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Mealey's Discovery

  • 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.

  • 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 13, 2025

    E-Cig Maker To High Court: Federal Circuit Gets Patent Damages Wrong

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Electronic cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. (RJR) tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition for a writ of certiorari that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ affirmation of a jury’s award of more than $95 million in damages for infringing on another company’s tobacco pod technology conflicts with Supreme Court precedent on the apportionment of damages in patent infringement cases.

  • 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

    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 12, 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 11, 2025

    Talc, Other Expert Opinions Largely Admitted In Dentist’s Asbestos Suit

    LOS ANGELES — A California judge said punitive damages will be bifurcated according to California law but otherwise admitted testimony in a former dentist’s asbestos personal injury case, saying that experts may call upon training and experience and that studies on which they rely need not be identical to real world situations.  In a trial brief, a dental supply company told the court that any potential exposure from its periodontal packs in the late 1960s and 1970s would have been too small to cause mesothelioma.

  • 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.