Mealey's Discovery : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Discovery

December 05, 2024
Fracking Company Insists Discovery Order Should Be Stayed In Mineral Rights Case

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — A hydraulic fracturing operator filed a reply brief in West Virginia federal court on Dec. 4 contending that it should grant the company’s motion for a stay of an opinion and order that the court issued granting a motion to compel the production of documents sought by the plaintiffs in a long-running mineral rights class action. The fracking operator argues that the plaintiffs are not entitled to such information prior to certification of a class and that the order poses a greater hardship to the company than it does to the plaintiffs.
December 05, 2024
Judge Awards Plaintiffs Almost $60,000 For Discovery Row In Dialysis Case

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Awarding a little more than half of the amount the plaintiffs requested, an Ohio federal judge has ordered a hospital and its health plan to pay $59,629.38 in attorney fees and costs in connection with a discovery dispute in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case over dialysis payment rates.
December 04, 2024
Judge Grants Contempt Hearing In Asbestos Dispute Over Expert Moline, Northwell

NEW YORK — A New York justice on Dec. 3 issued an order scheduling a show-cause hearing on a motion seeking to hold an asbestos expert and her employer in contempt of court for “brazenly” ignoring court rulings after the state’s high court denied leave to appeal a decision compelling production of the identities of participants in expert Jacqueline Moline’s asbestos-talc studies.
December 04, 2024
PBMs File Objection To Special Master’s Discovery Ruling In Opioid MDL

CLEVELAND — Two pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) in the opioid multidistrict litigation filed an objection to a special master’s ruling that 14 documents prepared by a legal department as part of an internal investigation are not privileged.
December 03, 2024
Discovery Rulings Issued In FCA Suit Over Alleged Cyber-Distracted Anesthesiologists

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah federal magistrate judge granted in part motions to stay depositions filed by defendant anesthesiologists and their practices in a qui tam suit asserting that they violated the False Claims Act (FCA) and a similar Nevada law by submitting for payment to government insurers claims for anesthesiology services when they were instead allegedly “immersed in the Internet” rather than providing care to their patients during surgery.
December 03, 2024
South Dakota High Court: Subpoena For Rape Victim’s Journals Lacked Specificity

PIERRE, S.D. — Relying heavily on a South Dakota victims’ rights law and United States v. Nixon, the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled that a trial court should have granted a purported rape victim’s motion to quash a subpoena from her alleged attackers that sought production of her journals and diaries, reversing the quash denial and remanding the case.
November 27, 2024
OpenAI Disputes Claim It Ruined News Plaintiffs AI Search Results

NEW YORK — OpenAI Inc. and various news entities that accuse it of using their copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence briefed a federal judge in New York over whether discovery evidence was deleted or merely reformatted allowing the plaintiffs to rerun searches of the training material.
November 27, 2024
5th Circuit Again Sidesteps Subpoena Appeal, Dismisses Airport Management Suit

NEW ORLEANS — Considering discovery and standing issues in an eight-year-old legal fight over management of a Mississippi airport, which is on its fourth time before the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, a panel quipped that “Groundhog Day has come to an end,” as it again remanded the repetitively appealed suit to the trial court for dismissal for lack of standing.
November 26, 2024
Assignee Entitled To Move For Discovery On Insured’s Cooperation With Auto Insurer

LAS VEGAS — A Nevada federal judge determined that an insured’s assignee is entitled to move for additional discovery to determine if the insured cooperated with her auto insurer in its investigation of an auto accident because the information would be helpful in the claimant’s attempt to oppose the auto insurer’s motion for summary judgment.
November 26, 2024
Google Must Provide Discovery In Gift Card Scam Suit Pending Disposition Of Claims

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge on Nov. 25 denied Google LLC and affiliated companies’ motion for reconsideration of a past order allowing discovery to continue in a putative class action against it for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by failing to protect consumers from Google Play gift card scammers, writing that a stay is not warranted by an order dismissing the claims because they were dismissed with leave to amend.
November 22, 2024
Discovery Row Over Info DOL Gave Plaintiffs Grabs House Committee’s Attention

DENVER — Discovery developments in a putative class action challenging an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) deal are the focus of a Nov. 21 letter in which the chairwoman of U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce asks the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) for an investigation because “DOL appears to be working in concert with plaintiffs’ attorneys to circumvent the discovery protections” of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
November 21, 2024
J&J Talc Debtor Wants Lawyer Sanctioned For Skipping Deposition

HOUSTON — The debtor created in Johnson & Johnson’s third attempt at a bankruptcy resolution to asbestos-talc claims urged a federal bankruptcy judge in Texas to sanction an attorney who failed to appear for a deposition, saying a pending motion to quash does not give the deponent permission to simply decide not to appear.
November 19, 2024
Texas Supreme Court: Legislative Subpoena May Not Cancel Scheduled Execution

AUSTIN, Texas — A subpoena in which a Texas legislative committee sought the testimony of a death row inmate, which was issued on the eve of his execution, violated the separation of powers of the three branches of Texas government, the Texas Supreme Court ruled, declining to grant the committee’s petition for a writ of mandamus.
November 18, 2024
Insurance Mogul Says Deposition Sealing Not Needed In SEC Fraud Suit Against Him

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Insurance mogul Greg Lindberg, a former owner of insurers now in receivership, on Nov. 15 filed in a North Carolina federal court a notice stating that “continued sealing” of certain transcript excerpts of his deposition is unnecessary in a suit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that he, his advisory services company and its former executive defrauded clients of more than $75 million.
November 18, 2024
High Court Won’t Decide If Agency Can Waive Immunity Statewide In Google Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its Nov. 18 order list, the U.S. Supreme Court denied without comment a petition for certiorari in which the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism (SCDPRT) insisted that the state’s attorney general could not waive sovereign immunity on behalf of other state agencies in discovery matters.
November 15, 2024
AFFF Defendants: Protective Order Sought For Deposition Questions Is ‘Meritless’

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The defendants in the litigation over alleged contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the firefighting agent known as aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) have filed a brief in South Carolina federal court opposing a motion for a protective order sought by the plaintiffs in six specific cases, arguing that the plaintiffs should not be permitted to “outright refuse” to respond to discovery requests and contending that their objections to “sensitive” deposition questions are “meritless.”
November 14, 2024
Google Play Gift Card Scam Victim Says Discovery Should Continue Pending Amendment

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A putative class action plaintiff accusing Google LLC and affiliated companies of violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by failing to protect consumers from Google Play gift card scammers, whose complaint was recently dismissed with leave to amend, filed a brief in California federal court opposing the court’s reconsideration of a stay of discovery while she prepares an amended complaint.
November 12, 2024
Oregon High Court: Advocate-Victim Privilege Shields Phone, Finance Records

SALEM, Ore. — Protections from disclosure provided by an Oregon statute and evidentiary rule to communications between a domestic abuse victim and a qualified advocate also encompass any records related to services provided to the victim even if they do not specifically include confidential communications, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled, granting a women’s services provider’s petition for mandamus relief from a trial court’s order requiring it to provide a victim’s telephone and financial records.
November 07, 2024
Parties To Newspaper AI Copyright Case Debate Progress Of Discovery

NEW YORK — Newspaper plaintiffs in an artificial intelligence copyright suit say technical issues plaguing searches of datasets used to train the AI programs are making the discovery process impossible and asked a New York federal judge to compel OpenAI entities to identify and admit which relevant works were used. In the joint letter, OpenAI says that while the parties are in “uncharted waters,” there is no need for the unprecedented relief the plaintiffs seek. The joint letter comes on the heels of a third case being added to the litigation and disputes over discovery into social media and what types of damages and benefits the New York Times Co. has seen from AI.
November 08, 2024
Judge Enters $13.7M Judgment Against Romania For Sanctions Accrued In Tax Row

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on Nov. 7 granted in part a group of Swedish investors’ motion for entry of a second judgment on accrued sanctions against the government of Romania for failures to comply with discovery as the investors seek to enforce a confirmed $350 million International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) award against Romania, but reduced the investors’ request by more than $2 million.
November 07, 2024
Medical Company Can’t Get Defendant’s Ankle Monitor Data In Trademark Dispute

NEW YORK — A federal magistrate judge in New York said that a plaintiff pharmaceutical company in a trademark counterfeiting dispute is not entitled to have ankle monitor data from a defendant who was convicted of federal fraud counts, holding that granting the request would allow a non-government agency years of surveillance data, which would amount to a massive violation of the man’s constitutional rights.
November 05, 2024
N.Y. Attorney General Must Produce Some Harassment Investigation Items To Cuomo

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — In a mixed ruling, a New York federal magistrate judge partly granted Andrew Cuomo’s motion to compel the Office of the New York State Attorney General (OAG) to produce certain materials from its investigation of sexual harassment claims against the former governor, rejecting the OAG’s assertions of sovereign immunity and some of its privilege assertions.
November 04, 2024
Judge Consolidates AI Suits; Parties To Work Out Social Media Dispute

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York consolidated a fourth lawsuit brought by journalists challenging the use of their content to train artificial intelligence and ordered OpenAI entities and the parties suing them to attempt to resolve a discovery issue over production of personal social media messages. The ruling leaves undecided a motion from OpenAI entities seeking evidence of damages and any positive impact AIs have.
October 31, 2024
Boiler Company Says Discovery Triggered Asbestos Case Removal

SEATTLE — It would have been objectively unreasonable to remove a case alleging asbestos exposure at various locations and to non-Navy products, and it was only subsequent discovery that demonstrated that the case belongs in federal court, a company argues in a supplemental brief opposing remand from a federal court in Washington.
October 30, 2024
OpenAI Opposes Discovery Of Employees’ Personal Social Media Content

NEW YORK — Authors and writers in artificial intelligence copyright lawsuits filed against OpenAI Inc. asked a federal judge for access to employees’ personal social media accounts, saying the record shows work-related use of the accounts. But in response, the company says that the request strays far afield from the case’s central issues, that the company has no possession of or control over the requested information and that the plaintiffs are simply employing a scorched earth discovery process.