Data Breach Plaintiff Seeks Sanctions on T-Mobile for Flouting Court’s Discovery Order

Bradford Clements, who first sued T-Mobile in November 2022 for damages and injunctive relief from being victimized in eight data breaches in the three years he was a T-Mobile customer (see 2306060047), seeks monetary sanctions against T-Mobile for its failure to comply with the court’s Aug. 2 discovery order. The pro se plaintiff filed a memorandum of points and authorities Wednesday (docket 5:22-cv-07512) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose in support of his motion for sanctions.

T-Mobile has had at least four attorneys on Clements’ case since its inception, and the court’s order “clearly established” an Aug. 28 deadline for T-Mobile’s first written discovery responses, said the memorandum. But T-Mobile submitted 38 responses and newly produced records 50 days late, it said. It also has “inexplicably failed to verify all of its interrogatory answers,” it said.

During the 50-day overdue period, T-Mobile ignored Clements’ emails and failed to file anything with the court, said the memorandum. It also refused to agree to new deadlines, rejected Clements’ requests for “a date certain” for its late responses and refused to participate in a meet and confer, it said. Under several authorities, Clements asks that the court impose monetary sanctions against T-Mobile and its counsel, it said.

Clements has been forced to put “many thousands of dollars,” plus time and effort, toward “securing T-Mobile’s basic compliance” with the court’s Aug. 2 order and with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, said the memorandum. As further sanctions, he asks that the court enter an order deeming T-Mobile to have admitted the allegations of his May 22 first amended complaint and “precluding T-Mobile from presenting a defense,” it said. He also wants the court “to strike T-Mobile’s unverified interrogatory answers, and compel T-Mobile to submit updated, complete, accurate, and verified interrogatory answers,” it said.

As a result of T-Mobile’s violations of the court’s order, Clements requests additional time under Rule 56(f) “to fully conduct the discovery he needs in order to oppose T-Mobile’s motion to dismiss and compel arbitration,” said the memorandum.

T-Mobile “and its army of attorneys” ultimately “have made it abundantly clear that they think little” of Clements and his “modest consumer lawsuit,” said the memorandum. But they have no right “to imperiously flout” the court’s order and the plaintiff’s rights “as they have to date,” it said. “Sanctions are overdue.”

Rules 37(b)(2) and 37(d) authorize sanctions for T-Mobile’s “blatant failure" to comply with the court’s Aug. 2 order, said the memorandum. T-Mobile has “stomped all over” the court’s order and Clements’ rights “as it chooses, with impunity, to do whatever it pleases, whenever it pleases,” it said.