Ramaswamy Says Court Should Set Aside Order for Limited TCPA Discovery

Defendant Vivek Ramaswamy disagrees with U.S. Magistrate Judge Kimberly Jolson’s April 2 order granting plaintiff Thomas Grant’s motion for limited expedited discovery, and asks that the court set aside the order because it’s “clearly erroneous and contrary to law,” according to Ramaswamy’s objection Thursday (docket 2:24-cv-00281) in U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio in Columbus.

Grant sought the discovery to preserve relevant records of calls that Ramaswamy’s 2024 Republican presidential campaign made to him and his putative class members (see 2403010042). Grant’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action alleges that Ramaswamy’s campaign, which was suspended Jan. 15, placed prerecorded calls to consumers’ cellphones that promoted the candidate’s telephonic town hall events without obtaining consumers’ prior express consent (see 2401240002).

Grant contends that a political candidate who doesn’t make the calls, but whose official campaign makes them, may be held personally liable under the TCPA. In response, Ramaswamy said Grant’s complaint is a “shakedown” (see 2403250026).

Ramaswamy’s objection blasted the magistrate judge’s order because the motion had “little to no supporting factual content.” As such, Jolson permitted Grant to engage in pre-Rule 26 conference discovery that will require Ramaswamy to obtain information from a nonparty, his former Vivek 2024 campaign, regarding another nonparty, the campaign’s former phone vendor, said the objection.

It’s “undisputed” that the phone calls in question came from Vivek 2024, but the campaign hasn’t been named as a party in Grant’s action, said the objection. To permit Grant to not only “open the gates of discovery,” but also serve a subpoena on the nonparty vendor to obtain "expansive" phone records “would be to turn Rule 8, and its supporting jurisprudence, on its head,” it said: “More is required.”

Ramaswamy “specifically objects” to three of the judge’s factual and legal findings “as being clearly erroneous and contrary to law,” said his objection. Jolson erred in finding that Grant demonstrated good cause for pre-Rule 26 conference expedited discovery, it said.

The judge also wasn’t required to affirm the court’s jurisdiction before deciding the discovery motion, said the objection. She also incorrectly permitted Grant to serve a nonparty subpoena on Vivek 2024’s phone vendor, requesting all call transmission logs, including all associated fields of data, it said.

Ramaswamy understands the “extraordinary nature” of objecting to a magistrate judge’s nondispositive discovery ruling, and isn't doing so “on a whim or to obstruct discovery,” said his objection. In addition to having a good-faith basis for the objections, Ramaswamy’s failure to file these objections “would constitute waiver of any future objections to factual and legal findings” found in the order, it said.