Motion to Compel Production of Contact Data 'Improper,' Say Defendants

A March 17 request for the court to compel production of purchaser emails and mailing addresses is “improper,” said motion defendants Tegna, Gray Media and Meredith, in a Monday opposition response (docket 1:18-cv-6785) to plaintiffs' discovery motion for certain documents in a TV advertising antitrust case in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. Plaintiffs Thoughtworks, One Source Heating & Cooling, Hunt Adkins and Fish Furniture’s request for contact information is “premature” when there is no settlement or certified class, is “irrelevant to the substance of their claims,” and is “disproportionate to the needs of this case,” said the response. Plaintiffs should have made their request when negotiating defendants’ data productions, and they should have filed their motion by the Sept. 1 court-mandated deadline, the response said. Plaintiffs’ motion fails to explain how purchaser emails and mailing addresses will allow them to evaluate the putative class’ viability in light of “ample data” already in their possession, it said. Plaintiffs’ motion is “untimely” and a “separate ground for denial,” said motion defendants, noting the parties negotiated the scope of the motion defendants’ production of purchaser transactional data over a period of months in compliance with the Stipulation and Order Regarding the Production of Electronically Stored Information. At no point during negotiations did plaintiffs request the contact information they now demand, it said. Their deadline to move to compel expired Sept. 1, and they didn’t seek an extension when it was clear the parties were at an impasse, it said. As purchasers of broadcast television spot advertising, plaintiffs allege defendants engaged in “price fixing” beginning in 2014, facilitated by an “anticompetitive information exchange between and among certain major television station owners and operators to artificially inflate” the prices of spot ads in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.