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Mealey's Discovery

  • May 27, 2025

    OpenAI: ChatGPT Output Preservation ‘Unprecedented’ Privacy Violation

    SAN FRANCISCO — Requiring preservation of ChatGPT outputs users wish to delete simply so news plaintiffs in a copyright suit can secure a litigation advantage constitutes an “unprecedented” privacy violation and sets a “dangerous precedent,” OpenAI entities tell a federal court in California in a May 23 supplemental opposition after a magistrate judge ordered the preservation and denied a motion for reconsideration.

  • May 27, 2025

    Parties Seek Discovery In Ghana In Reinsurance Breach Of Contract Suit

    NEW YORK — The plaintiffs in a breach of contract lawsuit ask a New York federal court to issue letters rogatory to a Ghanaian insurer and three of its employees to obtain otherwise unobtainable information from as part of a gold mining equipment dispute over whether the defendants are direct insurers or reinsurers of the plaintiffs.

  • May 27, 2025

    Chief Justice Roberts Stays Discovery Orders In Challenge Of DOGE’s Authority

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. issued an order on May 23 staying two trial court discovery orders in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case regarding U.S. DOGE Service’s (DOGE or USDS) authority pending further order by the Supreme Court.

  • May 23, 2025

    South Carolina Top Court Affirms Discovery Sanction, Receiver For Atlas Turner

    COLUMBIA, S.C. — A wealth of evidence supports a trial court’s decision striking defendant Atlas Turner Inc.’s answer as a sanction for discovery abuses in an asbestos case, and the company’s “moral fraud” warranted appointing a receiver over its insurance assets, the South Carolina Supreme Court said in narrowing but otherwise affirming the rulings.

  • May 22, 2025

    Government Seeks Stay Of Discovery Orders In Suit Challenging DOGE’s Authority

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. DOGE Service (DOGE or USDS) and various federal government officials filed an application on May 21 in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a stay and an immediate administrative stay of discovery orders issued by a trial court in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case regarding DOGE’s authority.

  • May 22, 2025

    Discovery Against Singaporean Company In Arbitral Row May Proceed, Judge Says

    WILMINGTON, N.C. — A North Carolina federal judge denied motions by a Singaporean biosciences company and an affiliated doctor to vacate subpoenas to aid a foreign legal action brought against the company by Novo Nordisk A/S in a dispute over alleged misrepresentations regarding the effectiveness of a hypertension drug, rejecting the bioscience company’s arguments that the subpoenas were a “pretext” to improperly obtain discovery for a pending international arbitration between the parties.

  • May 22, 2025

    Kanye West Ordered To Supply Requested Discovery, Pay Fees In Copyright Fight

    LOS ANGELES — Kanye West and associated entities must turn over evidence in a copyright infringement suit claiming the rapper included unapproved music samples in two tracks on his album “Donda,” a federal judge in California ruled; the judge held that West and the related entities were wrong to argue that they were not in possession of any responsive documents.

  • May 22, 2025

    Kentucky Federal Judge Denies Reconsideration Request In Cleanup Costs Dispute

    PADUCAH, Ky. — A federal judge in Kentucky overruled the objections presented in and denied a ferrosilicon producer’s motion for reconsideration of a January ruling that denied the producer’s motion to compel production of documents in a dispute over pollution-related cleanup costs, ruling that the reconsideration motion impermissibly raised new arguments and failed to identify claimed ambiguities in a reinsurance contract between it and an insurer and reinsurer.

  • May 21, 2025

    ‘Death-Penalty’ Sanctions Over Discovery Not Merited, Texas Supreme Court Finds

    AUSTIN, Texas — A trial court abused its discretion by issuing discovery sanctions in the form of striking the defendant’s pleadings in a vehicular negligence suit, the Texas Supreme Court ruled, holding that there was no evidence of bad faith or intentional concealment that would justify a “death-penalty” sanction that essentially causes a party to lose the case.

  • May 20, 2025

    Government Balks At Bid To Compel Firm’s Billing Records For Work At Camp Lejeune

    RALEIGH, N.C. — The U.S. government on May 19 filed a brief opposing a motion to compel in North Carolina federal court arguing that it has produced all Camp Lejeune-related billing records sought by the Plaintiffs Leadership Group (PLG) related to work performed by an environmental and groundwater consulting firm before the Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA) was enacted and that “the burden and expense” of requiring the firm to look for additional billing records “far exceeds the benefit considering the extensive information that PLG has already received.”

  • May 20, 2025

    New Mexico Supreme Court: U And T Visa Applications Are Privileged, Not Discoverable

    SANTA FE, N.M. — The applications for two types of nonimmigrant visas that are available for crime victims are privileged, the New Mexico Supreme Court held, deeming them not susceptible to production by defendants’ subpoenas and motions to compel.

  • May 20, 2025

    ERISA Discovery In Benefit Denial Cases Is Focus Of Bid For High Court’s Review

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Discovery in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case is the focus of a petition for the U.S. Supreme Court to review a ruling for a multiemployer health plan, with the petitioner arguing that the “decision exacerbates both the ongoing split between Circuits as to determining what a plan administrator must do in order to satisfy its fiduciary obligation to perform a full and fair review, as well as the inconsistent factors that courts employ in order to determine whether discovery should be permitted,” and the plan contending that decision shows only “the routine exercise of judicial discretion in applying the same rule to differing facts.”

  • May 20, 2025

    Magistrate Judge Won’t Reconsider ChatGPT Output Preservation Ruling

    SAN FRANCISCO — A magistrate judge in California turned away OpenAI entities’ concerns over privacy and the technical issues in denying reconsideration of an order requiring preservation of ChatGPT outputs, saying the company had not shown that the outputs were not relevant to the case or that a different outcome was required.

  • May 20, 2025

    9th Circuit Won’t Rehear State Secrets Dispute In Suit Over Muslim Surveillance

    SAN FRANCISCO — The Federal Bureau of Investigation was denied its bid for en banc rehearing of a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruling that established a new procedure for courts to consider information covered by the state secrets privilege rather then simply excluding all such information from a lawsuit alleging improper surveillance of Muslims by the FBI.

  • May 16, 2025

    9th Circuit Denies Rehearing In Discovery Dispute Over Lethal Injection Drugs

    SAN FRANCISCO — Two months after affirming a death row inmate’s entitlement to some discovery regarding lethal injection drugs, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied a petition for rehearing by the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) and issued an amended opinion, maintaining its previous finding that the appellant did not establish that the ordered production was burdensome.

  • May 16, 2025

    Magistrate Grants Discovery Motion In Trademark Row Involving Web-Based Retailers

    DENVER — A Colorado magistrate judge granted a fencing company’s motion for leave to conduct jurisdictional discovery in its trademark infringement suit against web-based retailers, finding that the jurisdictional discovery information sought is necessary for the court to determine whether it has personal jurisdiction over the defendants.

  • May 15, 2025

    D.C. Circuit Denies Mandamus Petition Filed After DOGE Discovery Orde r

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals on May 14 denied a petition for a writ of mandamus filed by U.S. DOGE Service (DOGE or USDS) after a nonprofit’s discovery motion seeking information relevant to whether DOGE has substantial authority independent of President Donald J. Trump was partially granted.

  • May 15, 2025

    Third-Party Hospital: Ignore Tactics In Asbestos Spat, Impose Sanctions

    NEW YORK — Calling an asbestos defendant’s argument in briefing a “desperation tactic” that is both “immature and unprofessional,” a third-party hospital says in a reply brief that a New York federal court should impose sanctions for the undue burden and expense the defendant’s voluntary actions caused.

  • May 15, 2025

    Judge Stays Discovery In ‘Miss Cleo’ IP Fight While Mulling Dismissal

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge held that defendant television networks illustrated that there was adequate reason to stay discovery while the court considers a motion to dismiss intellectual property claims related to the television psychic character “Miss Cleo”; the judge held that the Psychic Readers Network Inc. (PRN) failed to show that it would be prejudiced by the stay of discovery.

  • May 15, 2025

    OpenAI Must Preserve Output Data, Magistrate Judge Says

    SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI entities must preserve user output data and segregate output log data going forward after consolidated news plaintiffs indicated that the amount of data being deleted is significant and the company offered no evidence about any efforts it was taking or could take to preserve the evidence, a federal magistrate judge in California said while setting a briefing schedule and hearing on potential spoliation motions.

  • May 15, 2025

    Colorado Supreme Court: Driver’s Medical Records Protected By Privilege

    DENVER — A truck driver who is the defendant in a wrongful death suit properly claimed physician-patient privilege in his emergency room medical records, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled, including facts about the underlying auto accident that may not specifically relate to the treatment of his injuries.

  • May 15, 2025

    Free Speech Law Doesn’t Apply To Compel, Sanctions Motions, Texas High Court Rules

    AUSTIN, Texas — Two appeals courts erred in finding that underlying motions to compel discovery and for sanctions were barred by the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA), the Texas Supreme Court ruled, holding that finding otherwise would subvert the act’s purposes and would serve to “drag out litigation.”

  • May 14, 2025

    Tennessee High Court: Peer- Review Privilege Waived In Items Disclosed To Family

    KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Acknowledging that discussions and materials from a hospital’s quality improvement committee (QIC) over a patient's care and death were privileged under state law as a form of peer-review privilege, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that this privilege was waived in any materials disclosed to a decedent’s family at a subsequent meeting.

  • May 14, 2025

    J&J Wants Discovery Into Talc MDL Litigation Funding

    TRENTON, N.J. — Recent developments show that something “untoward” is going on, Johnson & Johnson entities say in a notice seeking discovery and to compel production of litigation financing behind one of the primary firms involved in the federal talc multidistrict litigation in New Jersey federal court.

  • May 13, 2025

    Calling Amazon’s Privilege Claims ‘Frivolous,’ FTC Seeks Sanctions In Prime Row

    SEATTLE — The Federal Trade Commission filed a motion seeking sanctions against Amazon.com. Inc. in a suit alleging that Amazon and its officers “tricked” customers into enrolling in the Amazon Prime service, arguing that Amazon used its privilege log to hide evidence and that the claims for privilege “were so frivolous that an attorney, upon reviewing those documents or sections thereof, could not have had a good faith basis to withhold them on privilege grounds.”