PAUL S. GREWAL, Magistrate Judge.
Once again, the court confronts the question of exactly what data may be subpoenaed from a third-party service provider. Once again, the third-party provider is Google. In Optiver Australia Pty. Ltd. & Anor v. Tibra Trading Pty. Ltd & Ors., the court held that "[t]he SCA [Stored Communication Act] prohibits any knowing disclosure by service providers of the content of electronic communications, no matter how insignificant."
Leonardo provides digital content management and other services for hotels, hotel chains, hotel reservation processing intermediaries, online travel agencies and other travel-related websites.
Several years ago, Leonardo and Pegasus entered into a strategic partnership wherein Leonardo became the exclusive provider of visual content pertaining to the hotels serviced by Pegasus for use on Pegasus's online reservation switch.
Pegasus allegedly took umbrage at the breakup and sent messages to the so-called "Leonardo Hotel Chains" and certain online travel agencies that somehow caused the hotels and agencies to terminate their contracts with Leonardo or avoid any direct relationships with Leonardo in the first place.
Wichers is the former Chief Sales Officer at Pegasus.
Leonardo deposed Wichers earlier this year. During the deposition, Leonardo's counsel served Wichers with notice of a subpoena it served on Google for information from Wichers' Gmail account. The subpoena included four specific requests:
Wichers now moves to quash.
Because the subpoena issued to Google, a service provider headquartered in this district, this court has jurisdiction over Wichers' motion pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(d)(3)(a).
Civil subpoenas are subject to the restrictions of the SCA. Congress passed the SCA in 1986 because "the advent of the Internet presented a host of potential privacy breaches that the Fourth Amendment does not address."
As a threshold matter, Wickers clearly has standing to move to quash. This court has held that any individual with personal rights and privileges with regard to personal email has standing to request an order quashing a third party subpoena.
Although the requests, and particularly the first set of requests, could be read to require production of content, Leonardo disclaims any interest in content from the account. And so the court turns to whether any non-content information demanded is improper.
First, the information sought is plainly relevant, at least to Leonardo's breach of contract and tortious inference claims. Leonardo's breach-of-contract claim centers on the allegation that Wichers used his Gmail account to forward confidential Leonardo information to a Leonardo competitor in violation of the SPA.
Second, the time period designated is appropriate. Leonardo's subpoena seeks information for documents from January 1, 2014 to present. While the tortious interference claims focus on communications between May and August, 2014, Leonardo's other claims are not so tethered. The undersigned also notes that in resolving a party discoveiy dispute, the district court presiding over this case ordered production of documents outside this limited time frame.
The one exception concerns emails after November 3, 2014, the day Wichers left Pegasus. Leonardo argues that such emails also should be produced because they "clearly could shed light on the actions by Pegasus and Mr. Wichers that form the basis of Leonardo's lawsuit."
The other exception is that information should only be produced for emails to and from Wichers' Gmail account to and from email addresses ending in "iceportal.com" or "pegasus.com." This is consistent with the scope of Leonardo's proffered justification for the subpoena, and Leonardo does not seriously argue otherwise.
Wichers' motion to quash is GRANTED-IN-PART. Google shall make its production consistent with this order in no less than 21 days.