complaint naming new defendants. Among other objections, GLL argues that Plaintiff has failed to establish a basis for personal liability against GLL's owner, George Geffen and that it has not established successor liability against the other proposed defendants. See Objection, ECF No. 243; Brief in Support of Objection, ECF No. 243-17 (“Amend Br.”), at 13, 16-17. For the reasons stated herein, Magistrate Judge Parker's report and recommendation is ADOPTED IN PART and Defendant's Objections are DENIED in part and GRANTED in part.

LEGAL STANDARDS

This Court's review of a Magistrate Judge's ruling on non-dispositive discovery issues is limited, and the decision only will be reversed if it is “clearly erroneous or is contrary to law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(a). A decision is “clearly erroneous” only when “the district court is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234, 243 (2001) (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395 (1948)) (internal quotation marks omitted). An order is “contrary to law” when it “fails to apply or misapplies relevant statutes, case law or rules of procedure.” Weiss v. La Suisse, 161 F.Supp.2d 305, 321 (S.D.N.Y. 2001) (quoting Thompson v. Keane, No. 95-cv-2442, 1996 WL 229887, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. May 6, 1996)).

The Court reviews de novo the decision of a Magistrate Judge on dispositive motions, such as Plaintiff's motion to add parties and claims. Cardell Fin. Corp. v. Sucholdoski Assocs., Inc., 896 F.Supp.2d 320, 324 (S.D.N.Y. 2012). Because motions to add new parties require a final determination as to whether the proposed amended pleading states a claim against those parties, “a district court's review of a magistrate judge's determination of said motion should be evaluated under the de novo standard applicable to dispositive matters under Federal Rule of Civil procedure 72(b). Thomas E. Hoar, Inc., v. Sara Lee Corp., 900 F.2d 522, 525-26 (2d Cir. 1990).

DISCUSSION

A. Objection to the Award of Attorney's Fees

GLL's objection to Magistrate Judge Parker's order awarding attorney fees fails for several reasons. First, GLL incorrectly argues that Magistrate Judge Parker “acknowledged that she didn't have enough information to impose” those sanctions. See Brief in Support of Objection, ECF No. 219-10 (“Fee Br.”), at 3. While GLL appears to correctly quote from the conference, it ignores that Magistrate Judge Parker's remarks referred only to having enough information to sanction Defendants for deliberately destroying evidence and not, as GLL submits, regarding any sanctions whatsoever:

The Court: That means destruction of documents.

Mr. Pu: It wasn't a deliberate destruction of them.

The Court: That can be decided at another time. What you've relayed to me doesn't provide me with enough information to determine whether it's sanctionable conduct and whether an adverse inference is required.

See 10/01/2020 Tr. 9:16-22. At no point did Magistrate Judge Parker foreclose the possibility of an award of attorney's fees in connection with the motion to compel. Indeed, she could not have done so, as an award of attorney's fees is mandatory in connection with a successful motion to compel, provided that the moving party offered to meet and confer in good faith and that the non-movant was not “substantially justified” in resisting the discovery request. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5); Romeo and Juliette Laser Hair Removal, Inc v. Assara I, LLC, No. 08 Civ. 442 (TPG)(FM), 2013 WL 3322249 at *3 (S.D.N.Y. July 2, 2013) (awarding Plaintiff attorney's fees due to Defendant failing to demonstrate that its failure to produce certain documents was “substantially justified”).

Perhaps acknowledging that argument's failure, GLL pivots and argues that Konka failed to meet and confer before moving for attorney's fees and costs. However, it is clear from the record that Konka adequately offered and attempted to meet and confer here. Parties to a case are expected to “actually meet, in person or by telephone, and make a genuine effort to resolve the dispute by determining . . . what the requesting party is actually seeking; what the discovery party is reasonably capable of producing that is responsive to the request; and what specific genuine issues, if any, cannot be resolved without judicial intervention.” Excess Ins. Co., Ltd. v. Rochdale Ins. Co., No. 05 Civ. 10174, 2007 WL 2900217, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 4, 2007). Counsel for the Parties first met concerning GLL's discovery responses on January 6, 2020. See Letter to Court, ECF No. 77. Defendant asserts that because this meeting dealt with its repeated failures to respond to Plaintiff's document requests, and not GLL's failure to actually produce said documents, the meeting dealt with issues “entirely different from the ones raised by” the motion. Fee Br. at 7.

This attempted distinction is not meaningful. During the meeting, the parties sought to resolve issues pertaining to Defendant's deficient responses to requests for production. Letter to Court, ECF No. 77, at 2-3. The information sought in these requests, such as communications related to the purchase of lights from Plaintiffs and communications between GLL and third-party customers, is what the motion to compel sought to produce. More importantly, the Parties' contemporaneous joint letter states that the parties actually discussed the production of these documents. Letter to Court, ECF No. 77, at 2-3. Nothing indicates that this meeting was anything less than a good-faith attempt to resolve the disputes ultimately subject to Konka's motion.^[1]

GLL's objection, therefore, reads as the latest in a long series of attempts to disrupt and delay discovery in this case. I previously have remarked that the Parties in this case seem intent on conducting discovery only through motion practice, and that, despite Magistrate Judge Parker's admirable efforts, the Parties remain unable or unwilling to cooperate on even the smallest discovery issues. See Order Overruling Objections, ECF No. 213, at 4. While the federal rules envision a cooperative discovery process, they also provide for motion practice and, importantly, sanctions for forcing one's adversary to seek judicial intervention. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37. While here the sanctions imposed are modest, the Court takes this opportunity to warn both parties that continued failure to act appropriately as officers of the Court will result in more severe monetary and substantive sanctions.

In sum, Defendant's objection to Magistrate Judge Parker's award of attorney's fees as a sanction is overruled and denied.

B. Objection to the Inspection Ruling

As to Defendant's second objection, GLL fails to show that the items requested for inspection are not discoverable, as it must to resist Konka's motion. Rule 26(b)(1) states that any matter “relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action” is discoverable in litigation. Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1). Moreover, discovery requests must be “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351 (1978). A party also may put a matter into issue during litigation. See MacCartney v. O'Dell, No. 14-cv-3925, 2017 WL 766906, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 27, 2017) (“Discovery is not limited to issues raised by the pleadings, for discovery itself is designed to help define and clarify the issues. Nor is discovery limited to the merits of a case, for a variety of fact-oriented issues may arise during litigation that are not related to the merits”) (quoting Oppenheimer Fund, 473 U.S. at 351) (alterations omitted)).

By its motion to Magistrate Judge Parker, Konka sought inspection of certain LED lights which Konka had shipped to GLL and which underlie this litigation. See Motion to Compel, ECF No. 232, at 1-2. While each party's expert witness visually inspected the lights in February 2020, GLL's expert apparently performed testing on the units in June 2020. See Motion to Compel, ECF No. 232, at 1-2. Konka only sought the opportunity for its expert to do the same.

Once again, GLL obstructed and delayed discovery in this case by refusing to provide Konka the opportunity for its expert to inspect the lights. Defendant merely argues that Konka already inspected the lights and never stated that further inspection was necessary. See Memorandum of...