SAN DIEGO – Youngevity International's motion to reopen discovery in a case was granted in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California on April 10.
The defendant sought to re-open discovery in the case so the plaintiff’s cellphone carrier, Verizon Wireless, could be served a subpoena.
Plaintiff William Andreoli was first served request documents from Youngevity in March 2018. The requests for production wanted “communications, including text messages, between plaintiff and 18 'key Wakaya individuals' between Jan. 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016,” according to order written by Magistrate Judge Jill Burkhardt.
Andreoli objected and did not produce the documents. In December, the court granted a motion to compel requiring that Andreoli produce the information.
In February, the plaintiff produced more than 2,000 text messages. He claimed it contained all the information in his possession. Youngevity found the texts "suspicious" because “it appeared to include text messages sourced from cellphones other than plaintiff’s," the ruling states.
“Additionally, defendants could not identify any one-on-one text messages in the production between Plaintiff and eight of the eighteen key Wakaya individuals identified in the requests for production," the order states.
Youngevity again asked for the proper information. When it did not receive the information, it filed the motion to reopen discovery. This time, it asked to subpoena Verizon directly to obtain the communications.
The defendants argued that they should be able to subpoena Verizon because they have asked Andreoli to provide his communications, including text messages, multiple times and he had not cooperated. Specifically, he allegedly did not provide any one-on-one text conversations between himself and the eight “key witnesses": Andre Vaughn, Dave Pitcock, Barb Pitcock, Todd Smith, Mike Randolph, Mike Kolinski, Jimmy Hyun, and Maxandra Desrosiers, only group messages.
Also, Youngevity argued that not all of the screenshots that were provided were actually from Andreoli’s cellphone, but sourced from different device. The court agreed and granted the request.
Youngevity has until Thursday, April 25 to subpoena Verizon Wireless.