I was served a subpoena today to testify as a witness in a court case I’d never heard of, between two parties I’m not affiliated with (Impossible Foods Inc. v. Impossible X LLC, 5:21-cv-02419 – CourtListener.com). It’s apparently some sort of trademark dispute between the Impossible burger company and some other Impossible company.
I’m not connected to either company and I’m not sure why they chose me. Would it be appropriate to file a motion to the district court to quash this subpoena? It interferes with my working hours and I have no relevance to the case (that I know of) besides eating an Impossible burger very occasionally (I prefer Beyond and other brands).
I looked up the case in PACER but couldn’t find anything specifically mentioning my name (and god, I hate navigating that website).
Should I reach out to the attorney that requested the subpoena, or just file directly with the court?
To be clear, I am not a plaintiff or defendant in this civil case. I’m just wondering what the correct procedure here is to order to tell these guys, “Hey, I have no idea what this is about and I have nothing useful to contribute as a witness”… hopefully that doesn’t constitute a request for legal advice.
You are allowed to request legal advice here. It is usually worth at least what you are paying for it.
If it were me, I think I would attempt to contact the attorney for whichever side subpoena’d me and explain it to them. Maybe that’s a bad idea legally (for the lawyer, not for you, I think) but you can try.
I think this is the best suggestion you’re going to get. Ask the lawyer who subpoena’ed you. It shouldn’t cost you anything—they’ll bill their time spent speaking to you back to their client. And there may be a perfectly reasonable answer, such as you have the same name as the person they really need, and somebody in the office confused that person with you.
You could, of course, file a motion to dismiss the subpoena, but that would cost, in both your time and money. Start with the least-expensive route: contact the lawyer who subpoena’ed you and ask what this is all about, and why you?
You should first reach out to the party who petitioned for the subpoena and confirm that they actually intended to have you appear as their witness. It is not unheard of for a clerical error to result in the wrong John Doe to be summoned based upon mistaken address search or other information (your name referenced in some document found in discovery that has no bearing on the case). It may also be a strategy to overwhelm the plaintiff with irrelevant witnesses, referred to in the legal parlance as a ‘fishing expedition’. It is easy to get caught up in these and they can be an enormous time suck for everyone involved, and if you make it clear that you have no pertinent testimony they may be willing to withdraw the subpoena.
If the petitioner does not respond to your inquires, your next step is to challenge the validity of the subpoena. This will require entering a challenge into the applicable court which is hearing the case. Although you can do this on your own, it is probably best to retain the services of a lawyer to represent you, especially if this is a federal district court (which I assume it is). If it is indeed an irrelevant request you may be entitled to recompense for your legal expenses and other costs although it probably isn’t going to be worth the while to sue the party if they don’t respond to a request. C’est le vie.
Do not under any circumstances contact the opposing counsel (unless you are scheduled to be deposed by them through the petitioner) as this can be seen as interfering with the case of the party that contacted you (collusion).
I would. For the reasons you state and to let him know about the work conflict. The lawyer might not help you, but this is more letting them know you’re not helpful.
OK, thank you, I will reach out to the lawyer today and report back. I just wanted to make sure that it was an OK thing to do (i.e. it wouldn’t affect my ability to quash the subpoena).
Out of spite, actually. A person who works on the Free Law Project was on another forum I’m a part of (Hackernews), and they mentioned their RECAP browser extension that essentially “pirates” PACER and shares its documents free to other users. It was ridiculous to me that court cases, paid for by our tax dollars, were behind a paywall like this. So I installed the extension and signed up for a PACER account, occasionally uploading court docs to RECAP. Since I’m a very infrequent user, I think I fall under the minimum payment threshold and haven’t actually had to pay yet (though I’ve been billed for many pages).
Justia also led me there when I wanted to look up the case.
And I needed a PACER login to be able to E-file (the quash motion) with this court, though I’m not sure if I’m a proper “party” to the case. I applied for E-file access regardless and will try that route if contacting the attorney isn’t enough.
OK, so I reached out to the filing attorney and got the low-down from her. She was actually super nice and helpful.
Turns out I actually was involved (peripherally), but had just totally forgotten about it while the case lingered in the courts for years. Apparently I had learned about this case from another forum way back in 2021: Impossible food sues to cancel earlier trademark owners | Hacker News
There, in a linked statement, the owner of the smaller company (Impossible LLC, the fitness brand) was asking for public support against the bigger company (Impossible Foods, the burger company). I sent the bigger company an email complaint about this, a form letter or similar, basically expressing support for the smaller brand and asking them to stop the trademark dispute. I don’t have a record of the original outgoing email, only an autoresponse from Impossible Foods confirming receipt. But in my mind it wasn’t much different from auto-signing a random online petition. Anyway, this being the internet, I then promptly proceeded to forget all about the dispute and haven’t thought about it in all the years since.
But the Internet remembers what I forget, and that’s why Impossible Foods wanted to talk to me. I gave their lawyer the link to the original forum post, and she explained that they were just trying to get the smaller company to stop suing them (it was actually the smaller company that first sued the bigger one, and the bigger one is apparently just trying to get them to stop — this wasn’t made clear in that original forum post).
So, anyway, I was part of a short-lived, long-forgotten internet mob who was sold a false David v Goliath tale. The poor companies are still fighting it out years later.
The lawyer thanked me for my time and the background and said I don’t have to show up for the subpoena after all.
I also got a $65 witness fee with the subpoena. If the subpoena date passes and I’m not in jail, I’ll cash and donate it to RECAP.
I also heard back from the e-file system. Apparently, being summoned as a witness does NOT make me a “party”, and I cannot use the system to e-file a motion to quash. Their help desk patiently explained that I’d have to file by paper. It would possibly involve an attorney.
Thankfully, that won’t be necessary since I cleared it up with the subpoenaing attorney and she told me I don’t need to show up anymore.
Get it in writing; letter is best but email concurrence in response to you detailing the discussion is sufficient. The attorney you talked to may have been “super nice and helpful” but requests that are peripheral to the case get dropped all the time and you don’t want to be on the wrong side of a ‘failure to appear’ bench warrant.
The summons was also to appear at some local hotel for a deposition, and not a courthouse. Not sure if that’s normal. I’ll try to get a written confirmation from the lawyer either way.
Generally…Court testimony for trial. Depos are in hotel conference rooms, offices, zoom, homes, anywhere really, but usually not in Federal Courtrooms.
So yea, do what Stranger says. It’s as important as the call.