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Mealey's Discovery

  • September 05, 2025

    Woman Appeals Sanction For Unreported Asbestos-Talc Testing

    SEATTLE — Division I of the Washington Court of Appeals indicated that it would accept discretionary review of a ruling imposing $13,200 in sanctions for counsel’s testing on an undisclosed sample of talc in an asbestos case.

  • September 04, 2025

    N.Y. Federal Judge: Jurisdiction Discovery Needed In IP Row Started In California

    SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York partly granted a professional employer organization (PEO) service company’s request for limited jurisdictional discovery in a trademark dispute with another entity offering similar services over the name “Pinnacle in what the judge called a “seemingly endless tug-of-war over jurisdiction,” noting that a California federal judge dismissed a trademark dispute with the same parties in opposite roles for jurisdictional reasons in early 2024.

  • September 03, 2025

    38 Amici Back Pregnancy Center In High Court Subpoena Row; DOJ Seeks To Argue

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — With the Sept. 2 filing of an amicus curiae brief by six pregnancy centers, 38 briefs have been filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the operator of New Jersey pregnancy centers that has resisted complying with a subpoena issued by the state’s attorney general seeking, among other things, the identities of the organization’s donors.

  • September 03, 2025

    X Corp., Privacy Group Back Convicted Robber’s Geofence Warrant Certiorari Bid

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Social network operator X Corp. and a nonprofit privacy rights organization filed amicus curiae briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting a petition for certiorari challenging the constitutionality of geofence warrants, which was filed by a man who was convicted of robbery based on geofence evidence.

  • September 03, 2025

    Judge Won’t Compel Claim Forms, Documents In Wawa Data Breach Settlement

    PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge found no merit to objections raised by Wawa Inc. related to class members’ claims rate in responding to a preliminarily approved settlement agreement over a 2019 data breach, leading her to deny the convenience store chain’s motion to compel production of claim forms or communications between the settlement administrator and  counsel for plaintiff financial institutions (FIs).

  • August 27, 2025

    Copyright Suit Parties Debate Relevance Of Newspaper’s AI Use

    NEW YORK — The New York Times Co., Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI entities sparred over whether the newspaper’s use of an in-house ChatGPT tool could constitute evidence of fair use defense in a copyright case or whether such use is noninfringing and not relevant to the claims in the New York federal court case.

  • August 26, 2025

    More Discovery Briefing Ordered In Human Serum Albumin Infringement Fight

    KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A federal magistrate in Kansas found that three related biopharmaceutical entities in a patent infringement dispute over the production of plant-derived recombinant human serum albumin (rHSA) must make supplemental responses to requests from another biopharmaceutical entity for certain discovery documents, holding that their objection to the motion to compel could not be squared with their claim to have supplied all responsive documents.

  • August 26, 2025

    Asbestos Trusts, Defendants Brief Court’s Power To Preserve Claims Data

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Asbestos bankruptcy trusts and key defendants in litigation over trust documents filed supplemental briefs detailing whether the Delaware Chancery Court’s equitable powers enable it to order preservation of claims data.

  • August 26, 2025

    Idaho High Court Reverses Real Estate Row Dismissal, Schools Parties On Discovery

    BOISE, Idaho — A trial court’s apparent lack of analysis in granting summary judgment to the defendants in a real estate sale and development dispute led the Idaho Supreme Court to reverse and remand, while a plethora of discovery errors motivated the court to offer a primer of discovery procedures and requirements.

  • August 11, 2025

    South Carolina Court Set To Consider New Trial Order In Asbestos-Talc Case

    COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Court of Appeals asked for the record on appeal and all final briefs and is set to decide whether a judge properly granted plaintiffs a new trial after they allegedly produced new evidence in an asbestos-talc case.

  • August 25, 2025

    Discovery, Summary Judgment Rulings Vacated In Securities Row Against Reinsurer

    PHILADELPHIA — A Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a lower court’s discovery and summary judgment rulings in investors’ suit against a reinsurer and three former executives over allegations that they violated federal securities laws by omitting historical loss ratios from loss reserves disclosures, finding those omitted historical loss ratios to be material and that discovery had not been completed.

  • August 25, 2025

    9th Circuit Grants Mandamus Relief Regarding Discovery Order Related To Meta MDL

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Aug. 22 granted in part a petition for a writ of mandamus filed by the attorney general of California and joined by other state attorneys generals seeking to direct a district court to grant the state attorney general’s objections to a discovery order requiring them to produce specified documents in a product liability multidistrict litigation over the purported addictive qualities for adolescents of several of the largest social media platforms, including Meta Platforms Inc.

  • August 22, 2025

    Pregnancy Center To High Court: Federal Suit Doesn’t Require State Court Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its Aug. 21 merits brief, a nonprofit, faith-based pregnancy center asks the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that the center’s constitutional challenge of a government investigative subpoena seeking donors’ personal information is not ripe because a state court had not ruled on the matter.

  • August 22, 2025

    2nd Circuit Affirms Sanctions On 2 Attorneys In Bob Dylan Assault Case

    NEW YORK — Counsel representing a purported sexual abuse victim in a now-dismissed lawsuit against musician Bob Dylan were properly sanctioned for “failure to meet their discovery obligations,” the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled, finding no abuse of discretion in a trial court’s decision to impose $8,000 in sanctions on the two attorneys.

  • August 22, 2025

    Agent Ordered To Comply With Discovery Request In Mineral Rights Dispute

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — A federal magistrate judge in Ohio has ordered an agent with a company that owns land that is the subject of a mineral rights dispute to respond to discovery requests made by a drilling operator, ruling that many of the requested communications between the agent and his wife are not protected by Ohio’s marital communications privilege.

  • August 21, 2025

    Trio Of Rulings Leaves Depositions Proceeding, Reduces Scope Of Another

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California allowed a reduced deposition of a corporate representative, saying there was no way to adequately prepare the witness on 73 topics in the time left but in a pair of docket-only orders declined to stay the deposition of two experts, finding that proceeding would not impose irreparable prejudice, the request did not comply with local rules and any stay would derail the trial date.

  • August 21, 2025

    Apex Doctrine At Issue In Mandamus Petition Over Zuckerberg Deposition

    SAN FRANCISCO — Meta Platforms Inc. asked the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to grant its petition for mandamus and provide guidance on application of the apex doctrine as the tech company seeks to avoid a lower court’s order that Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg be deposed in a suit over the purported collection of Facebook users’ protected health information (PHI).

  • August 19, 2025

    PBM Asks For Order Barring Ex Parte Communications After Email Error In Opioid MDL

    CLEVELAND — A pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) involved in the opioid multidistrict litigation pending in a federal court in Ohio moved for an order “prohibiting ex parte communications between the Special Masters and the Court regarding the Special Masters’ rulings.”

  • August 18, 2025

    Expert Used AI, Submitted Fake Cites, Quotes, State Defendants Say

    BATON ROUGE, La. — An expert who submitted dozens of fake articles and quotations likely created by artificial intelligence can never be found to be competent or reliable and must be excluded by the court, state officials defending an age verification law tell a federal judge in Louisiana in an Aug. 15 motion.

  • August 18, 2025

    Discovery Stay Denied In Suit Between Insurer, Ex-CEO Over Legal Bills Dispute

    DALLAS — A Texas federal judge denied a motion to stay discovery pending resolution of a former insurance CEO’s motions for partial summary judgment on advancement of incurred legal fees and dismissal of his former employer’s counterclaims, stating that “neither the breadth nor the burden of discovery warrants a stay” in the case, which is centered on allegations that the former CEO manipulated the insurer’s claims reserves, resulting in financial losses from a terminated loss portfolio transfer (LPT) reinsurance contract.

  • August 18, 2025

    Insurer, Property Owner Seek Protective Order In Suit Over Defective Workmanship

    PHOENIX — An excess commercial insurer and an apartment complex owner asked an Arizona federal court to issue a protective order as to discovery in the insurer’s lawsuit seeking a declaration that an underlying $6 million stipulated judgment arising from defective workmanship claims cannot be enforced against it.

  • August 18, 2025

    Judge Says Jury Can Hear Hysterectomy Evidence In Asbestos-Talc Case

    LOS ANGELES — A judge in Los Angeles set trial for Aug. 25 after denying a motion to exclude testimony that a woman’s mesothelioma spread to her ovaries necessitating a hysterectomy, saying the defendants may cross-examine any experts and physicians about the need for the procedure.

  • August 18, 2025

    5th Circuit Affirms Discovery Sanctions For Uninformed Deposition Witness

    NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has affirmed discovery sanctions, including $31,836.70 in attorney fees, against a Mexican national after the owner of a Texas home where the national lives responded to a deposition notice by sending a sales representative who couldn’t answer questions about the purchase of the home; in a separate but related appeal, the same panel affirmed the trial court’s denial of the national’s motion to quash a subpoena for foreign discovery.

  • August 15, 2025

    Man: J&J Can’t Revoke Talc Documents’ Authenticity Agreement After Discovery

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Johnson & Johnson entities avoided formal discovery by agreeing to acknowledge the authenticity of produced business records in more than 40 asbestos cases and should not now be allowed to revoke that admission after the close of discovery in one of the cases, a man tells a judge in Connecticut in an Aug. 14 motion.

  • August 15, 2025

    2nd Circuit Affirms Co-Ownership Of ‘Zioness’ Mark, Vacates Fee Denial

    NEW YORK — A panel in the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a federal jury’s finding that two pro-Zionist advocacy groups were the co-owners of the trademark “Zioness,” holding that sufficient evidence supported a finding that there was overlap of use of the mark before its registration.