Medimpact Healthcare Systems, Inc. v. IQVIA Holdings Inc.

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 MEDIMPACT HEALTHCARE Case No.: 19-cv-1865-GPC-DEB SYSTEMS, INC., et al., 12 ORDER ON JOINT MOTION FOR Plaintiffs, 13 DETERMINATION OF DISCOVERY v. DISPUTE AND GRANTING 14 MOTION TO SEAL DOCUMENTS IQVIA INC., et al., 15 Defendants. [DKT. NOS. 339, 341] 16 17 18 I. INTRODUCTION 19 Before the Court is the parties’ Joint Motion for Determination of Discovery 20 Dispute. Dkt. No. 341. At issue are Plaintiffs’ Request for Production of Documents 21 (“RFP”) Nos. 155, 157, 158, and 198. Id. at 3. Plaintiffs claim Defendants are improperly 22 withholding discovery on Defendants’ Expert Monitoring System (“EMS”), Community 23 Health Platform Deck, and Jordan National E-Claims Platform. Id. at 4, 7. Defendants 24 respond by agreeing to produce documents relating to Community Health Platform Deck 25 and Jordan National E-Claims Platform, but object to producing EMS related documents, 26 which Defendants contend does not involve pharmaceutical benefit management (“PBM”) 27 technology. Id. at 8. 28 For the reasons set forth below, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ motion to compel. 1 II. LEGAL STANDARD 2 “[B]road discretion is vested in the trial court to permit or deny discovery . . . .” 3 Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 751 (9th Cir. 2002). “Parties may obtain discovery 4 regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and 5 proportional to the needs of the case. . . .” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b). Even after the 2015 6 amendments to Rule 26, “discovery relevance remains a broad concept.” Fed. Nat’l Mortg. 7 Ass’n v. SFR Invs. Pool 1, LLC, No. 14-cv-02046-JAD-PAL, 2016 WL 778368, at *2 n.16 8 (D. Nev. Feb. 25, 2016); see also Odyssey Wireless, Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., Ltd, No. 9 15-cv-01735-H-RBB, 2016 WL 7665898, at *2 (S.D. Cal. Sept. 20, 2016) (“Relevance is 10 construed broadly to include any matter that bears on, or reasonably could lead to other 11 matters that could bear on, any issue that may be in the case.”) (citing Oppenheimer Fund, 12 Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 350–51 (1978)). 13 The party seeking to compel discovery has the burden of establishing its request 14 satisfies the relevancy requirements of Rule 26(b)(1). Soto v. City of Concord, 162 F.R.D. 15 603, 610 (N.D. Cal. July 17, 1995). “[T]he party opposing discovery bears the burden of 16 showing that discovery should not be allowed, and of clarifying, explaining, and supporting 17 its objections with competent evidence.” Medicinova Inc. v. Genzyme Corp., No. 14-cv- 18 2513-L-KSC, 2017 WL 2829691, at *4 (S.D. Cal. June 29, 2017) (quoting Lofton v. 19 Verizon Wireless (VAW) LLC, 308 F.R.D. 276, 281 (N.D. Cal. 2015)). 20 III. DISCUSSION 21 Plaintiffs’ RFPs at issue are as follows: 22 RFP No. 155: “All versions of the ‘Community Health Platform’ 23 deck, which has ‘been ongoing since Dimensions started, so it’s been progressing,’ as referenced by Azmi Asali on page 36 of his 24 deposition transcript.” 25 RFP No. 157: “The Contract between IQVIA and the 26 government of Jordan for the Jordan national platform project, as 27 referenced by Azmi Asali on page 46 of his deposition transcript. (See IQVIA Asali Final Transcript at 46:13–16, attached as 28 Exhibit A.) (Q. “Has a contract been signed or is there a contract 1 between IQVIA and the government of Jordan in connection with this platform?” A. Yeah, I believe there is a contract.”) 2 3 RFP No. 158: “All versions of the following documents for the Jordan project, as referenced by Azmi Asali on pages 47 and 48 4 of his deposition transcript: workflow, architecture, data sizing 5 for the infrastructure, and technical specifications. (See IQVIA Asali Final Transcript at 47:9–25 through 48:1–3, attached as 6 Exhibit A.) 7 RFP No. 198: “All development documents for Expert 8 Monitoring System (“EMS”), including all drat versions of such documents. This request includes but is not limited to design 9 outlines, design sketches, and variable mappings.” 10 Dkt. Nos. 341 at 3; 341-3. 11 A. RFP No. 155 12 Plaintiffs’ RFP No. 155 seeks all versions of Defendants’ “Community Health 13 Platform” deck. Defendants respond, “the burden of producing all iterations of the 14 Community Health Plan is trivial, Defendants will simply produce them, if they have 15 them.” Dkt. No. 341 at 8. Accordingly, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ motion to compel a 16 further response to RFP No. 155. 17 Defendants must produce responsive documents to RFP No. 155 on or before 18 November 23, 2021. If Defendants do not have the requested documents, they must make 19 that assertion under oath and describe their efforts to obtain the documents. See Bryant v. 20 Armstrong, 285 F.R.D. 596, 603 (S.D. Cal. 2012) (“If there are no other responsive 21 documents in Defendant’s possession, custody, or control, after conducting this further 22 attempt to locate records, [the defendant] must state so under oath and describe efforts he 23 made to locate responsive documents.”) (citation omitted). 24 B. RFP Nos. 157, 158 25 Plaintiffs’ RFP Nos. 157 and 158 seek documents related to the “Jordan national 26 platform project,” which Plaintiffs contend was identified by Defendants’ witness during 27 a deposition and already determined to be relevant by the Court. Dkt. No. 341 at 7. In 28 1 response, Defendants state, “if Plaintiffs can demonstrate the referenced Jordan Platform 2 is something other than the EHSI/Hakeem project about which they have already had full 3 discovery, Defendants will produce that information as well.” Id. at 8. 4 Plaintiffs’ RFP Nos. 157 and 158 sufficiently describe the documents Plaintiffs seek. 5 Defendants must produce all responsive documents on or before November 23, 2021. 6 C. RFP No. 198 7 Plaintiffs’ RFP No. 198 seeks draft development documents for Defendants’ EMS. 8 Based on Plaintiffs’ assertion that Defendants renamed an enjoined product (AIMS) to 9 EMS, Plaintiffs argue draft development EMS documents are relevant to: (1) Defendants’ 10 “defense that they only deployed a PBM version of EMS to one customer”; (2) show 11 Defendants’ marketing of Plaintiffs’ misappropriated trade secrets; and (3) Plaintiffs’ 12 RICO claims. Dkt. No. 341 at 5–6. 13 Defendants respond that discovery is limited to PBM technology and claims data, 14 and Plaintiffs “offer[ ] no evidence at all that EMS is AIMS.” Dkt. No. 341 at 9. Defendants 15 also argue Plaintiffs only show “a single instance of an EMS project . . . actually involving 16 PBM.” Id. 17 The Court finds the EMS discovery sought in RFP No. 198 clears the “relatively low 18 bar” of relevance. Cont’l Circuits LLC v. Intel Corp., 435 F. Supp. 3d 1014, 1018 (D. Ariz. 19 2020). The parties do not dispute AIMS was enjoined for misappropriating Plaintiffs’ trade 20 secrets. Plaintiffs have provided evidence that AIMS was renamed EMS. Dkt. No. 341-5. 21 Although Defendants contend Plaintiffs failed to show the EMS “projects are indeed PBM 22 projects,” Dkt. No. 341 at 10, Plaintiffs produced evidence that at least one EMS project 23 involved PBM. See Dkt. Nos. 341-1, ¶ 11; 341-2, ¶ 4. The Court, therefore, finds EMS 24 development documents are relevant. Cf. Asus Comput. Int’l v. Round Rock Research, LLC, 25 No. 12-cv-02099-JST-NC, 2013 WL 6113253, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 20, 2013) (finding 26 product development documents relevant “to demonstrate the demand for the innovative 27 features of the patents”); Bioscience v. Actavis Llc, No. 16-1925-JMV, 2017 WL 9808442, 28 1 at *3 (D.N.J. Sep. 12, 2017) (holding “product development documents, before and after 2 the issue date of Plaintiff’s patents, are relevant to the failure of others”). 3 Defendants must produce all non-privileged documents responsive to Plaintiffs’ 4 RFP No. 198 on or before November 23, 2021. 5 IV. MOTION TO SEAL 6 Plaintiffs filed a motion to seal documents (Dkt. No. 339), requesting the Court seal 7 the documents lodged at Dkt. No. 340 (Joint Motion for Determination of Discovery 8 Dispute, Plaintiffs’ witness’s declaration, and Plaintiff’s counsel’s declaration with 9 accompanying exhibits) because these documents implicate Defendants’ “confidential 10 sensitive business information,” and contain Defendants’ operations, strategies to obtain 11 new clients, and “confidential projects, products, and deal terms.” Dkt. No. 339 at 3. 12 Plaintiff filed a redacted pleading that omits the information in question. Dkt. No. 341. 13 Good cause appearing, the Court GRANTS the Motion to Seal and directs the Clerk of 14 Court to file the documents lodged at Dkt. No. 340 under seal. See Kamakana v. City & 15 Cnty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1180 (9th Cir. 2006) (“[A] particularized showing under 16 the ‘good cause’ standard of Rule 26(c) will suffice to warrant preserving the secrecy of 17 sealed discovery material attached to nondispositive motions.”) (internal quotations, 18 citations, and edits omitted). 19 / / 20 / / 21 / / 22 / / 23 / / 24 / / 25 / / 26 / / 27 / / 28 / / 1 Vv. CONCLUSION 2 Based on the foregoing, Plaintiffs’ motion to compel further discovery is 3 || GRANTED. Defendants’ General Objection No. 17 to Plaintiffs’ RFP Nos. 155, 157, 158, 4 198 is overruled, and Defendants must produce responsive documents on or before 5 || November 23, 2021. The Clerk of Court is directed to filed the documents lodged at Dkt. 6 || No. 340 UNDER SEAL. 7 IT IS SO ORDERED. 8 Dated: November 9, 2021 — Dok PT 10 Honorable Daniel E. Butcher United States Magistrate Judge 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28