Summary
The court granted in part Apothio, LLC’s motion to compel discovery from Kern County, the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, and individual defendants. The order requires defendants to produce Rule 30(b)(6) witnesses and responsive documents, while sustaining certain objections concerning temporal scope, proportionality, and particularity. The underlying action involves alleged unconstitutional destruction of hemp crops following the execution of search warrants.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether County of Kern and the Kern County Sheriff's Office could refuse to appear for noticed Rule 30(b)(6) depositions without first seeking a protective order.
- Whether the noticed Rule 30(b)(6) topics were relevant, sufficiently particular, and proportional to the needs of the case.
- Whether defendants were required to produce documents responsive to Plaintiff's requests for production and to amend responses identifying withheld materials and the grounds for withholding them.
- Whether defendants asserting attorney-client or work-product protection were required to provide privilege-log information sufficient to permit evaluation of the claims.
Holdings
- A party that seeks to prevent a noticed deposition must seek appropriate protective relief and demonstrate good cause; defendants were not entitled to refuse to appear unilaterally.
- Because the County of Kern remained a defendant on the surviving state-law and Monell-related claims, it was required to respond to discovery relevant and proportional to those claims, including Rule 30(b)(6) testimony.
- Discovery requests must concern nonprivileged information relevant to a claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case; the court sustained objections where requests were temporally unbounded, insufficiently particular, or disproportionate, while compelling production for requests meeting those standards.
- Defendants were required to serve amended discovery responses stating whether responsive materials were being withheld and why, and to provide privilege logs or equivalent information when asserting attorney-client or work-product protection.
Key quotations
“Defendants have engaged in sanctionable conduct by refusing to appear for deposition without moving the Court for a protective order, as required, thereby shifting the burden to Plaintiff to seek relief.” (at 8)
“In short, Defendants were obligated to either appear for deposition or seek a protective order. They did neither. Moreover, their reasons for refusing to appear for deposition are baseless.” (at 15)
“The testimony sought is neither irrelevant nor speculative as it is reasonable to expect that such testimony may bear on both elements of the Monell claim” (at 24)
“Rule 26 requires a party that withholds from production on grounds of privilege any otherwise discoverable material to expressly make the privilege claim and provide the requesting party certain information sufficient to permit it to assess the claim.” (at 68)
Factual background
Apothio operated approximately 500 acres of hemp research fields in Kern County and planted approximately 17 million industrial hemp seeds in March 2019. After law-enforcement officers obtained and executed search warrants in October 2019, defendants allegedly seized and destroyed approximately 500 acres of Plaintiff's crops. In the underlying action, Plaintiff alleges that the warrants were obtained through material misrepresentations and omissions and that the crop destruction violated the Fourth Amendment and related state-law protections. Plaintiff sought depositions and documents concerning the warrants, crop seizure and destruction, municipal involvement, communications, and defendants' discovery efforts.
Procedural history
After the original complaint and motions to dismiss, Plaintiff filed a first amended complaint on May 25, 2022. The action proceeded on an excessive-destruction claim under the Fourth Amendment and related Bane Act and state-law claims. Plaintiff filed the motion to compel on August 14, 2025, after defendants declined to resolve the disputes through informal discovery procedures and refused to appear for noticed depositions or produce responsive documents.