Crowder et al v. LinkedIn Corporation

ORDER – No. 22-cv-00237-HSG
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United States District Court
Northern District of California
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
San Francisco Division
TODD CROWDER, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
LINKEDIN CORPORATION,
Defendant.
Case No. 22-cv-00237-HSG(LB)
DISCOVERY ORDER
Re: ECF No. 210
INTRODUCTION
In this putative class action, the plaintiffs — subscribers to LinkedIn’s premium services —
claim monopolization and attempted monopolization in an alleged social-networking market by
(1) offering potential rivals access to LinkedIn’s private user data through application-
programming interfaces (API) unavailable to others, on the condition that the rivals do not
compete with LinkedIn, and (2) integrating LinkedIn’s user data with parent company Microsoft’s
Azure cloud product, thereby “tying up and driving up prices for scarce hardware resources.”1
The parties have a discovery dispute about depositions. The plaintiffs seek leave under Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 30(a)(2)(A)(i) to take up to twenty-seven fact depositions of party
1 Order Den. Prelim. Approval – ECF No. 135 at 1–2 (summarizing complaint); Disc. Letter Br. – ECF
No. 210. Citations refer to the Electronic Case File (ECF); pinpoint citations are to the ECF-generated
page numbers at the tops of documents.
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ORDER – No. 22-cv-00237-HSG 	2
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witnesses, without prejudice to seeking more. LinkedIn asks the court to (1) hold the plaintiffs to
the presumptive ten depositions, (2) require them to serve their Rule 30(b)(6) notice now, and (3)
require them to coordinate with LinkedIn on overlapping Rule 30(b)(1) and 30(b)(6) witnesses.2
The court can decide the dispute without oral argument. Civil L.R. 7-1(b).
The court grants the plaintiffs’ motion in part: the plaintiffs may take up to fifteen depositions
of party witnesses, a number that includes one Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of LinkedIn, without
prejudice to a renewed, witness-specific showing of need for additional depositions. Within
fourteen days of this order, the plaintiffs must serve their Rule 30(b)(6) notice, and the parties
must then meet and confer to coordinate overlapping Rule 30(b)(1) and Rule 30(b)(6) witnesses to
ensure each witness is deposed only once, in both capacities. To the extent the parties have
separate disputes related to particular deponents, including apex witnesses, they are directed to
follow the discovery procedures provided in this court’s standing order.3
STATEMENT
The operative complaint challenges two categories of alleged anticompetitive conduct: (1)
LinkedIn’s conditioning access to its private APIs on certain partners’ agreement not to compete
with it, and (2) LinkedIn’s migration of its cloud-computing operations to Microsoft Azure.4
Document discovery to date has been extensive: LinkedIn has nineteen designated custodians,
including former CEO Ryan Roslansky and current CEO Daniel Shapero, and it has produced
thousands of custodial documents.5
The plaintiffs seek to depose twenty-seven party witnesses. Five are current or former senior
executives (Mr. Roslansky, Mr. Shapero, former CEO Jeff Weiner, co-founder Reid Hoffman, and
former Chief Product Officer Tomer Cohen), and the remaining twenty-two are current or former
2 Disc. Letter Br. – ECF No. 210 at 1.
3 Standing Order (attached).
4 Order Den. Prelim. Approval – ECF No. 135 at 1–2; Disc. Letter Br. – ECF No. 210 at 3.
5 Order – ECF No. 170 at 2, 5–6; Disc. Letter Br. – ECF No. 176 at 1, 5; Disc. Letter Br. – ECF No.
210 at 1–2. The district court referred discovery to the undersigned. Order – ECF No. 44.
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ORDER – No. 22-cv-00237-HSG 	3
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LinkedIn employees grouped by subject: four on market definition and competition, three on
monopoly power and the alleged Data, Machine Learning, and Inference Barrier to Entry
(DMIBE), ten on the private-API program (including two in-house lawyers who helped negotiate
API agreements), and five on Premium pricing.6 For each proposed deponent, the plaintiffs cite
produced documents that, they contend, show the witness’s personal involvement in the
challenged conduct (which spans ten years) or unique knowledge of market definition, monopoly
power, or pricing, all topics central to the plaintiffs’ claims.7
LinkedIn responds that the plaintiffs’ showing of particularized need largely rests on the
witnesses being designated custodians or appearing in the document production. It contends that
the plaintiffs misread many of the documents they cite and provides an appendix that, it asserts,
provides the fuller context for those produced materials. LinkedIn contends that several of the
plaintiffs’ proposed deponents (including an in-house lawyer and the engineer who leads
LinkedIn’s AI-inference platform) have nothing to do with the challenged conduct, and that other
witnesses are at least facially duplicative because they work on the same issues and teams.8
LinkedIn also seeks an order requiring the plaintiffs to serve their Rule 30(b)(6) notice now and to
work with LinkedIn to address overlapping Rule 30(b)(1) and Rule 30(b)(6) witnesses.9
Fact discovery closes on September 18, 2026.10 The plaintiffs have noticed Rule 30(b)(1)
depositions of LinkedIn witnesses, but the parties do not represent that depositions have begun.11
The parties met and conferred in writing throughout June 2026 and by video on June 18, 2026;
they are at an impasse.12
6 Disc. Letter Br. – ECF No. 210 at 1–3. The plaintiffs describe the Premium-pricing group as “six
individuals” but list five. Id. at 3.
7 Id. at 1–3.
8 Id. at 3–5; App. A – ECF No. 209-3.
9 Disc. Letter Br. – ECF No. 210 at 5.
10 Scheduling Order – ECF No. 143.
11 See Disc. Letter Br. – ECF No. 210 at 4 n.1 (stating that the plaintiffs have noticed depositions of
several current and former C-suite executives).
12 Id. at 1.
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LEGAL STANDARD
Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s
claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, considering the importance of the
issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant
information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and
whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Information
within this scope of discovery need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable. Fed. R. Civ.
P. 26(b). “Pretrial discovery is ordinarily accorded a broad and liberal treatment.” Peng v. Nw.
Mut. Life Ins. Co., No. 17-cv-01760-SI, 2017 WL 3007030, at *1 (N.D. Cal. July 14, 2017)
(cleaned up) (quoting Shoen v. Shoen, 5 F.3d 1289, 1292 (9th Cir. 1993)). “The test for relevance
is not overly exacting: evidence is relevant if it has ‘any tendency to make . . . more or less
probable . . . [a] fact [that] is of consequence in determining the action.’” In re Volkswagen
“Clean Diesel” Mktg., Sales Pracs., & Prods. Liab. Litig., MDL No. 2672 CRB (JSC), 2018 WL
340640, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 9, 2018) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 401).
The party moving to compel discovery “has the initial burden of establishing that the
information sought is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the
case.” Impinj, Inc. v. NXP USA, Inc., No. 19-cv-03161-YGR (AGT), 2022 WL 16586886, at *2
(N.D. Cal. Nov. 1, 2022) (cleaned up). The party resisting discovery has the burden of showing
that the discovery should not be allowed and of supporting its objections with competent evidence.
Lofton v. Verizon Wireless (VAW) LLC, 308 F.R.D. 276, 281 (N.D. Cal. 2015). Under Rule 26(b),
the court must limit discovery that is “unreasonably cumulative or duplicative,” obtainable from a
less burdensome source, or where the burden “outweighs its likely benefit.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
26(b)(1), (b)(2)(C).
Rule 30(a)(2) limits the number of depositions that each side may take (without leave or
stipulation) to ten. “A party seeking to exceed the presumptive number of depositions must make a
particularized showing of the need for the additional discovery.” Authentec, Inc. v. Atrua Techs.,
Inc., No. C 08-1423 PJH, 2008 WL 5120767, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 4, 2008). “To that end, courts
will generally not grant leave to expand the number of depositions until the moving party has
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exhausted the ten depositions permitted as of right under Rule 30(a)(2).” Id. “When evaluating a
party’s request to expand discovery limitations, the court must ensure that the discovery sought is
‘relevant to [the] party’s claim[s] or defense[s]’ and not unreasonably cumulative, duplicative, or
burdensome.” Newport v. Burger King Corp., No. C-10-04511-WHA (DMR), 2011 WL 3607973,
at *1 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 16, 2011) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)).
ANALYSIS
1. 	The Plaintiffs’ Request for Twenty-Seven Depositions
Ten depositions are too few for this case. The plaintiffs’ claims are “narrow” in the sense that
they target two categories of conduct, but that conduct spans more than a decade, hundreds of API
agreements, a major cloud migration, and pricing across multiple Premium product lines.13 The
document production to date reflects this scope, with thousands of custodial files produced.14 And
this court’s previous orders have acknowledged the breadth of the underlying conduct by ordering
additional custodians and search terms.15 While sometimes courts require a party to exhaust the
depositions it is permitted before seeking more, courts depart from this when there are multiple
parties and the case’s complexity warrants more depositions. See Del Campo v. Am. Corrective
Counseling Servs., Inc., No. C-01-21151 JW (PVT), 2007 WL 3306496, at *5–6 (N.D. Cal. Nov.
6, 2007). That is the case in this putative class action; it would be disproportional to hold the
plaintiffs to the presumptive ten depositions under Rule 30(a)(2)(A).
But twenty-seven depositions is too many, at least on this record. Much of the plaintiffs’
showing hinges on the requested witnesses being designated custodians or appearing on produced
documents.16 This falls short of the plaintiffs’ burden of making a particularized showing of need:
custodial status and document counts do not, by themselves, establish that a witness will offer
13 Id. at 1, 3.
14 Disc. Letter Br. – ECF No. 176 at 1, 5 n.3 (representing that as of June 8, 2026, LinkedIn has
produced thousands of custodial documents).
15 Order – ECF No. 170 at 2, 5–6; Order – ECF No. 202 at 2, 10–11.
16 Disc. Letter Br. – ECF No. 210 at 2–3.
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relevant and non-cumulative deposition testimony. See Newport, 2011 WL 3607973, at *1. The
plaintiffs’ argument — that “a bare minimum of 19 depositions” is needed to cover LinkedIn’s
nineteen custodians — is similarly misguided. It assumes that every custodian must be deposed,
without any showing of how deposing each custodian amounts to relevant, non-duplicative, and
proportional discovery. Custodians are chosen because their files are likely to contain responsive
documents, which is a reason to collect their files, not necessarily a reason to depose them. See In
re Actos Antitrust Litig., 639 F. Supp. 3d 453, 455 (S.D.N.Y. 2022) (permitting fifteen depositions
in a case with twenty-five custodians).
The plaintiffs’ request also suffers from a duplication problem, which is illustrated by their
grouping of witnesses by category: four witnesses for competition issues, three for the DMIBE
and Azure, five for pricing, and ten for LinkedIn’s API program.17 The plaintiffs have not
explained why they require more than one or two witnesses per category, and they ignore the
possibility that a Rule 30(b)(6) designee may supplement testimony on these categories.18 Cf.
Jones v. Sunbelt Rentals, Inc., No. 22-CV-05954-AMO-PHK, 2023 WL 10691302, at *4 (N.D.
Cal. Nov. 16, 2023). As the defendants point out, some of the witnesses within particular
categories are at least facially cumulative: the API witnesses include six members of LinkedIn’s
business-development team and two in-house lawyers who helped negotiate the agreements.19
Particularly where the plaintiffs have yet to take a single deposition, their request to depose
multiple individuals with overlapping knowledge, responsibilities, and teams risks duplicative and
disproportionate discovery. And for some of the twenty-seven witnesses, relevance is thin: the
plaintiffs do not explain, for example, how the engineering of LinkedIn’s AI-inference platform
(as opposed to the alleged use of data advantages to exclude rivals) bears on the challenged
conduct and justifies deposing the relevant engineer.20
17 Id. at 2–3.
18 Id. at 5 (making this point).
19 Id.
20 Id. at 3, 5.
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The plaintiffs point to produced documents for most identified witnesses that purportedly show
the relevance of the requested deponent’s testimony.21 The parties dispute what these documents
actually demonstrate.22 The court does not resolve those document-by-document disputes here, and
it draws no conclusions about the good faith of either party. It is enough that, on both sides’
submissions, the showing for a number of the proposed deponents rests primarily on their names
being on produced documents, rather than a particularized demonstration of unique knowledge.
A reasonable approach lies between the parties’ positions: leave to take up to fifteen
depositions of party witnesses, a number that includes one Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of LinkedIn
(which counts as one deposition regardless of the number of designees). The plaintiffs may choose
the deponents, subject to any protective-order rulings, which lets them prioritize the witnesses they
contend have unique knowledge. The leave is without prejudice: if, after substantially completing
the fifteen depositions, the plaintiffs can make a witness-specific showing that additional
depositions are necessary, non-duplicative, and proportional, they may raise the issue through the
court’s discovery-dispute process. This middle course is consistent with decisions managing
comparable cases. In re Actos, 639 F. Supp. 3d at 455.
2. 	The Plaintiffs’ Rule 30(b)(6) Notice and Coordination of Overlapping Witnesses
Rule 30(b)(6) protects an organization from “an unnecessarily large number of [its] officers
and agents being deposed” by allowing it to designate witnesses to testify to the corporation’s
knowledge. United States v. HVI Cat Canyon, Inc., No. CV 11-5097 FMO (SSX), 2016 WL
11683593, at *5 (C.D. Cal. Oct. 26, 2016) (cleaned up). Courts regularly require parties to
combine a witness’s Rule 30(b)(1) deposition with their Rule 30(b)(6) deposition during
discovery. In re Soc. Media Adolescent Addiction/Pers. Inj. Prods. Liab. Litig., No. 22-MD-
03047-YGR (PHK), 2025 WL 1009362, at *6 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 4, 2025) (collecting cases).
The plaintiffs say that they will take a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition but do not give a reason for
21 Id. at 1–3.
22 Id. at 2–5; see also App. A – ECF No. 209-3.
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withholding their topics, stating only that their Rule 30(b)(6) notice is “forthcoming.”23 Serving
the notice now will let the parties identify overlaps and sequence individual and corporate
testimony efficiently — part of the proportionality that Rule 26 requires. Within fourteen days of
this order, the plaintiffs must serve their Rule 30(b)(6) notice. The parties must then meet and
confer to coordinate overlapping witnesses. Each overlapping witness is to be deposed once, in
both capacities, with examination presumptively limited to one day of seven hours, Fed. R. Civ. P.
30(d)(1), absent a stipulation or further court order.
3. 	Disputes Regarding Individual Deponents
The court declines to adjudicate which of the plaintiffs’ noticed Rule 30(b)(1) depositions may
go forward. The parties’ discovery letter brief concerns the number of depositions the plaintiffs
may take. This order resolves that dispute and goes no further. LinkedIn has represented that it
will move separately for a protective order on apex grounds. The court will decide those issues, if
necessary, on that motion.24 The parties are directed to follow the discovery procedures provided
in this court’s standing for any disputes related to particular deponents.25
CONCLUSION
This resolves ECF No. 210.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: July 17, 2026
______________________________________
LAUREL BEELER
United States Magistrate Judge
23 Disc. Letter Br. – ECF No. 210 at 1, 5.
24 Id. at 4 n.1.
25 Standing Order (attached).
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