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

Mealey's Discovery

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.
August 01, 2025
Guaranty Association Seeks To Compel Discovery In Coverage Row With Homeowner

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA), which was substituted as a defendant for a now-insolvent insurer, moved to compel discovery of a homeowner in her suit alleging that the insurer failure to adequately compensate her for purported damage to her home.
July 31, 2025
Judge Strikes Some Defenses, Complains Of ‘Gamesmanship’ In Musk-Altman Battle

SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk and Samuel Altman are participating in “gamesmanship” in their litigation against each other, a federal judge in California said in declining to wade through the “excessive affirmative defenses” and an overreaching motion to strike them and instead eliminating only the 16 “clearly immaterial” ones.
July 31, 2025
7th Circuit Upholds Dismissal, Monetary Sanctions For Software Engineer, Lawyer

CHICAGO — Citing inconsistent testimony and multiplying proceedings in an employment dispute, a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a trial court’s decision to impose sanctions in the form of dismissal, costs and attorney fees against a fired employee of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and his lawyer.
July 30, 2025
Oral Argument On Motion To Compel Set In Case Centered On Fronting Arrangement

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal magistrate judge scheduled oral argument for Aug. 20 on a managing general agent (MGA)’s motion to compel in litigation concerning a disputed fronting agreement involving it and an insurer; the magistrate judge also dismissed as moot the insurer’s motions to quash and expedite discovery proceedings because both parties were ordered to “meet and confer to schedule the depositions for August 2025.”
July 30, 2025
DOJ Opposes Petition Over Right To Appeal Privileged Document Subpoena

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Filing an opposition brief on behalf of the U.S. government, the U.S. Department of Justice recommends that the U.S. Supreme Court deny a petition for certiorari from a third party in a grand jury investigation that seeks to appeal an order compelling purportedly privileged documents, arguing that an asserted exception does not apply and that the appeal may be pursued via an established procedure that includes contempt.
July 28, 2025
Delaying Discovery In Bad Faith Suit Not Warranted, Utah Federal Judge Says

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah federal judge denied an insurer’s motion to stay discovery until an opinion is issued on the insurer’s motion for summary judgment after determining that staying discovery will cause prejudice to the plaintiffs and will delay the resolution of the plaintiffs’ breach of contract and bad faith suit stemming from a claim for underinsured motorist (UIM) benefits.