GARY R. JONES, Magistrate Judge.
This matter is before the Court on Plaintiff's Motion to Compel Responses to Plaintiff's Personal Jurisdiction Discovery (Doc. 60). On July 17, 2012 upon prior notice the Court conducted a telephonic hearing to address the motion. For the reasons discussed at the hearing, which are incorporated into this order, and as summarized below, Plaintiff's Motion to Compel is due to be granted in part and denied in part.
This case arises from a multi-million dollar loan in default. The defendants are the borrower (a limited liability company), and a number of individuals who signed limited guaranties of the loan. All of the individual defendants except one has filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. (Docs. 38, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54.) The one defendant who has not so filed has not responded to the suit at all. The moving defendants argue that the Northern District of Florida has no personal jurisdiction over them because their contacts to the state of Florida were limited to signing the guaranties.
The parties jointly requested leave to conduct discovery on the issue of personal jurisdiction, which the Court granted. (Doc. 47.) Plaintiff hoped to prove that Defendants had a greater relationship with the state of Florida than merely signing a guaranty for the purchase of Florida property, and its discovery requests focused on Defendants' participation in the limited liability company that signed the loan in question and the real estate development project that the loan was to fund. Defendants Stroud, Wiles, and Graham responded to some requests, but lodged objections to many others. Their objections fell generally into these categories: (1) the requests were impermissible merits discovery; (2) the requests were impermissible financial discovery; (3) the requests were otherwise outside the scope of the personal jurisdiction discovery permitted by the Court; (4) the requests asked for information about other defendants. In response to these objections, Plaintiff filed the instant motion to compel. (Doc. 60.) After the motion was filed and before the hearing, Defendant Stroud filed a motion to withdraw his previously-filed motion to dismiss, thereby consenting to personal jurisdiction. (Doc. 72.) The motion to compel therefore remained pending only as to Defendants Wiles and Graham.
As a general matter Defendants' personal participation in the real estate development project—or lack thereof—is relevant to the question of personal jurisdiction, and discovery about that participation is permissible. Plaintiff's motion to compel answers to those requests is granted as detailed below. Second, many of Plaintiff's requests exceed the scope of personal jurisdiction discovery, encompassing issues relevant only to the ultimate merits of the lawsuit and not Defendants' personal contacts with Florida. Those requests are limited or denied as detailed below. Finally, a number of questions focused on the behavior of the limited liability company and on other defendants, not on the behavior of Defendants Wiles and Graham. Because the motion to compel is pending only as to these two defendants, Plaintiff's discovery requests were limited or denied as detailed below.
Accordingly, upon due consideration, it is
(1) Plaintiff's Motion to Compel (Doc. 60) is
(2) With regard to Requests to Admit Nos. 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 25, 29, 35, 36, and 37, the Motion to Compel is
(3) With regard to Requests to Admit Nos. 3, 5, 19, 20, 21, 22, 34, and 50, the Motion to Compel is
(4) With regard to Request to Admit No. 33, the Motion to Compel is
(5) Requests to Admit Nos. 4, 23, and 24 are
(6) The Motion to Compel does not apply to Requests to Admit Nos. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49.
(7) With regard to Requests to Admit Nos. 38, 39, and 40, Defendants' objections are overruled so that Defendants' response after the objections shall control.
(8) With regard to Interrogatory No. 1, the Motion to Compel is
(9) With regard to Interrogatory No. 5, the Motion to Compel is
(10) With regard to Interrogatory No. 13, the Motion to Compel is
(11) With regard to Interrogatory No. 14, the Motion to Compel is
(12) With regard to Interrogatory No. 15, the Motion to Compel is
(13) With regard to Interrogatory No. 16, the Motion to Compel is
(14) With regard to Interrogatory No. 23, the Motion to Compel is
(15) With regard to Interrogatories Nos. 6, 17, and 19, Defendants' objections are overruled and Defendants' responses after the objections shall control.
(16) The Motion to Compel does not apply to Interrogatories Nos. 7, 8, 10, 21, 22, 24, and 25.
(17) With regard to Interrogatories Nos. 2, 4, 9, 11, 12, and 20, the Motion to Compel is
(18) With regard to Interrogatories Nos. 3 and 18, the Motion to Compel is
(19) With regard to Plaintiff's Motion to Compel responses to the Supplemental Interrogatories the motion is
(20) With regard to Request to Produce No. 1, the Motion to Compel is
(21) With regard to Requests to Produce Nos. 2, 3, and 4, the Motion to Compel is
(22) With regard to Request to Produce No. 5, the Motion to Compel is
(23) With regard to Request to Produce No. 6, the Motion to Compel is
(24) With regard to Requests to Produce No. 9 and 22, the Motion to Compel is
(25) With regard to Request to Produce No. 14, the Motion to Compel is
(26) With regard to Request to Produce No. 15, the Motion to Compel is
(27) With regard to Request to Produce No. 16, the Motion to Compel is
(28) With regard to Request to Produce No. 20, the Motion to Compel is
(29) With regard to Request to Produce No. 21, the Motion to Compel is
(30) The Motion to Compel does not apply to Request to Produce No. 23.
(31) With regard to Requests to Produce Nos. 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 17, the Motion to Compel is
(32) With regard to Requests to Produce Nos. 18 and 19, the Motion to Compel is
(33) The Plaintiff's Motion for Attorney's Fees and the Defendants' Motion for Attorney's Fees are