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Mealey's Discovery

April 04, 2023
Google Sanctioned $79,000 For Untimely Disclosure In Chrome Data-Tracking Suit

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Nine days after a California federal magistrate judge issued a pair of discovery orders in two consolidated putative class actions over Google LLC’s purported collection of data from users of its Chrome web browser, redacted versions were filed of orders granting the plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions and granting Google’s motion for relief regarding preservation.
April 03, 2023
Missouri High Court: Work Product Protection Waived In Shared Accident Documents

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The plaintiffs in a personal injury negligence suit against a hospital cannot withhold documents pertaining to their settlement of an unrelated lawsuit, the Missouri Supreme Court held, ruling that the plaintiffs’ disclosure of those documents in the previous suit constituted waiver of the work product doctrine and defeated their claims that the documents are protected from discovery by privilege.
March 29, 2023
Judge: Google’s Failure To Preserve Chats In Antitrust Suit Merits Sanctions

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge on March 28 found that Google LLC exhibited “highly spotty practices” related to its duty to preserve interoffice employee chats in response to litigation hold notices connected with purported monopolistic practices related to its Google Play Store, leading the judge to rule that the technology giant will be sanctioned for this behavior in an amount to be determined.
March 29, 2023
DHS Urges Supreme Court To Deny Certiorari In FOIA ‘Agency Records’ Dispute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals correctly found that documents identifying Donald J. Trump’s pre-inauguration visitors do not constitute “agency records” and, as such, were not subject to disclosure in response to a journalist’s request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a brief opposing the journalist’s petition for certiorari.
March 28, 2023
Judge Orders Discovery For Enforcement Of Award Worth $58.6M Against Moldova

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge granted an award-creditor’s motion for an order enforcing a judgment worth more than $58.6 million against the Republic of Moldova for a confirmed arbitral award in an electricity contract dispute that was previously affirmed on appeal and ordered Moldova to response to the creditor’s discovery requests.
March 28, 2023
Pa. Federal Judge Orders In Camera Review Of Sham Patent Case Docs

PHILADELPHIA — In a March 27 ruling, a federal judge in Pennsylvania concluded that the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege applies to documents sought by plaintiffs asserting violations of federal antitrust law by the makers of AndroGel.
March 27, 2023
Court Enters Judgment After Ford Drops Asbestos Settlement Discovery Motion

GREENSBORO, N.C. — A federal judge in North Carolina entered judgment after Ford Motor Co. dropped its motion to compel production of settlements and offsets and assented to judgment based on plaintiff’s concession that settlements exceeded the jury’s $275,000 verdict.
March 27, 2023
Marriott Opposes Discovery Report And Recommendation In Data Breach Class Action

GREENBELT, Md. — The discovery production recommended by a Maryland federal magistrate judge would encompass documents that were not used in its valuation of customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) that was stolen in a 2014 data breach, Marriott International Inc. argues, asking a trial court to sustain its objection to the magistrate’s report and recommendation.
March 24, 2023
Parties To Libby, Mont., Asbestos Case Call Government Testimony Critical

MISSOULA, Mont. — Agents of the United States are the only ones capable of answering questions critical to a False Claims Act (FCA) case involving asbestos-related Medicare claims created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), parties to the suit told a federal judge in Montana, urging him to affirm a decision that the government must produce witnesses and to ignore a motion for reconsideration.
March 23, 2023
Google Must Give Expert Confidential Documents In Location-Tracking Suit

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A group of plaintiffs suing Google LLC for privacy violations related to the purported surreptitious gathering of their location information data prevailed in a discovery matter, with a California federal magistrate judge ordering the technology giant to turn over a collection of confidential documents to the plaintiffs’ expert witness.
March 22, 2023
Man Asks Court To Compel Asbestos-Talc Defendant To Produce Prepared Witness

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A mesothelioma sufferer facing an April asbestos-talc trial asked a Connecticut judge on March 20 to compel Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc. (WCD) to produce a corporate representative to testify about all topics, including the company’s financials, after a previous witness appeared “woefully unprepared.”
March 22, 2023
Discovery Stayed In Uber Drivers’ Biometric Privacy Suit Against Microsoft

CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge granted a motion by Microsoft Corp. to stay discovery proceedings until the resolution of its motion to compel arbitration in a putative class action under Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) brought by former drivers with Uber Technologies Inc. related to a facial recognition app, with the judge finding that there would be little harm to the drivers and predicting that the arbitration motion would be resolved quickly.
March 20, 2023
Justices Will Not Hear Appeal Over SEC’s Subpoena Service To Company’s CEO

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 20 declined review of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel’s ruling that a federal district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that a company and its CEO were properly served with subpoenas by the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the agency’s investigation into allegations of securities fraud.
March 17, 2023
As Receiver Seeks Information, Asbestos-Talc Defendant Wants Appointment Nixed

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The receiver appointed by a South Carolina court to oversee the assets of Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc. (WCD) asked the court to clarify its ruling and order the company and its counsel to comply, while on March 16 the company asked for reconsideration of the ruling.
March 15, 2023
Bestwall Asbestos Claimants Get Discovery Sanctions Appeal Put On Hold

RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has placed in abeyance an appeal by asbestos personal injury claimants in the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC of the dismissal of their challenges to a bankruptcy judge’s contempt finding against them for not providing complete information to the debtor in a discovery questionnaire, pending a decision in two similar appeals that were consolidated.
March 15, 2023
Positions Outlined In Insurance Coverage Row Over Jet Leased To Russian Operator

SAN FRANCISCO — In a joint filing in California state court, parties in an international aviation insurance coverage dispute involving Russia’s invasion of Ukraine outline their positions, including disagreements on the scope of expected discovery.
March 15, 2023
Roblox User To Supreme Court: No ‘Freewheeling Right’ To Anonymous Online Speech

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An online gamer asks the U.S. Supreme Court to deny the petition for certiorari filed by a Jane Doe that she sued for defamation, asserting that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect defamatory speech and, as such, does not shield an anonymous online speaker’s identity from being disclosed for litigation purposes.
March 13, 2023
United States Seeks Reconsideration Of Libby, Mont., Asbestos Deposition Ruling

MISSOULA, Mont. — The United States has asked for leave to file a motion for reconsideration, telling a federal judge in Montana that having two agencies appear for deposition in a dispute over fraud claims stemming from asbestos-related Medicare claims related to Libby, Mont., would require marshalling numerous individuals from several different agencies and asking them to duplicate already performed work without any likelihood of producing relevant evidence.
March 10, 2023
Recommendation In Microcaptive Probe Case Modified At Parties’ Request, Adopted

TAMPA, Fla. — Pursuant to a joint motion by the parties, a Florida federal judge made modifications in adopting a recommendation that a petition for enforcement of an Internal Revenue Service summons be mostly granted and an insurance consultancy’s motion to limit the summons be mostly denied.
March 09, 2023
Iraqi Companies, Owner Can Obtain Discovery From Firm For Arbitration, Judge Says

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge on March 8 granted motions to intervene and obtain discovery from a law firm filed by two Iraqi companies and their owner, who are accused in a pending international arbitration of defrauding an investor of $800 million, finding the movants entitled to the same discovery that was previously issued to the investor and declining to retroactively apply recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent on discovery for foreign tribunals.
March 08, 2023
Duty To Preserve Argued In Google Chrome Data Collection Suits

SAN JOSE, Calif. — In a joint submission, Google LLC and a group of plaintiffs alleging privacy violations in Google’s Chrome web browser tell a California federal court their divergent views on whether the defendant was obligated to preserve and submit mapping and linking tables about which the parties dispute the relevance to the litigation.
March 06, 2023
Church Officials Seek High Court Review After Ruling In Bishop’s Defamation Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Officials and entities affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution’s church autonomy doctrine and “ministerial exception” after the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that it lacked appellate jurisdiction over district court orders denying dismissal, denying reconsideration and seeking to bifurcate discovery or stay the proceedings in a bishop’s defamation suit.
March 06, 2023
Meta Opposes New Mexico’s Intervention In Profile Sharing MDL Settlement

SAN FRANCISCO — New Mexico is not entitled to participate in the preliminary approval hearing for the proposed $725 million settlement of the multidistrict litigation regarding the 2015 Facebook user profile-sharing incident, Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.) argues in a brief in California federal court opposing the state’s motion to intervene, contending that any “preclusive effect” the settlement might have upon a parallel suit should be addressed by the New Mexico state court where it is pending.
March 06, 2023
Ford Seeks To Compel Production Of Settlements After $275,000 Asbestos Award

GREENSBORO, N.C. — A federal court in North Carolina should compel production of amounts a woman received from pretrial settlements, which are both discoverable and may well exceed the jury’s $275,000 asbestos verdict, Ford Motor Co. says.
March 01, 2023
Amendment And Dismissal Fought After Jurisdictional Discovery In Fraud Suit

WILMINGTON, Del. — Opposing recent motions in a case concerning an alleged scheme to transfer funds from a reinsurance trust to affiliated entities and “highly volatile hedge funds,” the plaintiffs tell a Delaware Chancery Court that the case should not be dismissed for failure to prosecute and certain defendants argue in part that a bid to file a fourth amended complaint “is procedurally improper, untimely, and futile.”