Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 RADHA BOLIVAR and ANGELICA Case No.: 3:25-cv-1722-RBM-GC GOATACHE, 12 ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR Petitioners, 13 REIMBURSEMENT OF COSTS OF v. COMPLIANCE WITH SUBPOENA 14 [Dkt. No. 13] NETRADYNE, INC., 15 Respondent. 16 17 18 Before the Court is Respondent Netradyne, Inc.’s (“Netradyne” or “Respondent”) 19 Motion for Reimbursement of Costs of Compliance with Subpoena (the “Motion”). Dkt. 20 No. 13. Having reviewed the Motion and Petitioners’ Radha Bolivar and Angelica 21 Goatache (collectively “Petitioners”) Response in Opposition to Motion for 22 Reimbursement of Costs of Compliance with Subpoena (the “Opposition”) [Dkt. No. 14], 23 the Motion is DENIED for the following reasons: 24 I. BACKGROUND 25 A. Procedural History 26 This matter relates to an active litigation filed by Petitioners in the Eastern District 27 of Tennessee. Bolivar et al. v. HMD Trucking, Inc et al., No. 1:24-cv-00155-TRM-MJD 28 (E.D. Tenn.). On February 18, 2025, Petitioners served a subpoena on Netradyne, Inc., a 1 nonparty to the litigation based in San Diego. Dkt. No. 1-3 at 16. Seeking to enforce the 2 subpoena, Petitioners filed a Motion to Enforce Out of District Subpoena on July 7, 2025 3 with this Court. Dkt. No. 1. That same day, the Court denied Petitioners’ Motion without 4 prejudice and ordered the parties to file a Joint Motion for Discovery Dispute 5 Determination. Dkt. No. 2. On November 10, 2025, the parties filed the Joint Motion. Dkt. 6 No. 4. 7 On February 12, 2026, the Honorable Magistrate Judge Crawford issued two orders 8 related to the parties’ Joint Motion. Dkt. No. 4. First, the Court held Respondent adequately 9 complied with Petitioners’ subpoena by producing responsive documents within its 10 possession and control. Dkt. No. 11. Next, the Court ordered the parties to meet and confer 11 regarding Respondent’s request under Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(d)(2)(B)(ii) for the mandatory 12 shifting of its costs associated with subpoena compliance and setting a briefing schedule 13 for Respondent to file a Motion supported by “exhibits showing the costs incurred” if the 14 parties did not reach agreement. Dkt. No. 12. Because the parties were unable to resolve 15 the issue on their own, Respondent filed the instant Motion on February 23, 2026. Dkt. No. 16 13. Petitioners filed their Opposition on March 2, 2026. Dkt. No. 14. 17 B. Relevant Factual Background 18 Respondent’s Motion requests reimbursement of “$10,145 of costs it incurred to 19 comply with [Petitioners’] subpoena,” and includes two exhibits demonstrating a total of 20 $10,645 in costs allegedly incurred in complying with the subpoena. Dkt. No. 13 at 2, Dkt. 21 Nos. 13-1, 13-2. The contents of each exhibit are explained in detail below. 22 Exhibit 1 shows Respondent’s attorney’s billing sheets and uses yellow highlighter 23 to demarcate which billing entries were allegedly incurred complying with the subpoena 24 and an “excel spreadsheet calculating the total fee charged to Netradyne, Inc. for the 25 highlighted entries, which equals $7,645.00[,]”based on 13.9 hours of work performed by 26 counsel at a rate of $550 per hour. Dkt. Nos. 13 at 6, 13-1 at 4. The highlighted entries 27 include communications with the client, meet and confer efforts with opposing counsel, 28 and drafting objections and responses to the subpoena. See Dkt. No. 13-1 at 1-2. 1 Exhibit 2 appears to be a screenshot of “communications provided by Netradyne’s 2 India personnel in response to [counsel’s] request that they identify all expenses incurred 3 for compliance with the Subpoena.” Dkt. No. 13 at 8. The screenshot shows an email from 4 an unidentified Netradyne employee who asserts that Netradyne’s engineers worked for 5 forty (40) hours at a rate of seventy-five dollars ($75) per hour, totaling to $3,000 of labor. 6 Dkt. No. 13-2 at 1. No additional information is provided regarding what work was 7 performed, when it was performed, who performed it, and how it was related to compliance 8 with the subpoena. 9 II. LEGAL STANDARD 10 “Rule 45(d)(2)(B)(ii) requires the district court to shift a non-party’s costs of 11 compliance with a subpoena, if those costs are significant.” Legal Voice v. Stormans Inc., 12 738 F.3d 1178, 1184 (9th Cir. 2013). When determining whether to shift the nonparty’s 13 cost of compliance, the court considers two factors: “[1] whether the subpoena imposes 14 expenses on the non-party, and [2] whether those expenses are ‘significant.’” Id. 15 “[N]either the Federal Rules nor the Ninth Circuit has defined significant expenses, 16 which is a term that readily lends itself to myriad interpretations depending on the 17 circumstances of a particular case.” United States v. McGraw-Hill Cos., 302 F.R.D. 532, 18 536 (C.D. Cal. 2014) (quotations omitted). When determining whether an expense is 19 significant, the court “should consider the ability of the producing non-party to bear the 20 costs of production.” Id. For example, “an expense might be ‘significant’ … to a small 21 family-run business, while being ‘insignificant’ to a global financial institution.” Pandora 22 Media, LLC v. 800 Pound Gorilla Media, LLC, WL 4799115 at *2 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 16, 23 2024) (collecting cases). 24 Courts also analyze whether a nonparty has an interest in the outcome of the 25 underlying case. Cornell v. Columbus McKinnon Corp., No. 13-cv-02188-SI, 2015 WL 26 4747260, at *3, 5 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 11, 2015). Rule 45’s cost-shifting provision “was not 27 intended as a mechanism for entities which stand to benefit from certain litigation outcomes 28 to evade discovery costs arising from their involvement in the underlying acts that gave 1 rise to the lawsuit.” Id. at *5 (citation omitted). In addition, the nonparty seeking cost 2 shifting must demonstrate that its costs are reasonable. McGraw–Hill Companies, Inc., 302 3 F.R.D. at 536 (“Rule 45 does not cut a blank check to non-parties—unnecessary or unduly 4 expensive services do not ‘result from compliance’ and, therefore, do not count as 5 ‘expenses.’”). 6 III. ANALYSIS 7 Netradyne requests that the Court shift two categories of costs they allegedly 8 incurred in complying with Petitioners’ subpoena: (1) engineer costs and (2) legal costs. 9 A. Engineering Costs 10 First, Netradyne failed to provide adequate documentation to support its request to 11 shift the cost of $3,000 in engineer labor. The only documentation Netradyne provided in 12 support of this request is a one-page screenshot of an email and a short description of the 13 email in the Dean Janis Declaration. Dkt. No. 13 at 8, Exhibit 2. This documentation fails 14 to establish basic facts that demonstrate that this labor was incurred solely in compliance 15 with Petitioners’ subpoena. In fact, the email itself does not even mention the subpoena, 16 provides no dates for when the work was performed, includes no details on the who 17 performed the work or what kind of work they performed, provides no information on any 18 of the individuals communicating in the email, and does not even include the date the email 19 was sent. Thus, the Court lacks sufficient documentation to find that these engineering 20 costs were incurred in compliance with the subpoena. 21 B. Legal Fees 22 Next, Netradyne alleges it incurred $7,645 in legal fees related to compliance with 23 the subpoena. Dkt. No. 13 at 6. As explained further below, the Court need not conduct an 24 analysis of whether the alleged fees are recoverable under Rule 45(d)(2)(B)(ii) because 25 even if all of attorney’s fees Netradyne alleges are recoverable, $7,645 in costs is not 26 significant to a company of Netradyne’s size. 27 Netradyne is a global company with offices in San Diego, San Francisco, Nashville, 28 and Bangalore, India and offers customer support in United States, Canada, United 1 ||Kingdom and India. Dkt. No. 14-2. It claims it was awarded “Forbes Best Startup 2 ||Employers List 2023 — 2025.” Jd. In January 2025, Respondent raised $90 million based 3 a $1.35 billion valuation, and in 2022 it raised $65 million based on a $1.00 billon 4 || valuation. Dkt. Nos. 14-3, 14-4. Netraydyne’s legal expenses of $7,645 are not significant 5 || for a company of this stature and while “‘a nonparty’s financial status is not dispositive in 6 || every instance,” Netradyne did “not provide any basis for the Court to determine that it is 7 financially able to bear the entirety of the costs of production.” Balfour Beatty 8 || Infrastructure, Inc. v. PB & A, Inc., 319 F.R.D. 277, 283 (N.D. Cal. 2017) (quotations and 9 || citations omitted). Thus, the Court finds that the attorney’s fees Netradyne seeks to shift 10 Petitioners do not rise to the level of “significant” and, therefore, are not shifted 11 |} pursuant to Rule 45(d)(2)(B)(ii). 12 ||IV. CONCLUSION 13 Based on the above, the Court DENIES Respondent’s Motion. 14 IT IS SO ORDERED. 15 || Dated: April 14, 2026 16 17 4.— 18 19 Hoh. Guillermo Cabrera 20 United States Magistrate Judge 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28