Case Name: CACH, LLC v. Calderon, et al.

Case No.: 1-11-CV-214643

Plaintiff moves for a protective order to prevent disclosure in discovery of its “Flow Purchase Agreement” on the grounds that it is a trade secret and a less intrusive means exists to address Defendant’s legitimate discovery concerns. Pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 2017.020: “[t]he court shall limit the scope of discovery if it determines that the burden, expense of intrusiveness of that discovery clearly outweighs the likelihood that the information sought will lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.”

As an initial matter, the Court notes that while the moving papers refer to Request No. 1 seeking the “Purchase Agreement between Original Creditor and CACH, LLC/ ‘Flow Agreement for Purchase and Sale of Charged-Off Accounts’” (Plaintiff’s Notice of Motion and Motion at 2:13 and Privilege Log at 1:22-27), Defendant’s opposition refers to Request No. 4 seeking a “Loan Sale Agreement” (Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Opposition, at 1:24-25). Therefore, Defendant’s arguments as to the relevance and public nature of the Loan Sale Agreement are not persuasive. Moreover, whichever document it is addressing, Defendant’s relevance argument states only that Plaintiff must show that it owns the account but fails to explain how a particular document in question relates to this issue. (Id., at 1-2.) In any event, Defendant has provided no evidence at all on this relevance issue.

Preliminarily, Defendant argues that Plaintiff did not promptly move for a protective order and did not include a meet and confer declaration. Neither argument has merit.

Plaintiff presents evidence that the bid information on the Flow Purchase Agreement is treated as a secret and has economic value by virtue of not being generally known. Defendant has provided no evidence or argument as to why the intrusiveness of Request No.1 is justified by any likelihood of discovery of admissible evidence.

The motion is granted: the Flow Purchase Agreement need not be produced, as the intrusiveness of discovery clearly outweighs the likelihood that the information sought will lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Defendant’s request for fees is denied.