SUSAN E. COX, Magistrate Judge.
Plaintiff Peerless Industries, Inc. ("plaintiff") sued defendants Crimson AV, LLC and its Managing Director Vladimir Gleyzer ("defendants") in part for patent infringement and design patent infringement arising out of defendants' manufacture and sale of certain TV mounts. Plaintiff has filed a renewed motion for sanctions because of defendants' failure to comply with three of the Court's previous orders on the production of discovery. Plaintiff now asks that the Court issue an order requiring defendants to: produce all documents within fourteen days; bear plaintiff's cost of attorneys' fees for this motion, a prior motion for sanctions, and a prior motion to compel, and; provide a witness pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6) to testify about defendants' document production and to bear the reasonable costs of that deposition. Plaintiff also requests that the Court enter a finding of fact that defendants copied plaintiff's drawings and to find defendants in contempt, warranting a per diem fine until production is complete.
For the reasons stated, we grant the motion in that defendants must product all documents by July 11, 2012 and must bear the costs of the three motions. The motion is denied, however, as to plaintiff's requests relating to the 30(b)(6) witness, the drawings, and the per diem fine.
Unless otherwise stated, the following facts are from plaintiff's Third Amended Complaint.
To assist Sycamore in the manufacture of the mounts, plaintiff supplied Sycamore with proprietary information and equipment. On March 29, 2010, plaintiff terminated its contract with Sycamore. Plaintiff now alleges that after termination Sycamore failed to return the proprietary information. Two months after termination, defendant Crimson AV was formed and hired defendant Gleyzer, a former executive for plaintiff. Two months after that, Sycamore began shipping mounting equipment to defendants, who in turn began producing television mounts.
Plaintiff now alleges that Crimson AV, with help from Mr. Gleyzer and Sycamore, based its TV mount designs on plaintiff's confidential designs and drawings. Plaintiff asserts that it cannot provide any direct evidence of its own to prove these allegations but, rather, must rely on documents controlled by defendants, such as the defendants' detail and assembly drawings. Plaintiff alleges that an analysis of these drawings' sources, along with a comparison of the drawings to plaintiff's own designs and drawings, is the only way for it to provide direct evidence of this facet of its allegations.
On August 9, 2011, the district court referred this case for discovery supervision and a settlement conference.
On January 23, 2012, plaintiff filed a motion to compel as a result of defendants' failure to respond to plaintiff's third set of requests for document production.
Consequently, on March 5, 2012, plaintiff filed a motion for sanctions. On March 13, 2012, the Court granted the motion in part and denied it in part.
On April 30, 2012, plaintiff filed a renewed motion for sanctions.
On May 3, 2012, the Court instructed defendants to focus their response to this motion on what documents had been produced and when, and not on whether the discovery was overly burdensome.
Therefore, plaintiff asks the Court to compel the complete production of these documents and to award reasonable costs for the filing of this motion, the prior motion for sanctions, and the prior motion to compel. Plaintiff also seeks to compel the presentment of a 30(b)(6) witness and to shift the costs for the deposition to the defendants. Lastly, plaintiff requests a finding of fact that defendants copied its TV mount design, and also the implementation of a per diem fine until discovery is completed.
Rule 37(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permits granting motions for discovery sanctions when a party fails to comply with a court order that has already been made to compel production.
One notable problem with defendants' response is that they fail to identify a single document produced that came from Sycamore. Defendants also assert that they included metadata for the emails provided, yet do not counter plaintiff's assertion that the metadata production was incomplete.
With respect to the drawings, defendants did not produce any detail drawings until the day plaintiff filed this renewed motion for sanctions, over a month after the agreed upon deadline.
Plaintiff next suggests that defendants have refused to provide a witness pursuant to Rule 30(b)(6) to testify regarding document production. But defendants have merely refused to produce such a witness on an accelerated schedule, not refused to produce one at all.
As a final matter, the Court declines to enter a finding of fact that defendants created the products in question by copying plaintiff's confidential drawings. We also do not find the defendants' failures to constitute contempt warranting a per diem fine. Plaintiff seems to infer from defendants' discovery failures that they are intentionally trying to hide the fact that they copied plaintiff's drawings. Although defendants have proven to be less than thorough in their discovery thus far, there is no basis for the suggestion of something more serious, such as intent to mislead. Completed discovery will prove illustrative with respect to this issue of fact. With respect to the per diem fine, the fee shifting for the three motions should in itself constitute sufficient motivation to secure complete compliance from defendants. Consequently, such a fine is superfluous.
For the reasons set forth above, the Court grants in part and denies in part plaintiff's motion for sanctions under Rule 37(b) [dkt. 94]. The Court hereby orders defendants to produce full and complete discovery as outlined above and awards plaintiff costs for the three motions. Plaintiff is to submit a bill of costs by July 9, 2012.