Cress v. Nexo Financial LLC et al

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United States District Court
Northern District of
 California
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
JOHN CRESS,
Plaintiff,
v.
NEXO CAPITAL INC.,
Defendant.
Case No. 23-cv-00882-TSH
DISCOVERY ORDER
Re: Dkt. No. 110
On July 25, 2024, Defendant Nexo Capital Inc. served its first set of interrogatories. Rog 1
asked: “For each Claim You assert in Your First Amended Complaint, describe in detail all of
Your claimed damages for each Claim and the factual support for any of Your damages
calculations.” Rog 3 asked: “With respect to the Nexo advertisements and/or promotional
materials referenced in Your First Amended Complaint, describe each Nexo material You saw,
when You saw it, where You saw it, and the source of the material (i.e. print, e-mail, etc.).” At the
time, the operative complaint was the First Amended Complaint, filed on November 10, 2023.
ECF No. 29.
The Court subsequently granted Plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend, and on October 30,
2025, Plaintiff filed his Second Amended Complaint. ECF Nos. 86, 88. Defendant now argues
that under Rule 26(e), Plaintiff is required to supplement his responses to rogs 1 and 3 given the
new allegations in the SAC. Plaintiff disagrees, asserting that rogs 1 and 3 were specific to the
FAC and did not ask, for example, about “the operative complaint” or some other floating
reference to whatever is the most recent version of the complaint.
The Court thinks Defendant has the better of the argument. Discovery requests should be
read fully and fairly to get at the subject being asked about, and should not be parsed in a
Case 3:23-cv-00882-TSH Document 111 Filed 04/07/26 Page 1 of 2

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United States District Court
Northern District of California
hypertechnical manner to defeat the thrust of the request. Rogs 1 and 3 asked about “Your First
Amended Complaint” because that was the version of the complaint that was on file at the time,
not because Defendant was uninterested in the requested information should there later be a
further amendment to the complaint. The Court reads “Your First Amended Complaint” as a
floating reference to the operative complaint because that is the only thing Defendant could
possibly have meant, even if it did not say that in exactly the right way. There are certainly times
in litigation where precise words matter, but this discovery dispute is not one of them because the
Court knows what the Defendant meant.
Accordingly, Defendant’s motion to compel Plaintiff to supplement his responses to rogs 1
and 3 is GRANTED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: April 7, 2026
THOMAS S. HIXSON
United States Magistrate Judge
Case 3:23-cv-00882-TSH Document 111 Filed 04/07/26 Page 2 of 2