National Football Scouting, Inc. v. Rang et al, No. 3:2011cv05762 - Document 40 (W.D. Wash. 2012)
Court Description: ORDER granting in part and denying in part 26 Defendants' Motion to Compel; NFS must produce unredacted portions of Scouting Report as defined in this Order; request for attorney's fees is denied. Signed by Judge Ronald B. Leighton.(DN)
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National Football Scouting, Inc. v. Rang et al 1 Doc. 40 HONORABLE RONALD B. LEIGHTON 2 3 4 5 6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT TACOMA 7 8 9 NATIONAL FOOTBALL SCOUTING, INC., CASE NO. 3:11-CV-5762-RBL ORDER 10 Plaintiff, [DKT. #26] 11 12 13 v. ROB RANG, an individual; and THE SPORTS XCHANGE, INC., a California corporation, 14 Defendant. 15 THIS MATTER is before the Court on Defendants Sports Xchange and Rob Rang’s 16 Motion to Compel [Dkt. #26]. Plaintiff National Football Scouting’s (NFS) sole purpose is to 17 produce Scouting Reports for its shareholders—nineteen National Football League Clubs. The 18 Reports contain ratings and grades of draft-eligible football players in order to give the NFL 19 Clubs a competitive advantage in the NFL Draft. NFS has taken steps to protect the content of 20 its Scouting Reports. For example, a written agreement prohibits the Clubs from disseminating 21 the information contained in the report, and NFS copyrights the unpublished Reports. 22 Defendant Robert Rang is a part-time sports reporter. He published eight articles on 23 Defendant Sports Xchange’s website that contained the NFS player grade for several players. As 24 ORDER - 1 Dockets.Justia.com 1 a result, NFS sued Rang and Sports Xchange for copyright infringement and misappropriation of 2 trade secrets. One of the Defendants’ early discovery requests sought the production of all of the 3 copyrighted documents that the Defendants allegedly infringed. The parties agreed on a 4 protective order but were still unable to agree on the scope of discovery with respect to the NFS 5 Scouting Reports. 6 Defendants now ask the Court to compel NFS to produce the entire NFS Scouting 7 Reports. NFS objects, arguing that (1) the Reports are not relevant, are not necessary for the 8 defendants to present their arguments, and create an undue burden for NFS; and (2) the 9 protective order does not adequately protect NFS’s confidentiality and trade secrets. Defendants 10 respond that (1) NFS did not preserve its objections, (2) the Reports are relevant, and (3) the 11 protective order adequately protect NFS. For the reasons stated below, Defendants’ Motion to 12 Compel is GRANTED in part. Defendants’ request for attorney’s fees is DENIED. 13 14 I. BACKGROUND Plaintiff National Football Scouting (NFS) is a scouting organization whose sole purpose 15 is to provide Scouting Reports to its shareholders—nineteen different National Football League 16 Clubs. The Reports include multiple categories of information on each draft-eligible player, 17 including height, weight, jersey number, school, medical information, and social security 18 number.1 NFS then assigns ratings and grades to the players for the upcoming draft. (Compl. at 19 4.) According to NFS, scouts travel the country to evaluate college talent and to discover player 20 information for the Scouting Reports. NFS then organizes the information into the Reports. 21 NFS contends that the Reports are “critical to [the shareholder NFL Clubs’] respective 22 determinations of which college athletes to select in the next NFL draft.” (Id.) Because they are 23 24 1 It appears that players voluntarily provide this information to NFS. [DKT. #26] - 2 1 so critical, the NFL Clubs “pay significant amounts of money to obtain this competitive 2 advantage to the exclusion of those NFL teams that choose not to invest in NFS.” (Id.) 3 NFS claims that it “takes every reasonable step” to protect the confidentiality of the 4 Reports. NFS explains that each NFL Club signs a confidentiality agreement, all its own 5 employees sign a confidentiality agreement, and the company that provides technology 6 assistance signs a confidentiality agreement. (Compl. at 3–4.) NFS claims that it registered the 7 entire 2010 and 2011 Scouting Reports with the United States Copyright Office as unpublished 8 works. (Compl. at 4–5.) NFS claims to purposely register the Reports as unpublished works so 9 that it is not required to submit them to the Copyright Office, which further protects the secrecy 10 of the information. 11 During 2010–2011, Defendant Rob Rang published eight articles on Defendant Sports 12 Xchange’s website about players eligible for the upcoming draft. (Compl. at 6–8.) These 13 articles either reference the NFS player grades of certain players or allude to a player’s NFS rank 14 among other players. (Id.) NFS wrote a series of letters to the Defendants demanding that they 15 cease and desists from writing about NFS’s confidential and proprietary information. (Answer at 16 3.) NFS sent its last letter in July 2011. (Id.) The Defendants contend that their use of the 17 grades was only a small part of each article, and that Rang “transformed cold, numerical 18 rankings into vividly descriptive narratives.” (Mot. to Compel at 8.) 19 In September, NFS sued Rang and Sports Xchange for copyright infringement and 20 misappropriation of trade secrets. (Compl.) In February 2012, Defendants sent eleven requests 21 for production, including a request for “all of [the] copyrighted works that [NFS] claims any 22 defendant has infringed.” (Hade Decl., Ex. A, at 8.) NFS response cited its general objections, 23 but stated, “Notwithstanding these objections, if the parties can agree on a suitable protective 24 [DKT. #26] - 3 1 order, NFS will produce responsive documents at that time.” (Id.) The general objections 2 included objections to relevance and undue burden. (Id. at 2.) 3 In order to facilitate production, the parties entered into a protective order in early 4 August. (Dkt. #21.) Soon after, Defendants attempted to gain access to the Scouting Reports, 5 but NFS informed them that it interpreted the request as only requiring the individual reports of 6 the players mentioned in Rang’s article. (Mot. to Compel at 4.) In order to compromise, the 7 Defendants agreed to the limit. (Id.) At the end of August, NFS produced a highly redacted 8 version of the Scouting Report. The Reports included only the players mentioned in Rang’s 9 articles, and NFS redacted most of the information relating to those players—including NFS’s 10 player grade. (Id.) 11 Defendants promptly informed NFS that the discovery was inadequate. (Id.) Counsel 12 met and conferred on September 7th but did not reach an agreement. (Id.)2 Defendants now 13 seek an order for the production of the entire, unredacted Scouting Reports. Shortly after 14 Defendants filed this motion, NFS agreed to provide the unredacted portions of the Reports for 15 the players discussed in Rang’s articles in an attempt to compromise. Defendants rejected the 16 offer, stating that they would only compromise if NFS paid Defendants’ attorney’s fees. (Id.) 17 18 II. DISCUSSION Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b), litigants may obtain discovery regarding 19 “any non privileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense.” FED. R. CIV. P. 20 26(b)(1). Discovery is broad in scope and biased toward discovery. Therefore, discovery 21 22 2 NFS argues that the parties did not meet and confer as required by Rule 37. (Opp. at 2.) 23 NFS claims that the Defendants only advised them that they were “considering” filing a motion to compel—they did not state that they had already decided to do so. (Id. at 3.) However, the 24 requirement to meet and confer has been satisfied. [DKT. #26] - 4 1 requests need only be “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” 2 Id. District courts enjoy broad discretion to determine relevancy for discovery purposes and to 3 limit discovery to prevent its abuse. Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 751 (9th Cir. 2002). 4 Defendants argue that NFS’s general objections are not adequate to preserve a relevance 5 or undue burden objection. NFS argues that this district has never held that such an objection is 6 improper. (Opp. at 6.) The reason that this district has not formally opined on the adequacy of 7 general objections is that the court’s prefer to resolve issues on the merits, not on the sufficiency 8 of how party’s objected. In this case, both parties seemed to misunderstand the nature of the 9 request from the beginning. The Court cannot say that NFS would not have objected on 10 relevance and undue burden grounds if it had known Defendants sought the entire report, as 11 opposed to just certain portions. The Court will consider the objections on the merits. 12 NFS argues that other alternatives obviate the need for producing the Reports. 13 Specifically, NFS believes that Defendants can argue a Fair Use defense without resort to the 14 Scouting Reports.3 The Defendants argue that this is not actually a relevance objection, but one 15 that expresses NFS’s belief that the Report is not the only evidence. Admittedly , it is hard to 16 imagine a situation where a copyrighted work is irrelevant to a copyright infringement action. 17 The Scouting Reports are relevant to the case. 18 Next, NFS argues that producing the Report is unduly burdensome because it contains 19 highly personal information on thousands of players who are not a subject to this litigation that 20 NFS would need to redact. This argument has merit. The Report contains player grades for over 21 a thousand players, far more than the subject of this litigation. NFS does not have to produce the 22 23 3 NFS points out that the Defendants did exactly that in their current Summary Judgment 24 Motion [Dkt. #31]. [DKT. #26] - 5 1 entire Report. But the version of the Scouting Report that NFS provided the Defendants is 2 inadequate. NFS must produce unredacted portions of the Scouting Report that pertain to the 3 players who were the subject of Rang’s articles. NFS’s production must show all of the 4 categories of information that NFS compiles, though it may redact some of the highly personal 5 information.4 6 Finally, NFS argues that the protective order does not adequately protect their interests. 7 As the Defendants point out, NFS required the Defendants to enter into the protective order. 8 After entering into the protective order, NFS still limited the amount of information it gave the 9 Defendants. In fact, Defendants likely could have gotten more information from an Internet 10 search than they received from the redacted Report. The NFL Drafts related to both Reports 11 have already occurred, and the Court has limited the production to the players referenced in 12 Defendants’ articles. NFS’s interests have been appropriately protected. 13 The Motion to Compel is GRANTED [Dkt. #26] in part. NFS must produce the 14 unredacted portions of the Scouting Report that pertain to the players who were the subject of the 15 Rang’s articles on Sports Xchange. The request for attorney’s fees is DENIED. 16 IT IS SO ORDERED. 17 Dated this 22nd day of October, 2012. 19 A 20 Ronald B. Leighton United States District Judge 18 21 22 4 For example, the players’ actual social security numbers may be redacted. But the 23 Report should show that NFS compiled the social security numbers and that the numbers were subsequently redacted. NFS should not redact the player’s grade, height, weight, or other 24 similar, non-confidential information. [DKT. #26] - 6
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