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Mealey's Discovery

  • October 16, 2025

    Mont. High Court: Pa. Law Applies To Reporter’s Subpoenaed Records On Tainted Water

    HELENA, Mont. — The Montana Supreme Court on Oct. 15 ruled that a lower court erred when it found that Montana’s Media Confidentiality Act (MMCA) applied to a reporter’s records that were the subject of a subpoena in litigation brought by a hydraulic fracturing company against a media outlet related to a news story about groundwater contamination from fracking operations that affected a family in Pennsylvania.  The high court reversed and remanded the matter, ruling that the lower court “must apply the Pennsylvania Shield Law and the qualified reporter’s privilege to the subpoena and determine whether all or some of the documents sought are privileged under Pennsylvania law.”

  • October 16, 2025

    Motion To Compel Discovery Partly Granted In Software Data Sharing Class Dispute

    MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota federal magistrate judge on Oct. 15 granted in part a motion to compel discovery for production of documents and responses to interrogatories by a health care provider in a putative class suit filed by former and current patients alleging that the provider collected and shared patient medical data with third parties through use of pixel software developed by Meta Platform Inc., finding that the request for production related to social media use is “relevant to” the claims of the patients and the provider’s defenses.

  • October 16, 2025

    Judge Finalizes $50,000 Sanction For Disclosures To U.S. Labor Department

    OAKLAND, Calif. — Noting that the parties in a recently certified class action over alleged underpayment for out-of-network behavioral health treatment decided not to request oral argument after considering her tentative sanctions ruling, a California federal judge on Oct. 15 finalized an order for a law firm representing the plaintiffs to pay $50,000 for disclosures to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) that she found constituted “a knowing and intentional breach of” a stipulated protective order.

  • October 15, 2025

    Investors Seek Clarification That Mandamus Grant Doesn’t Vacate Deposition Order

    CINCINNATI — Investors filed a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, seeking clarity and confirmation that the panel did not vacate the lower court’s deposition testimony order when the panel granted FirstEnergy Corp.’s petition for mandamus and found that investigatory documents from law firms retained by FirstEnergy are protected by the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine.

  • October 15, 2025

    Respondent Urges U.S. High Court To Affirm That Subpoena Case Is Unripe

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Filing an Oct. 14 merits brief in a case the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider, New Jersey’s attorney general argues in part that the ruling the operator of pregnancy centers seeks would turn “every quotidian subpoena dispute into a federal case — a result not even the Federal Government can stomach, as it demands a bespoke exception for its own administrative subpoenas.”

  • October 15, 2025

    Plaintiff Must Provide Discovery Showing Audible Subscription Was Unwanted

    SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge on Oct. 14 granted a motion by Amazon.com Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary Audible Inc. to compel responses by a putative class action plaintiff to interrogatories supporting “her central legal theory” that the defendants violated California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by enrolling her in an Audible subscription and charging renewal fees without consent.

  • October 14, 2025

    OpenAI, News Plaintiffs Reach Agreement Ending ChatGPT Output Preservation

    SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI entities will no longer have to preserve all ChatGPT outputs after reaching an agreement with news plaintiffs about the scope of what must be saved for copyright litigation consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

  • October 14, 2025

    New York Federal Judge Orders Talc Study Author To Participate In Discovery

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge denied a motion by an asbestos plaintiffs’ expert to quash a subpoena for documents and deposition testimony in a discovery dispute with Johnson & Johnson spinoff Pecos River Talc LLC, finding that the requested discovery is relevant and would not be burdensome to produce.

  • October 14, 2025

    Suboxone Judge Tells Parties To Explain Failure To Comply With Discovery Order

    CLEVELAND — The judge overseeing the Suboxone film multidistrict litigation told certain parties, both plaintiffs and defendants, to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for failing to comply with a discovery order and ordered them to appear at a show-cause hearing on Oct. 30.

  • October 14, 2025

    High Court Won’t Review Inmate’s Appeal Based On Monitoring Of Privileged Call

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 14 denied an inmate’s petition for review of whether a prosecutor intentionally listening to his phone call with his counsel violated his right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution “without a showing of discrete, trial-specific prejudice.”

  • October 14, 2025

    11th Circuit Finds Sanctionable Conduct In Energy Drink IP Row But Vacates Award

    ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Florida federal judge’s finding of bad faith against an energy drink maker’s counsel in a trade dress infringement dispute against rival drink makers, agreeing that the attorneys engaged in sanctionable conduct during the discovery process; however, the panel vacated the judge’s nearly $250,000 sanctions award, finding it to have been improperly calculated.

  • October 13, 2025

    Man Argues Court Erred In Awarding Surgical Stapler Maker Summary Judgment

    RICHMOND, Va. — A district court decision to award summary judgment to the manufacturer of a surgical stapler “rested on two key erroneous facts,” a man who alleges he was injured by the defective stapler argues in his opening brief in the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • October 13, 2025

    FBI Seeks High Court Review Of Ruling In State Secrets Surveillance Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Arguing in a petition for a writ of certiorari that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals “adopted improper and wholly novel procedural requirements that essentially negate the [state secrets] privilege in myriad cases,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation urged the U.S. Supreme Court to again consider a case in which it previously reversed the Ninth Circuit; the ruling established a new procedure for courts to consider information covered by the state secrets privilege rather than simply excluding all such information from a lawsuit alleging improper surveillance of Muslims.

  • October 09, 2025

    Judge Upholds Ending Of LTD Benefits, Rules That Emails Were Privileged

    MILWAUKEE — Concluding in part that the plaintiff didn’t show that the fiduciary exception to attorney-client privilege applies, a Wisconsin federal judge upheld termination of long-term disability (LTD) benefits in a case that involved disputes regarding the duties of the claimant’s “regular occupation” as a customer service representative who worked remotely.

  • October 09, 2025

    U.S. Supreme Court Seeks Response In South Carolina Asbestos Receivership Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 8 requested responses to a petition challenging a South Carolina justice’s appointment of a receiver over the insurance assets of a solvent Canadian company as a sanction for its failure to participate in discovery in an asbestos action.

  • October 08, 2025

    Anthropic Must Face Copyright Claims As It Fights For Damages Disclosures

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal judge in California said music publishers’ artificial intelligence copyright claims against Anthropic PBC may proceed just days after the company asked for relief from a magistrate judge’s conclusion that the case’s novelty and complexity permitted delaying the disclosure of potential damages.

  • October 08, 2025

    Judge Tentatively Orders Sanctions For Disclosures To U.S. Labor Department

    OAKLAND, Calif. — Days after granting the plaintiffs’ third motion for class certification in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over alleged underpayment for out-of-network behavioral health treatment, a California federal judge issued a tentative order on Oct. 7 for a law firm representing the plaintiffs to pay $50,000 for disclosures to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) that she found constituted “a knowing and intentional breach of” a stipulated protective order in the case.

  • October 07, 2025

    Order To Quash Subpoena Issued In Suit Seeking Website Operator’s Identity

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted nonparty John Doe’s motion to quash a subpoena issued to website security company Cloudflare Inc., requiring it to produce information about the operators of a website that purportedly defamed a British citizen, finding that the citizen’s court filings and the motion to quash by Doe, a journalist who wrote for the site and wants to keep his identity secret, “make clear that the subpoena should be quashed.”

  • October 07, 2025

    OptumRx Argues Deposition In Opioid MDL Should Be Put On Hold To Avoid Duplication

    CLEVELAND — A pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) in the nationwide opioid multidistrict litigation on Oct. 6 objected to a ruling by the special master overseeing the MDL denying its motion for a protective order regarding a deposition that the PBM says will give counsel for the plaintiffs “two bites at the apple.”

  • October 07, 2025

    6th Circuit Grants Mandamus Petition In FirstEnergy Bribery Securities Case

    CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted FirstEnergy Corp.’s petition for mandamus related to an order to compel investigatory documents from law firms retained by FirstEnergy, which was suspected of wrongdoing in a securities bribery scandal; the panel found that the documents are protected by the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine.

  • October 07, 2025

    Law Firm In Thalidomide Cases Says Sanctions Not Warranted, No Misconduct

    PHILADELPHIA — A law firm and its managing partner, 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, tell a Pennsylvania federal judge in response to a show cause order that sanctions are not warranted for the firm’s alleged misconduct during the litigation, which began in 2011.

  • October 07, 2025

    Pa. High Court: Agency Regulation Didn’t Create An Evidentiary Privilege

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — In an Oct. 6 decision it said involved a matter of first impression, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court disagreed with the reason a state court cited for overruling Pennsylvania Parole Board discovery objections in a parole dispute but upheld the result on the grounds that the board lacks authority “to create an evidentiary privilege.”

  • October 07, 2025

    Supreme Court Won’t Hear Device Maker’s Patent Discovery Arguments

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 6 rejected a medical product company’s petition for a writ of certiorari in which it told the court that a North Carolina federal court violated its due process rights by changing both the time to trial and the time for discovery in a patent infringement case for which the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has already ordered a new trial.

  • October 07, 2025

    Anthropic Pushes Back On Ruling Delaying AI Copyright Damages

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Anthropic PBC told a federal judge in California that music publishers already have all the information they need to calculate damages and neither the novelty nor the complexity of an artificial intelligence copyright case requires delaying the disclosure.

  • October 07, 2025

    Ala. High Court Tells Lower Court To Set Aside Judgment In Bar Fight Discovery Row

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. —  The Alabama Supreme Court granted a petition for writ of mandamus and issued a writ directing a lower court to set aside its order denying a summary judgment motion filed by a defendant in a suit by two men against the defendant and other parties over injuries sustained in an altercation outside a nightclub, finding that the plaintiffs failed to use due diligence in their discovery efforts to learn the identity of the defendant and the claims against him are time-barred pursuant to the relevant statute of limitations.