Judge Orders Further DirecTV/FTC Work on Narrowing Discovery

While DirecTV's scaled-down request for complaints from the FTC Consumer Sentinel system is more proportional to the needs of the case, the agency might need to produce random samples of complaints from companies now no longer part of DirecTV's request, said U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James of San Francisco in an order (in Pacer) Thursday. The judge said the agency and the direct broadcast satellite company must confer to determine which companies' complaints the FTC will produce and an appropriate sample size for each company. DirecTV and the FTC have been fighting over consumer complaint documentation (see 1603090012 and 1603040021) as part of the commission's 2015 lawsuit against DirecTV for allegedly not properly communicating early cancelation fee terms to subscribers (see 1503110042). DirecTV had sought Consumer Sentinel data on 10 multichannel video programming distributors, with the court directing the parties to agree on a more limited production. In her order, James said DirecTV now is seeking all 231,802 complaints for Charter Communications, Comcast and Dish Network, while the FTC was proposing samples for three companies of DirecTV's choosing, and that the FTC sampling proposal "more closely comports with [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26] demand for proportionality."