ISONOVA TECHNOLOGIES LLC, Plaintiff/Counter Defendant, v. OVAINNOVATIONS, LLC; and DAVID L. RETTIG; Defendants/Counter Claimants No. 20-CV-71-CJW-KEM United States District Court, N.D. Iowa, Cedar Rapids Division Filed October 08, 2021 Counsel Matthew E. Enenbach, Juliet Cox, Pro Hac Vice, Kutak Rock LLP, Omaha, NE, Anna M. Berman, Pro Hac Vice, Kutak Rock LLP, Kansas City, MO, for Plaintiff/Counter Defendant. Jeana L. Goosmann, Goosmann Law Firm PLC, Sioux City, IA, Mark L. Zaiger, Teresa K. Baumann, Shuttleworth & Ingersoll PLC, Cedar Rapids, IA, William Jeremiah Hale, Goosmann Law Firm, Omaha, NE, Elizabeth F. Quinby, Pro Hac Vice, Gregory P. Hansel, Pro Hac Vice, Preti Flaherty Beliveau & Pachios LLP, Portland, ME, for Defendants/Counter Claimants. Mahoney, Kelly K.E., United States Magistrate Judge ORDER *1 Currently pending before the court is OvaInnovations, LLC, and David L. Rettig's (collectively, OvaInnovations) motion to compel discovery. Doc. 107. IsoNova Technologies, LLC, resists the motion (Doc. 113), and OvInnovations filed a reply to the resistance (Doc. 115). For the reasons that follow, I deny the motion. The parties disagree on the temporal scope of discovery for OvaInnovations' antitrust counterclaims.[1] OvaInnovations sought discovery from 2010 to the present and later agreed to narrow its request to 2014 to the present; IsoNova Technologies LLC (IsoNova) contends it should only have to produce discovery from 2018 to the present. IsoNova was formed in 2014. OvaInnovations entered the market in 2020, and thus, its counter-complaint alleges damages and anticompetitive conduct beginning in “at least” April 2020. The cases cited by the parties demonstrate that damages in antitrust cases are often calculated by showing the before-and-after effect of a defendant's anticompetitive conduct; thus, a plaintiff is entitled to discovery for some period before the defendant's anticompetitive conduct allegedly began. The parties' cited cases also show that the temporal scope of discovery in antitrust cases is often broader than in other cases: courts often grant discovery outside the statute of limitations and before the alleged damage to plaintiff. But I agree with IsoNova that OvaInnovations' cited cases are distinguishable, as they involved some evidence that the defendant's anticompetitive conduct began well before the statute-of-limitations period or time of plaintiff's harm (and generally involved longer monopoly periods).[2] See Baush Mach. Tool Co. v. Aluminum Co. of Am., 72 F.2d 236, 239 (2d Cir. 1934) (“It was error to exclude the evidence showing the purchase of the stock and assets of the other corporations, even though the transactions occurred long before the injury complained of. Monopolies are frequently attained by the acquisition of the controlling interest in one corporation after another.”); Kleen Prods. LLC v. Packaging Corp. of Am., No. 10 C 5711, 2013 WL 120240, at *8-9 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 9, 2013) (when defendants sought to limit discovery of “conduct” documents to the beginning of the class period in mid-2005, and plaintiffs sought to obtain conduct documents going back to 2002, ordering production of conduct documents beginning in 2003 because plaintiff's complaint alleged “stage setting” events in 2003 related to conspiracy, but did not allege any relevant conduct in 2002; and granting plaintiff's request for transactional data for a “before” period equal in time to the conspiracy period (five years)); In re Rail Freight Fuel Surcharge Antitrust Litig., No. MDL 1869, 2009 WL 10703132, at *1-2 (D.D.C. July 13, 2009) (when class period began in July 2003, the parties agreed to discovery beginning in May 2001; plaintiff also sought discovery from January 2000 after defendant argued in support of a motion to dismiss that some defendants adopted rate changes in early 2000 and October 2000, before the alleged conspiracy meetings in the fall and winter of 2003; the court granted discovery back to 2000 but only as it related to whether the change in rates in 2003 were an aberration or part of a “historic continuum,” as defendant argued in its dismissal motion); New Park Entm't LLC v. Elec. Factory Concerts, Inc., No. Civ.A. 98-775, 2000 WL 62315, at *2-3 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 13, 2000) (“Even though the injury plaintiff complains of occurred in 1997 and forward, the activities of the defendants prior to 1997, during which time plaintiff alleges defendant EFC obtained its monopoly power, are relevant to the proof of plaintiff's claim.”); Kellam Energy, Inc. v. Duncan, 616 F. Supp. 215, 218 (D. Del. 1985) (“[Plaintiff's complaint] alleg[es] harm from a conspiracy to restrain trade and a scheme of monopolization that may have begun as early as 1975. [Plaintiff] should therefore be allowed to obtain documents originating as early as that year.”); Quonset Real Estate Corp. v. Paramount Film Distr. Corp., 50 F.R.D. 240, 241 (S.D.N.Y. 1970) (allowing plaintiff to depose an employee of defendant and ask questions related to dealings plaintiff had with this employee ten years prior to the statute-of-limitations period, as the employee's course of conduct “existing over a period of many years ... may manifest an intent to monopolize”).[3] *2 Here, on the other hand, Rettig worked for IsoNova from 2014 to 2018 as its manager and served on its board of directors. OvaInnovations does not contend that Rettig was involved in or knew of any anticompetitive conduct. Thus, in its brief, OvaInnovations argues that any anticompetitive conduct “potentially” began, at earliest, in 2018—Rettig left IsoNova's employ in October 2018, and OvaInnovations argues he was given limited access to information months before his official removal. That Rettig, one of the Counter Claimants, worked for IsoNova in a high-level position distinguishes this case from those OvaInnovations relies upon, because OvaInnovations knows (through Rettig's former employment) the monopoly began no earlier than 2018. I find that limiting the temporal scope of discovery to 2018 and on, two years prior to the complaint's allegation of the monopoly's beginning, provides a sufficient before-and-after period for the calculation of damages. At this point, any allegation that the monopoly began in 2018 is purely speculative, and thus, I do not find that evidence from prior to 2018 is necessary to have a sufficient “before” time for damages. OvaInnovations' motion to compel (Doc. 107) is denied. IT IS SO ORDERED this 8th day of October, 2021. Footnotes [1] To the extent OvaInnovations argues in a footnote in reply that a broader temporal scope is necessary for discovery related to plaintiff's trade secret and other claims, I do not find this argument within the scope of the motion to compel. [2] See also Inline Packaging, LLC v. Graphic Packaging Int'l, Inc., No. 15-CV-3183(ADM/LIB), 2016 WL 7042117, at *6 (D. Minn. July 25, 2016) (“The Court's review of the caselaw indicates that courts have been more inclined to establish the temporal scope of discovery as beginning significantly earlier than the filing of the complaint or the extent of the statute of limitations period where there are specific factual allegations or other specific indications in the record indicating that the anti-competitive conduct occurred further in the past.”). [3] See also In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litig., No. 1:16-cv-08637, 2017 WL 6569720, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 22, 2017) (parties disputed whether temporal scope should be four or six years prior to the class period; court held four years was sufficient, noting plaintiff was not even arguing six years was necessary and would have agreed to a four-year lookback period if defendant agreed not to rely on data prior to that time; the court noted it would revisit the issue if defendant's expert relied on data from earlier in time)