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Mealey's Discovery

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 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
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 14, 2025
Texas Federal Judge Rejects Fees For Microsoft After Patent Judgment

AUSTIN, Texas — A federal judge in Texas denied Microsoft Corp.’s motion for attorney fees in a patent infringement suit filed against it, despite a federal magistrate judge’s recommendation that Microsoft’s motion be partially granted; the judge disagreed with the magistrate judge’s assessment that the plaintiff company’s post-discovery conduct did not justify finding that the case was “exceptional.”
August 12, 2025
Magistrate Judge: Nonparty Microsoft Must Produce Licensing Info In AI Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — Nonparty Microsoft Corp. must produce documents related to artificial intelligence training material licensing deals because the evidence goes to the existence of any market for that material and to the potential damages the class of authors suffered, a federal magistrate judge in California said in consolidated litigation involving MosaicML Inc. and Databricks Inc.
August 12, 2025
Parties Ordered To Explain Failure To Provide Pharmacy Records In Suboxone MDL

CLEVELAND — The judge overseeing the Suboxone film multidistrict litigation ordered certain defendants to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for failing to comply with a discovery order.
August 11, 2025
6th Circuit Stays Discovery Of Utility’s Documents Pending Mandamus Petition

CINCINNATI — Investigatory documents from law firms retained by an electric utility company suspected of wrongdoing in a securities bribery scandal are protected by the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found, deeming the company likely to succeed on a petition for mandamus related to an order to compel and granting the company’s motion to stay discovery pending the petition’s resolution.
August 08, 2025
Extra-Record Discovery On Purported Conflict Of Interest Is Denied In LTD Row

NEWARK, N.J. — Concluding that discovery requests “are not only unjustified under the conflict of interest exception to the” Employee Retirement Income Security Act “record rule, but not proportional to the needs of this case,” a New Jersey federal magistrate judge denied a pharmacist’s request to allow discovery beyond the administrative record in her suit challenging termination of her long-term disability (LTD) benefits.
August 08, 2025
Sanctions, Judgment For Probate Lawyers’ Discovery Failings Affirmed By Panel

HOUSTON — A Texas appeals court panel found that two lawyers’ repeated objections to a probate court’s jurisdiction were “a transparent attempt to avoid even basic discovery regarding the merits,” leading the panel to affirm the lower court's “death penalty” sanctions that resulted in the striking of pleadings and entry of default judgment against the attorneys in a dispute over a $10 million fee retention for a property sale under a contingency fee agreement in violation of a restraining order.
August 08, 2025
General Agent’s Bid For Reconsideration Fails, But Insurer’s LUTPA Claim Tossed

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge denied a managing general agent’s (MGA) motion to reconsider the dismissal of its counterclaim in a case centered on a disputed fronting agreement, holding that the motion “essentially rehashes the core argument the Court considered and rejected in its order and reasons,” but granted the MGA’s alternative motion for partial judgment on the pleadings and dismissed a life insurer’s claim that the MGA violated Louisiana law.
August 08, 2025
Kanye West Says More Sanctions Not Needed In Copyright Infringement Suit

LOS ANGELES — Kanye West tells a California federal court that further sanctions are unnecessary in a copyright infringement suit involving accusations he lifted samples for songs on his album “Donda,” disagreeing with an artist revenue entity’s assertion that a deposition shows that West and business entities associated with him had made false statements about discovery to the court.
August 08, 2025
Calif. Judge Sanctions City Plaintiffs In Modesto Dry-Cleaning Pollution Dispute

SAN FRANCISCO — Finding that “egregious discovery violations” were committed, a California judge imposed issue, evidence and monetary sanctions on the city of Modesto regarding the concealing and destroying of records that show the known existence of perchloroethylene (PCE) contamination in sewers at several former dry-cleaning sites around the city three years before it filed a lawsuit against two chemical companies.
August 07, 2025
Judge Cites ‘Unique Relevance,’ Largely Declines To Strike Asbestos Witnesses

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California struck eight of 24 witnesses in an asbestos case but said the “unique relevance” of two others and the fact that the defendants appeared equally liable for an untimely deposition of a third warrants allowing their testimony.
August 06, 2025
Pa. Federal Judge Holds Off On Ordering Sanctions Against Firm In Thalidomide Cases

PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Aug. 5 ruled that he will grant a law firm and its attorneys, who represented plaintiffs who claimed that they suffered birth defects as a result of their mothers being given the drug thalidomide to treat morning sickness during their pregnancies, “the opportunity to be heard once before” he decides if sanctions are warranted for the firm’s alleged misconduct during the litigation, which began in 2011.
August 06, 2025
Florida Judge Permits Whole Genome Testing In Consumer Talc Meso Case

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Two defendants may obtain a blood sample to perform whole genome genetic testing of a 33-year-old mesothelioma sufferer, a judge in Florida said in granting the request and overruling the plaintiffs’ objection.
August 06, 2025
Man Tells Supreme Court Geofence Warrants Violate 4th Amendment

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man who was arrested for bank robbery after being tracked via a geofence warrant served on Google LLC by law enforcement filed a petition for certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide on the constitutionality of such warrants.
August 05, 2025
Military Court: Government Had No Control, Custody Of Data On Locked Phone

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Because the government did not have access to the data on a cell phone seized from an accused army member, a military appeals court majority concluded that it did not have “possession, custody, or control” of the data and, therefore, was not required to provide the defendant with access to his phone for discovery purposes.
August 04, 2025
Montana High Court Affirms Dismissal, Fees Sanctions In False Arrest Lawsuit

HELENA, Mont. — The Montana Supreme Court affirmed a discovery sanctions ruling against a man that violated an order of protection (OOP), finding that a trial court’s dismissal of his complaint against an arresting police officer and the assessment of attorney fees against him were supported by state law and were appropriate in light of his failure to comply with a discovery order.
August 01, 2025
Judge Stays Discovery Application, Instead Compels Arbitration In Argentina

MIAMI — A Florida federal judge on July 31 granted a motion by two Florida companies to stay an application for discovery assistance filed by an investor seeking to bring criminal charges against the companies and to compel arbitration in Argentina of the dispute related to a purchase agreement between the parties, writing that the court can apply federal arbitration law to a proceeding that began as an ex parte application to obtain evidence.