Opinion
Civil Action No: SA-03-CA-360-XR
October 29, 2003
ORDER REGARDING SEVERANCE
On this date, the Court considered Defendant Lawrence Turner's Motion to Sever (docket no. 17), filed August 25, 2003. Plaintiff DirecTV has brought this suit against six individual defendants for alleged violations of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. § 605, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act ("Federal Wiretap Laws"), 18 U.S.C. § 2510-2521. According to DirecTV's complaint, each of the Defendants is an individual residing in or near San Antonio who is or was a subscriber to DirectTV's services or who is accessing DirecTV's proprietary signals by using a digital satellite dish along with a "pirate" device without paying for the services. DirecTV alleges that, in conjunction with a law enforcement investigation of an entity doing business as "Vector Technologies," an entity doing business as "DSS-Stuff," and an entity doing business as "Intertek," it was documented that the Defendants acquired, purchased, or otherwise obtained pirating devices and other equipment specifically designed and modified for enabling unauthorized access to DirecTV's proprietary signals and defeating electronic countermeasures, without paying Direc TV. Each of the Defendants allegedly purchased a pirate device from one of the three previously named businesses during the months of March and April 2003. Other than the fact that each Defendant allegedly purchased a pirate device from one of the three companies, Plaintiff's complaint establishes no relationship among the individual defendants.
Defendant Lawrence Turner files this motion to sever, alleging that Plaintiff has misjoined the Defendants because it failed to comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20. Rule 20 provides: "All persons . . . may be joined in one action as defendants if there is asserted against them jointly, severally, or in the alternative, any right to relief in respect of or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions and if any question of law or fact common to all defendants will arise in the action." FED. R. Civ. P. 20. Thus, joinder of defendants requires both (1) a claim for relief arising from the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences, and (2) a common question of law or fact. See Tapscott v. MS Dealer Serv. Corp., 77 F.3d 1353, 1360 (11th Cir. 1996). Rule 21 governs the remedy for misjoinder, and provides that "[p]arties may be dropped or added by order of the court on motion of any party or of its own initiative at any stage of the action and on such terms as are just. Any claim against a party may be severed and proceeded with separately." FED. R. CIV. P. 21.
DirecTV has filed a notice with the Court that "it offers no opposition to Defendant LAWRENCE TURNER'S Motion to Sever Defendant TURNER from the remaining defendants in the within matter and consent[s] to the severance." Direc TV has opposed severance with regard to another Defendant, Randall Long. Defendant Long, in a letter to this Court's predecessor dated August 7, 2003, asked that his case "be considered separate from all others and dismissed without prejudice." Direc TV filed a response to this letter, arguing that it should not be entertained because it was not filed with the Clerk or, should the Court deem the letter a Motion to Sever and Dismiss, that the Court should deny the motion. In its response, Direc TV contended that Defendant Long was "properly joined with the other defendants in this matter as each Defendant purchased illegal devices from Vector Technologies within one (1) month of each other, many within days of each other" and that "[t]he witnesses and evidence Plaintiff intends to present at trial as to each defendant will be identical or similar in most instances, and all Defendants are or were Direc TV subscribers." Thus, Direc TV argues, the redundancy would "cause a waste of the Court's time."
In his motion to sever, Defendant Turner argues that "the unrelated purchases alleged by Plaintiff . . . cannot reasonably be treated as `the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences.'" Turner further argues that joinder is prejudicial to the defense of the individual Defendants because it would force each Defendant to sit through proceedings that are potentially much longer than individual actions, and because joint trials inhibit the ability of the individual Defendants to craft their own trial strategies and make it more likely that a jury might confuse the evidence relating to each Defendant or attempt to judge the Defendants as a group. Turner additionally asserts that there would be increased costs to the Defendants of serving pleadings and other documents to multiple, unrelated parties. Turner asks the Court to take judicial notice of the number of cases in this District and others in which Plaintiff has joined multiple unrelated defendants in a single case. For relief, Turner asks the Court to dismiss Plaintiff's claims against all Defendants.
The Court notes that it has found numerous cases across the country in which district courts have severed defendants in similar cases filed by Direc TV based on the conclusion that they were misjoined. The Court concludes that the case against each of the Defendants in this case will involve common questions of law. Thus, the question of misjoinder turns on whether Direc TV is asserting against the defendants a right to relief in respect of or arising out of the same series of transactions or occurrences. Although each of the Defendants allegedly purchased a pirate device from one of three companies within a two-month period and each of the Defendants is physically located in or near San Antonio, those facts alone do not establish that the Plaintiff's claims arise out of the same series of transactions or occurrences. The Plaintiff's claims are based not so much on the individual purchases as they are based on the Defendants' interception of their proprietary signals without payment. Moreover, the fact that Defendants' actions occurred in close proximity temporally and spatially is insufficient to render their actions a series of transactions absent some logical relationship among them. Direc TV has not alleged that Defendants acted in concert, that any Defendant's purchase was in any way logically related to any other Defendant's purchase, or that any Defendant was even aware of any of the other Defendants' purchases or existence. The Court recognizes that permitting joinder of the Defendants would reduce Plaintiff's fees and costs and would serve judicial economy in preventing multiple lawsuits. However, as recognized by the district court in Tele-Media Co. of W. Conn. v. Antidormi, 179 F.R.D. 75, 76 (D. Conn. 1998), a single action poses additional burdens and costs on the clerk's office, which must prepare and mail a copy of every order to every defendant. It also imposes additional burdens on the individual Defendants and could result in prejudice to the individual Defendants at trial. Thus, as the Tele-Media court concluded, though pragmatic considerations may point toward permitting the action to proceed as is, the same transaction test of Rule 20 stands in the way. Id.; see also Direc TV v. Benavidez, No. 4:02-CV-964-A (N.D.Tex. Jan. 30, 2003) (ordering severance in suit against five defendants based on misjoinder); DirecTV v. Loussaert, 2003 WL 223317755 (S.D. Iowa 2003) (concluding that DirecTV's joinder of seven individual defendants was improper); DirecTV v. Armellino, 216 F.R.D. 240 (E.D.N.Y. 2003); DirecTV v. Pickert, 2003 WL 22345840 (N.D. Ill. 2003). However, some of the same advantages can be realized through consolidation, at least for pretrial proceedings.
Accordingly, the Court GRANTS Defendant Lawrence Turner's Motion to Sever (docket no. 17) and ORDERS that Plaintiff's claims against all Defendants shall be severed into separate actions, with one defendant each. It is therefore ORDERED that the caption of the present action shall be amended to reflect that the only defendant is Lawrence Turner. It is further ORDERED that the other actions will bear Case No. 5:03-CA-1071-XR, in which Randall Long will be the defendant; Case No. 5:03-CA-1072-XR, in which Chau Nguyen will be the defendant; CaseNo. 5:03-CA-1073-XR, in which Steven Terrazas will be the defendant; Case No. 5:03-CA-1074-XR, in which Ruben Alvarez will be the defendant; and Case No. 5:03-CA-1075-XR, in which Keith Anderson will be the defendant.
Plaintiff will remit to the Clerk the filing fees for the five newly created actions by 5:00 p.m. on November 14, 2003, and, by that date, shall file an amended complaint in this action and in the newly created actions.
The Clerk's office shall place copies of each item contained in the file of this action, including this order, except for docket numbers 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23 and 24 (which relate solely to Defendant Lawrence Turner) and docket numbers 5, 6, and 9 (which relate solely to Defendant Keith Anderson), in each of the newly created files, and shall include those items on the dockets of each of the newly created actions. The clerk's office shall place copies of docket numbers 5, 6, and 9 in the file of Case No. 5:03-CA-1075-XR (DirecTV v. Keith Anderson) and shall include those items on the docket of that action.