Taylor et al v. Google LLC

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United States
 District Court
Northern District of California
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
SAN JOSE DIVISION
JOSEPH TAYLOR, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
GOOGLE LLC,
Defendant.
Case No. 20-cv-07956-VKD
ORDER (1) DENYING PLAINTIFFS'
MOTION TO STAY AND (2) DENYING
PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION TO SEAL
Re: Dkt. Nos. 234, 235
Plaintiffs move for an order staying the present action pending the completion of state
court appellate proceedings in Csupo v. Google LLC, No. 19CV352557 (“Csupo”). Google LLC
(“Google”) opposes the motion. Upon consideration of the moving and responding papers,1 the
Court denies plaintiffs’ motion for a stay.2
1 At the parties’ request, the motion hearing originally set for October 7, 2025 was continued to
November 12, 2025 while the parties discussed a potential settlement. After receipt of the parties’
November 10, 2025 status report, the Court vacated the hearing. See Dkt. Nos. 241-248. The
parties’ November 17, 2025 report stated that the parties would file a further report on November
21, 2025. Dkt. No. 249. The parties’ November 21, 2025 report states that a further status report
will be filed by November 26, 2025. Dkt. No. 250. The Court appreciates the parties’ continued
efforts to resolve this matter and will consider their next status report. However, at this time, the
Court is not persuaded that its ruling on plaintiffs’ pending motion to stay these proceedings
should be deferred any further.
2 Plaintiffs moved to seal Exhibit Nos. 5, 6 and 9 to the Declaration of Chad E. Bell. Dkt. No.
235. The documents in question are two orders of the Superior Court and a brief filed by the
plaintiffs in the Csupo matter. Plaintiffs’ sealing motion is based on the ground that Google
designated the documents (or portions of them) as “Confidential” or “Highly Confidential” under
the parties’ stipulated protective order (Dkt. No. 107). Google has not filed a response, as required
by Civil Local Rule 79-5(f), stating the reasons for sealing the documents in question.
Accordingly, plaintiffs’ motion to seal is denied. Exhibit Nos. 5, 6, and 9 to Mr. Bell’s declaration
are hereby unsealed. By December 2, 2025, plaintiffs shall file those exhibits on the ECF public
docket.
Case 5:20-cv-07956-VKD Document 251 Filed 11/24/25 Page 1 of 5

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United States District Court
Northern District of California
The parties principally dispute the legal standard that applies to plaintiffs’ motion to stay.
Plaintiffs argue that the Court properly may determine whether a stay is warranted, under its
inherent authority to control its docket, as recognized in Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248
(1936). Google argues that the Court must apply the more restrictive standard under Colorado
River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800 (1976).
In Ernest Bock, LLC v. Steelman, 76 F.4th 827 (9th Cir. 2023), cert. denied — U.S. —,
144 S. Ct. 554 (2024), the Ninth Circuit expressly considered whether Landis or Colorado River
provides the proper standard for determining whether a stay is warranted in cases involving
parallel federal and state actions. Observing that “[g]enerally, as between state and federal courts,
the rule is that the pendency of an action in the state court is no bar to proceedings concerning the
same matter in the Federal court having jurisdiction,” id. at 835 (quotations and citation omitted),
the Ninth Circuit held that “the Colorado River factors control whether a stay can issue in favor of
parallel state proceedings,” id. at 843. In so holding, the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed the principle
that “‘[a] district court may, in its discretion, stay or dismiss a federal case in favor of related state
proceedings’ in only two circumstances: ‘(1) when an action seeks only declaratory relief, or
(2) when exceptional circumstances exist [under Colorado River].’” Id. at 842 (quoting Scotts Co.
LLC v. Seeds, Inc., 688 F.3d 1154, 1158 (9th Cir. 2012)). The Ninth Circuit further noted that
“expand[ing] the scope of permissible stays beyond these contexts would ‘undermin[e] the
Colorado River doctrine.’” Id.
In the present action, plaintiffs ask the Court to stay this federal litigation in favor of a
parallel state court action that involves the same claims, legal issues, and evidence. See Dkt. No.
234 at 3, 8. The present action is not one in which plaintiffs seek only declaratory relief. See Dkt.
No. 60 at ECF 31. Accordingly, under Ernest Bock, a stay of this litigation is appropriate only if
exceptional circumstances exist under Colorado River. Although plaintiffs urge the Court to
follow post-Ernest Bock decisions in which courts have applied Landis in assessing the propriety
of a stay, plaintiffs’ cited cases are inapposite or not persuasive, as they concern litigation
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involving concurrent federal proceedings,3 cases in which the plaintiffs sought only declaratory
relief,4 or matters in which pending state and federal appeals in other proceedings that potentially
could impact the litigation were already fully briefed.5
Nevertheless, plaintiffs maintain that Colorado River does not apply, arguing that the
present action and Csupo are not parallel proceedings. They contend that “a suit is only truly
‘parallel’ when it involves the same parties litigating the same claims in another forum.” See Dkt.
No. 240 at ECF 12. While Google is the defendant in both actions, plaintiffs note that there is no
overlap between the Csupo class of California residents and the Taylor putative class of non-
California residents. See id. However, “exact parallelism . . . is not required.” Ernest Bock, 76
F.4th at 841 n.20 (quoting Nakash v. Marciano, 882 F.2d 1411, 1416 (9th Cir. 1989)). “The issues
and parties in parallel state proceedings need not be identical so long as they are ‘substantially
similar.’” Id.; see also Rajabian v. Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC, 154 F.4th 1145, 1153 (9th Cir.
2025) (same).
Plaintiffs’ arguments are inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s direction that the Colorado
River factors are “to be applied in a pragmatic, flexible manner with a view to the realities of the
case at hand.” Moses H. Cone Mem’l Hosp. v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 21 (1983).
The plaintiffs in the present action and the plaintiffs in Csupo are members of nearly identically
defined classes. See Dkt. No. 60 ¶¶ 84, 85; Dkt. No. 234-2 ¶¶ 49, 50. The sole difference between
the two classes is the geographic location of the putative class members’ residences (see Dkt. No.
240 at ECF 12), which is immaterial to any issue in this case. See Cottrell v. Duke, 737 F.3d
1238, 1242 (8th Cir. 2013) (Colorado River applied in case involving different sets of plaintiffs,
where “Wal-Mart is the true plaintiff in interest in both proceedings.”); see also Rajabian, 154
3 See In re PG&E Secs. Litig., 100 F.4th 1076 (9th Cir. 2024).
4 See Travelers Prop. Cas. Co. of Am. v. Lineage Logistics, LLC, No. 2:24-cv-00835-MEMF, 2024
WL 5220880 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 23, 2024); Ohio Cas. Ins. Co. v. California-Pacific Annual
Conference of the United Methodist Church, No. 2:23-cv-02850-SB-MAR, 2023 WL 9004987
(C.D. Cal. Nov. 17, 2023).
5 See Blain v. Liberty Mut. Fire Ins. Co., No. 22-cv-00970-AJB-MMP, 2025 WL 886966 (S.D.
Cal. Mar. 21, 2025).
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F.4th at 1149, 1152-53 (Colorado River stay permissible in case where parties were overlapping,
but not identical). Plaintiffs’ cited cases do not compel a contrary conclusion. See Ambrosia Coal
and Constr. Co. v. Pages Morales, 368 F.3d 1320, 1329-30 (11th Cir. 2004) (rejecting argument
that Colorado River applies only when parties, issues, and requested relief are “identical,” as
contrary to “the Supreme Court’s clear efforts to fashion a flexible and holistic test for applying
the Colorado River abstention principle.”); Nakash, 882 F.2d at 1416-17 (cases “substantially
similar” where actions concerned same relevant conduct and involved same parties, albeit in
different litigating positions). Cf. Nat’l Pub. Radio, Inc. v. U.S. Central Command, 570 F. Supp.
3d 866, 870 (S.D. Cal. 2021) (parties not substantially similar in view of different FOIA
components for Department of Defense, where “FOIA’s language makes clear that the distinction
between the receiving components is important.”).
In any event, plaintiffs’ arguments regarding the parallelism requirement concerns the
propriety of a Colorado River stay, and not whether Colorado River or Landis applies in the first
instance. See Ernest Bock, 76 F.4th at 838 (“Parallelism is a threshold requirement for a Colorado
River stay.”). Having determined that Colorado River provides the proper standard for analysis,
the Court denies plaintiffs’ motion for a stay. Plaintiffs have not argued the proper standard for a
stay, much less established that a Colorado River stay is warranted.
Even if plaintiffs were correct that the Court could consider a docket-management stay
under the Landis standard here, plaintiff have not shown that a stay is appropriate under Landis.
In deciding whether to stay a case pursuant to their inherent docket-management authority, courts
weigh three non-exclusive factors: “(1) the possible damage which may result from the granting
of a stay; (2) the hardship or inequity which a party may suffer in being required to go forward;
and (3) the orderly course of justice measured in terms of the simplifying or complicating of
issues, proof, and questions of law.” Ernest Bock, 76 F.4th at 842 (cleaned up; citation omitted).
The Court agrees that there is some prejudice to Google in prolonging the resolution of the present
action. See Dkt. No. 238 at 20-22. Having chosen to pursue this litigation in this Court on behalf
of a putative class of non-California Android users in parallel with their state court litigation in
Csupo, plaintiffs have not demonstrated that they will suffer hardship or inequity if this action
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proceeds accordingly. While plaintiffs maintain that a stay will avoid duplicate litigation, the
Court is not persuaded that a stay would accomplish that result. For example, plaintiffs have not
adequately explained how or why this Court would be bound by a state court’s evidentiary or class
certification rulings. Further, with respect to the legal issue of whether plaintiffs have a viable
claim for conversion under state law, the Ninth Circuit has already resolved at least some aspects
of that legal question. See Taylor v. Google, LLC, No. 22-16654, 2024 WL 837044 (9th Cir. Feb.
28, 2024). Finally, as plaintiffs observe, the parties have already coordinated discovery between
this action and the Csupo action, and as Google notes, motions regarding class certification and
Daubert challenges have already been briefed and argued. See Dkt. No. 234 at 4; Dkt. No. 238 at
23-24. Thus, as much of the parties’ work has already been done, it is not clear that staying the
present action now will simplify the proceedings that remain.
On balance, plaintiffs have not shown that a stay of this litigation in favor of the state court
action would be warranted even if the Court applied the Landis factors.
Based on the foregoing, the Court denies. plaintiffs’ motion to stay this litigation pending
the completion of state court proceeding in Csupo.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: November 24, 2025
Virginia K. DeMarchi
United States Magistrate Judge
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