Mealey's Discovery
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May 13, 2021
Linen Business’s Objections To Magistrate’s Sanctions Ruling Overruled By Judge
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A federal judge in New Mexico on May 11 overruled a linen business’s objections to a magistrate judge’s February order imposing monetary sanctions against it for producing an inadequately prepared corporate representative for a deposition and for failing to timely supplement its initial disclosures and discovery responses, finding that the magistrate’s decisions were not clearly erroneous or contrary to law.
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May 12, 2021
Discovery, GDPR Raised In High Court Appeal In Age Discrimination Employment Row
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an April 26 reply brief supporting its petition for certiorari, a U.S.-based company tells the U.S. Supreme Court that an underlying Ohio state court discovery ruling against it would cause it to violate the stringent personal privacy protections of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), asking the high court to offer guidance as to how discovery in U.S. courts should interact with foreign privacy laws.
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May 12, 2021
Disability Claimant Denied Discovery In ERISA Long-Term Benefits Row
ST. LOUIS — A man who sued his long-term disability (LTD) provider for retroactive benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), saw his quest to take discovery beyond the administrative record denied May 10, with a Missouri federal magistrate judge finding the requested discovery unnecessary to consider a purported conflict of interest between two physicians’ medical opinions.
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May 11, 2021
Magistrate Finds Section 1782 Applies To ‘State-Sponsored’ Dubai Arbitral Tribunal
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal magistrate judge on May 10 granted a Luxembourg entity’s application to seek discovery from a D.C.-based law firm regarding its communications with a Saudi businessman after the magistrate determined that a Dubai-based tribunal hearing a dispute involving the entity and the businessman qualifies as a “state-sponsored” body to which discovery in aid of foreign tribunals is available.
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May 11, 2021
Federal Judge: Softball League Liable For $767,000 In Attorney Fees, Sanctions
CLEVELAND — In adopting in part and modifying in part a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation on May 7, an Ohio federal judge found a professional softball league liable to the franchise team it sued for breach of contract for more than $480,000 in attorney fees and costs. The judge also held the league and its attorneys jointly and severally liable for more than $287,000 in attorney fees and costs for discovery sanctions.
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May 11, 2021
California Court Won’t Immediately Review Asbestos Deposition Time Limit
SAN FRANCISCO — A California appeals court in an April 28 docket entry denied a petition for writ of mandate or prohibition in an asbestos case, saying any due process challenges to limits on the defendants’ time to depose an asbestos plaintiff are best raised after completion of the deposition.
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May 10, 2021
Judge: No Discovery Extension For In-Person Depositions In Retirement Plan Suit
CHICAGO — In a May 6 minute order, a federal judge in Illinois in a breach of fiduciary duty case warned parties that a discovery extension would not be granted based on a desire to wait for in-person depositions; the entry came approximately three weeks after the same judge narrowed the claims in the case that accuses an employer, its retirement plan committee and others of improperly retaining the investment managers’ proprietary collective investment trusts which allegedly underperformed and charged unreasonable fees and failing to properly monitor the fiduciaries.
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May 07, 2021
Trailer Company Wants Asbestos Sales Index Partially Protected From Discovery
GREENSBORO, N.C. — A federal judge in North Carolina imposed manifestly unfair production on a company when he ordered it to produce an index containing in excess of 47,000 sales records, rather than limiting production to the less than 1% of the index relevant to an asbestos case, a company says May 5 in urging reconsideration of the judge’s April 30 opinion.
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May 07, 2021
Parts Maker Tells High Court Private Arbitrations Not Excluded By Section 1782
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A New York-based engine parts maker writes in its May 6 petitioner’s brief on the merits to the U.S. Supreme Court that the statute allowing discovery in aid of foreign courts and tribunals was intended to apply to private tribunals as of its amendment in 1964 and that the existing circuit split on the issue was created by the imposition of “judicially-devised limitations” on the text of the statute.
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May 07, 2021
Panel: Fracking Operator Must Produce Some Well Site Injury Documents
EDINBURG, Texas — A Texas state appellate court panel on May 4 partially granted and partially denied discovery requests in a lawsuit brought by workers on a hydraulic fracturing rig who contend that the company failed to adequately test equipment that failed and caused numerous injuries. The panel held that while some document requests were “overly broad,” other requests for information about previous injuries on the well site were permitted.
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May 06, 2021
BMW Must Provide SEC Documents In Franchise Agreement Dispute
MIAMI — Although BMW of North America LLC (BMW NA) had a duty to supplement its discovery submissions to the plaintiff in a franchise agreement lawsuit to include pertinent documents subsequently filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a Florida federal magistrate judge on April 24 held that sanctions against the automaker were unwarranted, denying the plaintiff franchisee’s motion to that end.
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May 05, 2021
Roofing Subcontractor Moves To Compel Homeowner’s Responses To Interrogatories
CHARLESTON, S.C. — A subcontractor says in a motion to compel filed April 21 in South Carolina state court that a proposed class of homeowners claiming that the improper installation of the roofs on their homes has caused water damage has failed to respond to its initial request for interrogatories and requests for production.
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May 05, 2021
Panel Affirms Discovery, Summary Judgment Rulings In Insurance Bad Faith Appeal
PASADENA, Calif. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 3 ruled that a federal district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding portions of three declarations submitted by a beneficiary in an insurance breach of contract and bad faith lawsuit stemming from insurers’ denial of life insurance benefits and rescission of policies because the declarants lacked the required knowledge of the statements asserted as required.
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May 04, 2021
Wyndham Must Produce Corporate Documents In Sex Trafficking Suits
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two sex trafficking survivors demonstrated that corporate records and other documents sought from Wyndham Hotels & Resorts Inc. and its subsidiaries related to the company’s general knowledge of sex trafficking occurring are relevant to their claims of liability under a federal sex trafficking law, an Ohio federal magistrate judge ruled April 30, granting the plaintiffs’ motion to compel.
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May 04, 2021
Judge Declines To Delay Discovery In UCL Case Despite Pending Settlement Talks
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge in an April 26 minute order declined a joint request to continue discovery and other deadlines filed by the parties in a software company’s lawsuit against a health care provider for alleged violations of California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other claims, writing that the fact that settlement talks are pending among the parties is “insufficient” to continue preexisting deadlines.
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May 03, 2021
Award-Creditor Seeks Discovery To Establish If Company Is Chinese Instrumentality
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A British Virgin Islands entity seeking to confirm a $21.5 million arbitral award against a Chinese oil exploration and production company responded to the Chinese company’s motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction on April 30 by moving for leave to conduct jurisdictional discovery under U.S. law to establish that the Chinese company is an instrumentality of the People’s Republic of China.
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May 03, 2021
Apple Opposes Discovery Of Customer Info In Suit Over Biometric Data Collection
EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — Apple Inc. on April 28 moved to quash discovery subpoenas served on several major retailers by plaintiffs accusing it of violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) via facial recognition technology within its Photos app, telling an Illinois federal court that the plaintiffs’ quest to obtain customers’ personal data, purportedly in connection with class determination, without their knowledge or consent runs directly counter to their data collection claims against Apple.
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April 30, 2021
3 Purdue Pharma Law Firms To Give Up $1M In Fees For Not Disclosing Sackler Link
NEW YORK — Three law firms representing opioid maker Purdue Pharma LP in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 29 agreed to give up $1 million in fees and to more fully disclose a 2018 Common Interest Agreement in which they represent not only Purdue Pharma but also the company’s controlling Sackler family.
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April 29, 2021
Monsanto Moves To Seal Documents At The Heart Of Intervenors’ Bad Faith Claim
ATLANTA — Monsanto Co. on April 28 moved in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to file under seal confidential information that pertains to an arrangement between the company and a glyphosate cancer victim who is appealing the dismissal of his case. Monsanto’s motion comes after plaintiffs in separate lawsuits moved to intervene in the matter, contending that the arrangement in question reveals that the appeal is being litigated in bad faith.
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April 28, 2021
High Court Declines To Stay Section 1782 Discovery Despite Pending Appeal
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 27 declined to stay a district court’s order allowing an engine parts-maker to take discovery for use in an English arbitration as was ordered by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, despite the fact that the parts-maker’s appeal regarding whether such discovery can be ordered for private commercial tribunals is pending before the high court.