Preview
Filed 13 November 20 P 4:14
Chris Daniel - District Clerk
Harris Coun’
i
ED101) 017829414
By: adiliani a. solis
Cause No. 2012-75663
PATRICK O. DEVANEY, II and IN THE DISTRICT OF
TRIDENT VENTURES, INC.
Plaintiffs,
Vv. HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS
QUANTA SERVICES, INC.; QUANTA
GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS, INC.;
QUANTA GOVERNMENT SERVICES,
INC.; QUANTA INTERNATIONAL 333" JUDICIAL DISTRICT
LIMITED; and JOHN R. COLSON
Defendants.
Defendants’ Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel Documents
The Court should deny Plaintiffs’ motion to compel production of documents for two
reasons:
1 Plaintiffs filed this motion without meeting and conferring on the specific requests in the
motion. Plaintiffs’ counsel instead handed the motion to counsel for Defendants and said
it had already been filed. After receiving the motion, Quanta initiated an in-person
meeting to discuss the issues raised in the motion, and the parties now appear to be in
agreement on several of the issues raised by plaintiffs.
The remaining issues, including the request for every single email (about 60,000 of them)
that a Quanta Government Services Vice President has ever sent to or received from any
other Quanta employee regardless of the subject matter over a 10+ year period, involve
plainly overbroad and unduly burdensome requests that lack any relevance to the issues
in this case.
Quanta’s Efforts to Identify and Produce Relevant Documents
For a period of approximately eight years from 2004-2012, Plaintiff Patrick Devaney
served as an outside consultant to Quanta through his company, Plaintiff Trident Ventures, Inc.
During that time, Plaintiffs submitted millions of dollars in monthly invoices and expense reports
to Quanta for consulting services, which Quanta timely paid. In December 2012, several months
after Quanta terminated the consulting relationship, Devaney filed suit, claiming he was given
2951139v1/013540
oral promises to receive, among other things, additional unspecified compensation and an
unspecified partnership or joint venture or carried interest in a Quanta spin-off company that was
never created.
Plaintiffs served their first requests for production on January 31, 2013. On February 15,
Defendants responded with a letter addressing numerous issues with Plaintiffs’ requests and
offering to meet to discuss reasonable searches for identifying responsive documents. Since
then, Defendants have produced more than 62,000 pages of documents, including every email
Devaney sent to or received from his Quanta account and every email that mentions Devaney or
Trident from the email account of each Quanta custodian identified in both Plaintiffs’ and
Defendants’ disclosure responses. These initial document searches required significant time and
expense, all of which Defendants bore, and resulted in the production of more than 55,000 pages
of documents. Defendants further produced all documents from their hard copy personnel files
relating to Devaney, and have searched for and produced hard copy files from Quanta
Government Service’s Vice President Ginger James (identified by the parties in their disclosures)
related to Quanta projects that Plaintiffs identified in their Petition — and Defendants have agreed
to produce other project files as they are located. In addition, Defendants have produced other
categories of documents as requested by Plaintiffs.
In response to Defendants’ efforts to search the files of every custodian identified in the
parties’ disclosures for documents related to Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs requested that Quanta search
the email files of 43 additional custodians for more than 150 search terms (including common
terms such as “Chad” and “Agency”). Defendants objected to Plaintiffs’ proposed search terms
as overbroad, unduly burdensome, and not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of
admissible evidence, but offered to perform the searches if Plaintiffs paid Defendants’ document
2951139v1/013540
collection and review costs. Defendants provided an estimate from a third-party vendor of the
costs to process the data, but Plaintiffs have not responded to Defendants’ offer.
Instead, Plaintiffs have served more than one hundred new requests for production,
including some of the ones raised in Plaintiffs’ motion.
Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel Should be Denied
Plaintiffs filed this motion to compel without conferring with Defendants about the
specific requests at issue in their motion, which include a handful of requests from the more than
178 they have served. Had they conferred with Defendants prior to filing the motion,
Defendants have requested from the outset of the case, Plaintiffs could have avoided much of the
dispute they now raise. Indeed, because Defendants (not Plaintiffs) initiated the meet and confer
process in connection with Plaintiffs’ already-filed motion compel, the parties appear to have
been able to resolve many of the issues in this motion, several of which Plaintiffs had not
previously raised with Defendants prior to filing the motion.
The remaining requests at issue are overbroad, unduly burdensome, and not reasonably
calculated to the discovery of admissible evidence. Defendants address below each category of
documents raised by Plaintiffs.
1 Board Minutes and Document Retention Policies
These categories of documents are non-issues. Before receiving Plaintiffs’ motion to
compel, Defendants had already begun searching board minutes for responsive documents that
mention Devaney and Trident. Defendants will produce those documents.
Defendants also have agreed to produce documents, if any, sufficient to show their
document retention policies for the last ten years. Defendants are confirming that no such
2951139v1/013540
documents exist that are responsive to Plaintiffs’ request and will update its response once it has
completed its reasonable search.
2. The Point Loma Project
Plaintiffs’ request for “all relevant documents pertaining to or referencing” the upgrade of
the Navy Fuel Supply System at Point Loma (the “Point Loma project”) is overbroad, unduly
burdensome, and not reasonably calculated to the lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.
The Point Loma project is a significant government contract secured by Quanta that Devaney
admitted at his deposition that he did not help secure or even work on. Devaney Depo at 134:22-
24 (“they kept me out of that. So hey, they didn’t need my help to get the contract . . .); 136;12-
14 (“I did not work on Point Loma.”).
Devaney was aware of this high-profile project — a joint effort between a Quanta affiliate
called Underground Construction and a third-party contractor called Nova to provide contracting
work for the Navy at Point Loma — for years prior to filing suit,’ but never raised the issue of his
alleged exclusion from the project or his supposed right to participate in any carried interest or
profit sharing agreement from the project until filing this lawsuit.
Plaintiffs’ request for all documents pertaining to or referencing the project includes
potentially tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of documents covering an 8-year period that have
nothing to do with Plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs have no basis for the requested discovery. Defendants already have produced:
(1) the joint venture agreement between Underground Construction and Nova (Quanta0058760);
(2) all documents from the hard copy files about the project maintained by Quanta Government
Service’s Vice President Ginger James (a person identified in the parties’ initial disclosures); and
! Plaintiffs’ theory is apparently that Quanta hid this project from Devaney in plain sight. The project took place
eight miles from Plaintiffs’ home and had its own website to keep members of the local community (including
Plaintiffs) informed of its progress. http://www.pointlomafuel.com/.
2951139v1/013540
(3) a 2009 internal review of Quanta’s performance of the project (Quanta00612727). Quanta
has further agreed to search for and produce the contract itself.
While Plaintiffs have now apparently narrowed their request to “all internal and external
pre-deal communications regarding this $180 million project,” that request is still overly broad
and unduly burdensome because the bidding process was years-long, generated potentially
thousands of documents, and Plaintiffs were not at all involved in that process.
Plaintiffs want Defendants to cast a wide net to search for documents that “spoke of
excluding Plaintiffs from this project,” but Quanta has already produced every email that speaks
of Devaney or Trident from the account of Chris Ronco (President of Underground
Construction), John Colson (Quanta’s former CEO), Jim O’Neil (Quanta’s current CEO), and
Ginger James (Quanta Government’s Vice President) — the individuals who Plaintiffs allege
conspired to exclude them from the project.
Moreover, Defendants have offered to conduct Plaintiffs’ overbroad searches to identify
any additional documents if Plaintiffs pay for Quanta’s search and review costs, but they have
declined to do so.
There is no basis for additional, speculative discovery on this topic, including all internal
and external pre-bid communications — that is particularly true when Plaintiffs are unwilling to
front these search costs.
3. The Kuwait MEW Proposed Project
Plaintiffs’ request for all documents related to the Kuwait MEW project also should be
denied. Plaintiffs’ legal theory in connection with this proposed project is that Defendants
jettisoned a potential deal in Kuwait that Devaney estimated would result in $500 million dollars
in profit to Quanta and its local agent, and did so in order to avoid paying Plaintiffs an
2951139v1/013540
unspecified carried interest or share of a Quanta entity that was never created. Because Devaney
was intimately involved in all aspects of this project as project leader and Damir Novosel (one of
the custodians Quanta identified) led the Quanta technical team assisting Devaney, Quanta’s
email searches have resulted in a substantial production of documents related to the proposed
project. Defendants have produced, for example, its detailed assessment of power infrastructure
in Kuwait (Quanta0049159), in-depth technical progress reports (Quanta0049228), and risk
assessment and financial estimates for the project (Quanta0051490), in addition to the hundreds
of emails and other documents exchanged between the key custodians Quanta identified.
What Defendants object to is searching for and producing all documents relating in any
way to the proposed Kuwait MEW deal because that search would involve expending significant
cost and time searching the files of an unnamed number of additional Quanta custodians who
have nothing to do with any of the issues in this litigation other than through some discrete
involvement in some aspect of this project.
Faced with the overbreadth of their request, Plaintiffs now deny that they are seeking all
documents in related to the Kuwait MEW deal. Motion at 10. Plaintiffs’ request, however,
plainly seeks “all relevant documents pertaining to or referencing the estimates and/or secured
contract commitments for Kuwait projects as set forth in Plaintiffs’ Original Petition and Request
for Accounting.” Plaintiff alleges, in his Original Petition and elsewhere, the proposed Kuwait
MEW deal was an “estimate and/or secured contract commitment.” Original Petition at 24.
Regardless, Plaintiffs have not identified any narrowed categories of documents they are
seeking. To the extent Plaintiffs are now limiting their request to all technical and financial due
diligence files for the project, Defendants have substantially complied with that request by
producing every email from Devaney’s email account and every email from Damir Novosel’s
2951139v1/013540
account that refers to Trident or Devaney. Plaintiffs have no basis to claim any additional
discovery — particularly if they Plaintiffs are not willing to pay for the searching costs.
4. Ginger James Emails
Plaintiffs’ request for “all email correspondence of any Quanta Services agent or
employee from or to Ginger James for the years 2002-2012” should be denied for two reasons.
First, Ginger James is Vice President of Quanta Government Services and has worked at
Quanta for nearly a decade. As Defendants have repeatedly informed Plaintiffs, James has more
than 60,000 emails in her account, the vast majority of which involve correspondence with
Quanta employees and would therefore fall within the scope of Plaintiffs’ overbroad request,
despite the fact that they have nothing to do with this litigation. Plaintiffs point to no case law
requiring the production of all work emails by a particular custodian regardless of the subject
matter of the emails — and Defendants have found none.
_ Second, Defendants have already produced relevant email files from Ginger James’s
account. Defendants initially produced all of James’ email files that refer to Devaney or Trident.
At Plaintiffs’ request, Defendants also searched for and produced all of James’ emails that also
included John Colson or Jim O’Neil in any field and that related to Plaintiffs or Quanta’s
international or government business. Unsatisfied with what they have found in those
documents, Plaintiffs now move to compel almost her entire email account merely because
“Ginger James may have been the liaison to Defendants in any diversion efforts.”
However, “Discovery is limited to matters relevant to the case,” and a request made
“without limitation as to time, place, or subject matter, is overbroad.” Texaco v. Sanderson , 898
S.W.2d 813, 814-15 (Tex. 1995). Plaintiffs’ request for all of Ginger James’ emails to or from
any Quanta employee or agent since before she (or Plaintiffs) began working for Quanta through
2951139v1/013540
after this lawsuit was filed is plainly overbroad because it has no limitation on time, place, or
subject matter. Moreover, it is nothing more than pure speculation. Plaintiffs request for all
James’ emails is “not merely an impressible fishing expedition; it is an effort to dredge the lake
in hopes of finding a fish.” Jd. at 815. It should be denied.
5. Procurement and Contracting Policies with the U.S. Government
As Defendants stated in its response to Plaintiffs’ objectionable request for production,
“Quanta remains willing to discuss further with Plaintiffs’ counsel to determine what, if any,
responsive non-privileged documents are relevant to this litigation.” Having conferred with
Plaintiffs after they filed this motion, Defendants have agreed to search for and produce Quanta
policies and procedures for international and government contracting from 2003-2011, if any.
Conclusion
Plaintiffs’ motion to compel should be denied. Defendants have agreed to produce all
potentially relevant documents related to Plaintiffs’ requests for board minutes, document
retention policies, and international and government procurement and contracting policies.
Plaintiffs’ remaining requests are overbroad, unduly burdensome, not reasonably calculated to
lead to the discovery of admissible evidence and should be denied.
2951139v1/013540
Respectfully submitted,
SUSMAN GODFREY L.L.P.
By: Matthew C. Behncke
Shawn L. Raymond
State Bar No. 24009236
Eric J. Mayer
State Bar No. 13274675
Matthew Behncke
State Bar No. 24069355
1000 Louisiana Street, Suite 5100
Houston, Texas 77002-5096
Telephone: (713) 651-9366
Fax: (713) 654-6666
Attorneys for Defendants
Certificate of Service
This is to certify that on this the 20th day of November, 2013, a true and correct copy of
the above and foregoing instrument was properly forwarded to the following counsel of record in
accordance with Rule 21 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure as indicated below:
VIA Email and fax
Jacob De Leon
Mason W. Herring
DE LEON LAW FIRM
1250 Four Houston Center
1331 Lamar Street
Houston, Texas 77010-3027
VIA Email and fax
Kenneth R. Breitbeil
MCFALL, BREITBEIL & SMITH, P.C.
1250 Four Houston Center
1331 Lamar Street
Houston, Texas 77010-3027
/s/ Matthew C. Behncke
Matthew Behncke
2951139V1/013540
Preview
Filed 13 November 20 P 4:14 Chris Daniel - District Clerk Harris Coun’ i ED101) 017829414 By: adiliani a. solis Cause No. 2012-75663 PATRICK O. DEVANEY, II and IN THE DISTRICT OF TRIDENT VENTURES, INC. Plaintiffs, Vv. HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS QUANTA SERVICES, INC.; QUANTA GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS, INC.; QUANTA GOVERNMENT SERVICES, INC.; QUANTA INTERNATIONAL 333" JUDICIAL DISTRICT LIMITED; and JOHN R. COLSON Defendants. Defendants’ Opposition to Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel Documents The Court should deny Plaintiffs’ motion to compel production of documents for two reasons: 1 Plaintiffs filed this motion without meeting and conferring on the specific requests in the motion. Plaintiffs’ counsel instead handed the motion to counsel for Defendants and said it had already been filed. After receiving the motion, Quanta initiated an in-person meeting to discuss the issues raised in the motion, and the parties now appear to be in agreement on several of the issues raised by plaintiffs. The remaining issues, including the request for every single email (about 60,000 of them) that a Quanta Government Services Vice President has ever sent to or received from any other Quanta employee regardless of the subject matter over a 10+ year period, involve plainly overbroad and unduly burdensome requests that lack any relevance to the issues in this case. Quanta’s Efforts to Identify and Produce Relevant Documents For a period of approximately eight years from 2004-2012, Plaintiff Patrick Devaney served as an outside consultant to Quanta through his company, Plaintiff Trident Ventures, Inc. During that time, Plaintiffs submitted millions of dollars in monthly invoices and expense reports to Quanta for consulting services, which Quanta timely paid. In December 2012, several months after Quanta terminated the consulting relationship, Devaney filed suit, claiming he was given 2951139v1/013540 oral promises to receive, among other things, additional unspecified compensation and an unspecified partnership or joint venture or carried interest in a Quanta spin-off company that was never created. Plaintiffs served their first requests for production on January 31, 2013. On February 15, Defendants responded with a letter addressing numerous issues with Plaintiffs’ requests and offering to meet to discuss reasonable searches for identifying responsive documents. Since then, Defendants have produced more than 62,000 pages of documents, including every email Devaney sent to or received from his Quanta account and every email that mentions Devaney or Trident from the email account of each Quanta custodian identified in both Plaintiffs’ and Defendants’ disclosure responses. These initial document searches required significant time and expense, all of which Defendants bore, and resulted in the production of more than 55,000 pages of documents. Defendants further produced all documents from their hard copy personnel files relating to Devaney, and have searched for and produced hard copy files from Quanta Government Service’s Vice President Ginger James (identified by the parties in their disclosures) related to Quanta projects that Plaintiffs identified in their Petition — and Defendants have agreed to produce other project files as they are located. In addition, Defendants have produced other categories of documents as requested by Plaintiffs. In response to Defendants’ efforts to search the files of every custodian identified in the parties’ disclosures for documents related to Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs requested that Quanta search the email files of 43 additional custodians for more than 150 search terms (including common terms such as “Chad” and “Agency”). Defendants objected to Plaintiffs’ proposed search terms as overbroad, unduly burdensome, and not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, but offered to perform the searches if Plaintiffs paid Defendants’ document 2951139v1/013540 collection and review costs. Defendants provided an estimate from a third-party vendor of the costs to process the data, but Plaintiffs have not responded to Defendants’ offer. Instead, Plaintiffs have served more than one hundred new requests for production, including some of the ones raised in Plaintiffs’ motion. Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel Should be Denied Plaintiffs filed this motion to compel without conferring with Defendants about the specific requests at issue in their motion, which include a handful of requests from the more than 178 they have served. Had they conferred with Defendants prior to filing the motion, Defendants have requested from the outset of the case, Plaintiffs could have avoided much of the dispute they now raise. Indeed, because Defendants (not Plaintiffs) initiated the meet and confer process in connection with Plaintiffs’ already-filed motion compel, the parties appear to have been able to resolve many of the issues in this motion, several of which Plaintiffs had not previously raised with Defendants prior to filing the motion. The remaining requests at issue are overbroad, unduly burdensome, and not reasonably calculated to the discovery of admissible evidence. Defendants address below each category of documents raised by Plaintiffs. 1 Board Minutes and Document Retention Policies These categories of documents are non-issues. Before receiving Plaintiffs’ motion to compel, Defendants had already begun searching board minutes for responsive documents that mention Devaney and Trident. Defendants will produce those documents. Defendants also have agreed to produce documents, if any, sufficient to show their document retention policies for the last ten years. Defendants are confirming that no such 2951139v1/013540 documents exist that are responsive to Plaintiffs’ request and will update its response once it has completed its reasonable search. 2. The Point Loma Project Plaintiffs’ request for “all relevant documents pertaining to or referencing” the upgrade of the Navy Fuel Supply System at Point Loma (the “Point Loma project”) is overbroad, unduly burdensome, and not reasonably calculated to the lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. The Point Loma project is a significant government contract secured by Quanta that Devaney admitted at his deposition that he did not help secure or even work on. Devaney Depo at 134:22- 24 (“they kept me out of that. So hey, they didn’t need my help to get the contract . . .); 136;12- 14 (“I did not work on Point Loma.”). Devaney was aware of this high-profile project — a joint effort between a Quanta affiliate called Underground Construction and a third-party contractor called Nova to provide contracting work for the Navy at Point Loma — for years prior to filing suit,’ but never raised the issue of his alleged exclusion from the project or his supposed right to participate in any carried interest or profit sharing agreement from the project until filing this lawsuit. Plaintiffs’ request for all documents pertaining to or referencing the project includes potentially tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of documents covering an 8-year period that have nothing to do with Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs have no basis for the requested discovery. Defendants already have produced: (1) the joint venture agreement between Underground Construction and Nova (Quanta0058760); (2) all documents from the hard copy files about the project maintained by Quanta Government Service’s Vice President Ginger James (a person identified in the parties’ initial disclosures); and ! Plaintiffs’ theory is apparently that Quanta hid this project from Devaney in plain sight. The project took place eight miles from Plaintiffs’ home and had its own website to keep members of the local community (including Plaintiffs) informed of its progress. http://www.pointlomafuel.com/. 2951139v1/013540 (3) a 2009 internal review of Quanta’s performance of the project (Quanta00612727). Quanta has further agreed to search for and produce the contract itself. While Plaintiffs have now apparently narrowed their request to “all internal and external pre-deal communications regarding this $180 million project,” that request is still overly broad and unduly burdensome because the bidding process was years-long, generated potentially thousands of documents, and Plaintiffs were not at all involved in that process. Plaintiffs want Defendants to cast a wide net to search for documents that “spoke of excluding Plaintiffs from this project,” but Quanta has already produced every email that speaks of Devaney or Trident from the account of Chris Ronco (President of Underground Construction), John Colson (Quanta’s former CEO), Jim O’Neil (Quanta’s current CEO), and Ginger James (Quanta Government’s Vice President) — the individuals who Plaintiffs allege conspired to exclude them from the project. Moreover, Defendants have offered to conduct Plaintiffs’ overbroad searches to identify any additional documents if Plaintiffs pay for Quanta’s search and review costs, but they have declined to do so. There is no basis for additional, speculative discovery on this topic, including all internal and external pre-bid communications — that is particularly true when Plaintiffs are unwilling to front these search costs. 3. The Kuwait MEW Proposed Project Plaintiffs’ request for all documents related to the Kuwait MEW project also should be denied. Plaintiffs’ legal theory in connection with this proposed project is that Defendants jettisoned a potential deal in Kuwait that Devaney estimated would result in $500 million dollars in profit to Quanta and its local agent, and did so in order to avoid paying Plaintiffs an 2951139v1/013540 unspecified carried interest or share of a Quanta entity that was never created. Because Devaney was intimately involved in all aspects of this project as project leader and Damir Novosel (one of the custodians Quanta identified) led the Quanta technical team assisting Devaney, Quanta’s email searches have resulted in a substantial production of documents related to the proposed project. Defendants have produced, for example, its detailed assessment of power infrastructure in Kuwait (Quanta0049159), in-depth technical progress reports (Quanta0049228), and risk assessment and financial estimates for the project (Quanta0051490), in addition to the hundreds of emails and other documents exchanged between the key custodians Quanta identified. What Defendants object to is searching for and producing all documents relating in any way to the proposed Kuwait MEW deal because that search would involve expending significant cost and time searching the files of an unnamed number of additional Quanta custodians who have nothing to do with any of the issues in this litigation other than through some discrete involvement in some aspect of this project. Faced with the overbreadth of their request, Plaintiffs now deny that they are seeking all documents in related to the Kuwait MEW deal. Motion at 10. Plaintiffs’ request, however, plainly seeks “all relevant documents pertaining to or referencing the estimates and/or secured contract commitments for Kuwait projects as set forth in Plaintiffs’ Original Petition and Request for Accounting.” Plaintiff alleges, in his Original Petition and elsewhere, the proposed Kuwait MEW deal was an “estimate and/or secured contract commitment.” Original Petition at 24. Regardless, Plaintiffs have not identified any narrowed categories of documents they are seeking. To the extent Plaintiffs are now limiting their request to all technical and financial due diligence files for the project, Defendants have substantially complied with that request by producing every email from Devaney’s email account and every email from Damir Novosel’s 2951139v1/013540 account that refers to Trident or Devaney. Plaintiffs have no basis to claim any additional discovery — particularly if they Plaintiffs are not willing to pay for the searching costs. 4. Ginger James Emails Plaintiffs’ request for “all email correspondence of any Quanta Services agent or employee from or to Ginger James for the years 2002-2012” should be denied for two reasons. First, Ginger James is Vice President of Quanta Government Services and has worked at Quanta for nearly a decade. As Defendants have repeatedly informed Plaintiffs, James has more than 60,000 emails in her account, the vast majority of which involve correspondence with Quanta employees and would therefore fall within the scope of Plaintiffs’ overbroad request, despite the fact that they have nothing to do with this litigation. Plaintiffs point to no case law requiring the production of all work emails by a particular custodian regardless of the subject matter of the emails — and Defendants have found none. _ Second, Defendants have already produced relevant email files from Ginger James’s account. Defendants initially produced all of James’ email files that refer to Devaney or Trident. At Plaintiffs’ request, Defendants also searched for and produced all of James’ emails that also included John Colson or Jim O’Neil in any field and that related to Plaintiffs or Quanta’s international or government business. Unsatisfied with what they have found in those documents, Plaintiffs now move to compel almost her entire email account merely because “Ginger James may have been the liaison to Defendants in any diversion efforts.” However, “Discovery is limited to matters relevant to the case,” and a request made “without limitation as to time, place, or subject matter, is overbroad.” Texaco v. Sanderson , 898 S.W.2d 813, 814-15 (Tex. 1995). Plaintiffs’ request for all of Ginger James’ emails to or from any Quanta employee or agent since before she (or Plaintiffs) began working for Quanta through 2951139v1/013540 after this lawsuit was filed is plainly overbroad because it has no limitation on time, place, or subject matter. Moreover, it is nothing more than pure speculation. Plaintiffs request for all James’ emails is “not merely an impressible fishing expedition; it is an effort to dredge the lake in hopes of finding a fish.” Jd. at 815. It should be denied. 5. Procurement and Contracting Policies with the U.S. Government As Defendants stated in its response to Plaintiffs’ objectionable request for production, “Quanta remains willing to discuss further with Plaintiffs’ counsel to determine what, if any, responsive non-privileged documents are relevant to this litigation.” Having conferred with Plaintiffs after they filed this motion, Defendants have agreed to search for and produce Quanta policies and procedures for international and government contracting from 2003-2011, if any. Conclusion Plaintiffs’ motion to compel should be denied. Defendants have agreed to produce all potentially relevant documents related to Plaintiffs’ requests for board minutes, document retention policies, and international and government procurement and contracting policies. Plaintiffs’ remaining requests are overbroad, unduly burdensome, not reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence and should be denied. 2951139v1/013540 Respectfully submitted, SUSMAN GODFREY L.L.P. By: Matthew C. Behncke Shawn L. Raymond State Bar No. 24009236 Eric J. Mayer State Bar No. 13274675 Matthew Behncke State Bar No. 24069355 1000 Louisiana Street, Suite 5100 Houston, Texas 77002-5096 Telephone: (713) 651-9366 Fax: (713) 654-6666 Attorneys for Defendants Certificate of Service This is to certify that on this the 20th day of November, 2013, a true and correct copy of the above and foregoing instrument was properly forwarded to the following counsel of record in accordance with Rule 21 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure as indicated below: VIA Email and fax Jacob De Leon Mason W. Herring DE LEON LAW FIRM 1250 Four Houston Center 1331 Lamar Street Houston, Texas 77010-3027 VIA Email and fax Kenneth R. Breitbeil MCFALL, BREITBEIL & SMITH, P.C. 1250 Four Houston Center 1331 Lamar Street Houston, Texas 77010-3027 /s/ Matthew C. Behncke Matthew Behncke 2951139V1/013540