Nerves Growing Increasingly Frayed in Plaintiff’s False-Ad Dispute vs. Belkin

Tensions appear close to boiling over in plaintiff Dennis Gromov’s false advertising case against defendant Belkin International if Thursday’s joint status report (docket 1:22-cv-06918) is any indication. Gromov’s class action alleges that Belkin advertised power banks for mobile devices in a deceptive manner, and that the chargers don’t deliver nearly the amount of power promised in those ads (see 2301300008). U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama granted Gromov’s motion Feb. 28 to compel Belkin’s discovery responses, but Belkin now says it needs 45 days more, until April 30, to respond to the order, said Gromov’s position statement in the status report. Belkin insists it needs the extra time “to locate and produce information that Belkin should have been maintaining on a litigation hold for years,” said Gromov's position statement. Belkin says it has discussed with Gromov the information that will be presented in rolling tranches, but that’s “not the case,” it said. Belkin’s rolling productions in the past “have come in one single dump in the nighttime hours of the last possible day,” it said. Absent any actual detail, Belkin’s time frame for compliance “should be shortened considerably because these discovery requests are coming up on their first anniversary,” it said. The court should ensure that Gromov “has at least a few weeks to review all of the discovery and take the depositions of at least the three Belkin witnesses Gromov has been seeking,” plus those of any new persons who may appear in the documents or interrogatories, it said. Belkin’s position statement said the company is “dismayed” that Gromov’s counsel “has used this status report as an opportunity to make unsupported incendiary accusations that neither reflect the true status of discovery, nor help to advance that process.” Belkin initially presented Gromov’s counsel with a “simple and straightforward” report that would inform the court of the current status of discovery and proposed a schedule for necessary modifications to the scheduling order, as the parties were ordered to do, it said. Belkin “would have much rather filed that type of document,” noting any objections as to the proposed schedule for the court to resolve, it said. But amid “the many misrepresentations made” by Gromov’s counsel in its portions of the joint report, Belkin “is compelled to briefly respond,” it said. Contrary to those misrepresentations, Belkin “has been diligently working to collect and produce the responsive information required” by the court’s Feb. 28 order, it said. That order significantly expanded the scope of the “representative sample” at issue from a proposed 36 devices to 113, it said. In light of that tripling of the scope of the representative sampling discovery, Belkin “intends to make a rolling production of documents and expects to be able to complete its production, and to supplement any interrogatory responses as appropriate, within 45 days,” it said. To the extent that sufficient physical copies of power bank devices within the representative sample can be located in response to Gromov’s first request for production, Belkin “will make such physical devices available for inspection and non-destructive testing, subject to the parties’ agreement on an appropriate protocol,” it said. “Unsatisfied with that proposal” for reasons that aren’t clear, Gromov’s counsel demands that Belkin “complete its production of documents to multiple requests for production as to 113 products and communications about those products and supplement multiple interrogatory responses about those products within the next two weeks,” it said: “This demand is not reasonable.”