Morris v. Wells Fargo & Company et al

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United States District Court
Northern District of California
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
ANTHONY MORRIS,
Plaintiff,
v.
WELLS FARGO & COMPANY, et al.,
Defendants.
Case No. 23-cv-03277-HSG (TSH)
DISCOVERY ORDER
Re: Dkt. Nos. 124, 126
The Court held a hearing on December 1, 2025 concerning ECF Nos. 124 and 126 and
now issues the following order.
A. ECF No. 124
The dispute in ECF No. 124 concerns the individual loan files the Court ordered Wells to
produce in ECF No. 99, which the Court issued on June 13, 2025. The order directed Wells to
produce the individual loan files at issue and encouraged the parties to meet and confer to see if
sampling would be workable. Those meet and confer efforts were unsuccessful. Plaintiff
proposed that Wells produce a sample of 5,000 loan files – a tiny fraction of the 390,000 loan files
Wells claims are at issue. Wells proposed a sample of 25 loan files.
At the hearing Plaintiff said he would be satisfied with a sample of 1,000 loan files. Wells
contended that it has produced 35 loan files, though Plaintiff’s counsel was unable to confirm that
at the hearing. Wells contended that if it were ordered to produce 1,000 loan files, that would
likely take four to five months because loan files average about 1,000 pages each, so that would
amount to about a million pages of documents. In response to the Court’s question whether Wells
would be done by now had it started collecting 1,000 loan files back in June when the Court issued
its discovery order, Wells candidly said yes.
Case 4:23-cv-03277-HSG Document 135 Filed 12/01/25 Page 1 of 5

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United States District Court
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Given that fact discovery has closed, and the parties’ meet and confer efforts at sampling
were unsuccessful, the Court must now decide what to do. From the parties’ positions during
meet and confer, and as further made clear during the hearing, neither side thinks that producing
all of the loan files is necessary or even useful. Accordingly, to the extent that the order at ECF
No. 99 required that, the Court MODIFIES its order to remove that requirement. The Court
thinks that Plaintiff’s proposal that Wells should produce 1,000 loan files is appropriate. That
amounts to a sample of 0.256% of the 390,000 loan files at issue, and Wells acknowledged that it
was possible and feasible to make that production under the existing discovery deadlines. The
Court thinks that Wells’ proposal to do a sample of only 25 loan files was not a good faith attempt
to work out a sampling compromise. Producing such a small sample would not likely provide
insight into whether common factual issues predominate among the alleged class members, and
reasonable defense counsel should have known that. The Court does not know whether it will
actually take Wells four to five months to produce 1,000 loan files, as Wells claims. But even if
that estimate is correct, Wells had plenty of time to do it. Accordingly, the Court ORDERS Wells
to produce a random sample of 1,000 loan files.
B. ECF No. 126
Wells moves for a protective order concerning Plaintiff’s Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics
6, 7, 11 and 12. The Court grants the motion.
Here is topic 6:
Wells Fargo’s overall use of proceeds from customers or gains
therefrom for each year from the Start of the Class Period through the
present, including, but not limited to, the facts and circumstances
thereof, and:
(a) your annual rate of return on capital for each year;
(b) your rate of return on assets;
(c) your weighted average cost of capital;
(d) your net interest margin;
(e) the average yield on Your loan portfolio;
(f) the cumulative return You earned on a dollar invested at
the Start of the Class Period through the end of 2023;
Case 4:23-cv-03277-HSG Document 135 Filed 12/01/25 Page 2 of 5

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United States District Court
Northern District of California
(g) any analysis of the value, cost, or other financial metric of
the RLEF or UELF gains and proceeds;
(h) any other rate You contend is the appropriate measure of
Wells Fargo’s enrichment, revenues, income, or financial
gains from its possession of the RLEF and UELF funds it later
refunded; and
(i) the methodology and formulae used to calculate each of the
above.
Topic 7:
Wells Fargo’s use of proceeds from RLEFs, UELFs, or gains
therefrom, including, but not limited to, the facts and circumstances
thereof, and:
(a) sale of Mortgages, or assets including Mortgages, and any
proceeds;
(b) your annual rate of return on capital for each year;
(c) your rate of return on assets;
(d) your weighted average cost of capital;
(e) your net interest margin;
(f) the average yield on Your loan portfolio;
(g) the cumulative return You earned on a dollar invested at
the Start of the Class Period through the present;
(h) any analysis of assessing the value, cost, or other financial
metric of RLEF or UELF proceeds;
(i) any other rate You contend is the appropriate measure of
Wells Fargo’s enrichment, revenues, income, or financial
gains from its possession of the RLEF and UELF funds it later
refunded; and
(j) the methodology and formulae used to calculate each of the
above.
Topic 11:
Wells Fargo’s efforts to retain, preserve, destroy, or delete
correspondence, electronic records, and hard copy documents
concerning RLEFs and UELFs assessed between the Start of the Class
Period and February 28, 2017, or remediation efforts, including, but
not limited to, the facts and circumstances thereof, and:
(a) the date(s) on which Wells Fargo issued litigation hold(s)
concerning its RLEF and UELF practices and policies
between the Start of the Class Period and February 28, 2017;
Case 4:23-cv-03277-HSG Document 135 Filed 12/01/25 Page 3 of 5

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(b) the facts and circumstances that gave rise to a reasonable
anticipation of potential RLEF or UELF misconduct litigation
at the time Wells Fargo first issued such a hold and not earlier;
(c) who received each such hold and the facts and
circumstances regarding Wells Fargo’s choice to send the
litigation hold only to those individuals;
(d) the facts and circumstances regarding the expiration (if
any) of any such litigation hold(s); and
(e) the retention procedures that governed documents related
to CFPB or OCC investigations into or enforcement actions
concerning Wells Fargo, including the investigations into the
RLEFs and UELFs.
And topic 12:
Wells Fargo’s efforts to search for or locate correspondence,
electronic records, hard copy documents, or custodians concerning
this action.
The deposition notice defines the Start of the Class Period as “the earlier of January 1,
2003, or the earliest date on which a potential borrower initiated or submitted any Mortgage
application, inquiry, or request for which Wells Fargo subsequently issued a refund pursuant to
RLEF or UELF remediation efforts.”
Topics 6, 7 and 11 are unworkable as deposition topics. They might be fine as
interrogatories. However, they require a witness to memorize reams of detailed information
concerning lengthy periods of time, The Court recognizes that witnesses can take notes with them
to a deposition, but even with notes, the level of detail and length of time covered by these topics
makes it unlikely that any human being could be prepared to testify competently to the scope of
these topics.
Topic 12 does not suffer from that problem. Rather, it’s discovery about discovery, and
it’s not proportional to the needs of the case because there’s no particular reason for it. The Court
agrees with Plaintiff that detailed information about another party’s information systems and other
information resources can be relevant and proportional. But that’s not what topic 12 is about. It
doesn’t identify any information source or database and seek testimony about it to help Plaintiff’s
counsel understand how Wells stores and organizes certain types of information. Rather, topic 12
is a general inquiry into everything Wells did to find documents or custodians, and the Court does
not think that is proportional to the needs of the case.
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Accordingly, Wells’ motion for a protective order is GRANTED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: December 1, 2025
THOMAS S. HIXSON
United States Magistrate Judge
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