Mealey's Discovery
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December 03, 2025
Discovery Inadequacy Prompts Partial Grant Of Motion To Compel In $250M Asset Suit
WILMINGTON, Del. — The Delaware Chancery Court partially granted a motion to compel in a dispute over a complex asset-swap arrangement referred to as the “Agera transactions” that the plaintiffs allege resulted in the “dissipation of at least $250 million,” finding that the plaintiffs’ discovery responses, which include untimely and inadequate privilege logs, are deficient under Delaware law and warrant multiple waivers and compelled production.
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December 02, 2025
Standing Is Focus Of High Court Argument In Suit Over Pregnancy Center Subpoena
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Dec. 2 in a dispute concerning the New Jersey attorney general’s subpoena for information including the identity of pregnancy center donors, with the petitioner contending that the center operator had standing to sue in federal court as soon as the subpoena was issued and the respondent countering that standing requirements are still unsatisfied.
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December 02, 2025
4th Circuit Revives Part Of Detainee’s Suit, Rules That Evidence Was Admissible
RICHMOND, Va. — Concluding in part that some of the trial court’s evidentiary decisions were wrong, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment against the appellant on several counts in his suit alleging that several serious blood clots were attributable to a lack of proper medical care while he was a pretrial detainee in county jails.
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December 01, 2025
Discovery Motion Denied For Lack Of Good Cause In FCA Suit Over Coding ‘Fraud’
NEW YORK — A New York federal magistrate judge denied a motion by insurer Anthem Inc. seeking to serve a request for production (RFP) on the U.S. government in its suit against Anthem alleging violations of the federal False Claims Act (FCA) related to alleged inaccurate diagnosis codes submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for services provided to Anthem’s Medicare beneficiaries, finding that Anthem failed to show good cause for the RFP request.
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December 01, 2025
Louisiana High Court Lets Sealed Ex Parte Subpoenas Stand Pending Determination
NEW ORLEANS — With a Louisiana Supreme Court panel issuing a partial reversal and remand that drew one concurrence and three dissents in a per curiam ruling granting a request for a supervisory writ, the majority let an order sealing ex parte subpoenas duces tecum stand “until the trial court has ruled on remand.”
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November 26, 2025
Judge Halts DOJ From Obtaining Minors’ Gender Dysphoria Treatment Info
PHILADELPHIA — The U.S. Department of Justice will not be permitted to obtain the personal information of minors seeking treatment for gender-affirming care from a Philadelphia hospital, a Pennsylvania federal judge ruled, granting the hospital’s motion to limit a subpoena in which the DOJ sought information about certain drugs and treatments.
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November 25, 2025
DOJ Opposes Armed Robber’s Certiorari Petition Over Google Geofence Warrant
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief on behalf of the U.S. government on Nov. 24, opposing a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a convicted bank robber, asserting that any mistakes that were potentially made in serving a geofence location-tracking warrant on Google LLC were outweighed by the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution under which the petitioner sought to exclude this evidence.
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November 25, 2025
Judge Terminates Case Of Pro Se Plaintiffs She Says Submitted AI-Altered Evidence
OAKLAND, Calif. — A California judge upheld a sanction terminating pro se plaintiffs’ action for submitting what she found to be artificial intelligence-generated or otherwise altered videos and text messages as exhibits in a landlord-tenant case.
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November 24, 2025
N.Y. Appellate Court Affirms Order Requiring Production Of Reinsurance Agreement
NEW YORK — The First Department New York Supreme Court Appellate Division unanimously affirmed a prior order requiring an insurer to produce copies of its reinsurance agreements in the Archdiocese of New York’s coverage dispute arising from nearly 1,700 underlying sexual abuse lawsuits, holding that the state’s discovery rule governing insurance agreements extends to reinsurance contracts and that recent legislative amendments do not limit disclosure.
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November 24, 2025
Company Points To More Evidence Supporting Mesothelioma-Talc Subpoena
NEW YORK — A fourth ruling confirms that a subpoena properly targeted information about a study of individuals who developed mesothelioma and whose only known exposure to asbestos was through talc, a company told a federal judge in New York in opposing sanctions.
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November 20, 2025
Response Waived To High Court Petition On Witness Preclusion Without Bad Faith
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States filed a Nov. 19 waiver of its right to respond to a certiorari petition “unless requested to do so by the Court”; the U.S. Supreme Court petition was filed by a man the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said was convicted of defrauding Medicare after the trial court denied his “request to present the testimony of an unindicted co-conspirator who turned up as a surprise witness on the last day of trial.”
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November 19, 2025
Spain Seeks To Quash Subpoena For Financial Records In 79M Euro ICSID Award Row
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Kingdom of Spain on Nov. 18 moved in District of Columbia federal court to quash a subpoena for records of wire transfers involving dozens of Spain-related entities, writing that the motion is a premature and unreasonable effort to enforce a confirmed International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitral award against Spain worth more than 79.5 million euros.
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November 19, 2025
Delaware Court Stays Case During Asbestos Bankruptcy Document Appeal
WILMINGTON, Del. — The Delaware Chancery Court granted a stipulated stay on Nov. 18 after certifying an interlocutory appeal of its ruling allowing asbestos litigants to proceed on their case seeking to enjoin asbestos bankruptcy trusts from destroying claims documents.
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November 19, 2025
Judge Won’t Permit Discovery In LTD Dispute Where Claimant Declined Remand
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge declined to remand a dispute over terminated long-term disability (LTD) benefits to the insurer for review on the merits, explaining that any remedy would be “premature” because she had not yet reviewed the termination decision, then in a memorandum endorsement denied the claimant’s subsequent request for discovery and cautioned that any attempt to increase the insurer’s legal fees “is likely to backfire.”
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November 18, 2025
6th Circuit Won’t Rehear Decision Vacating Deposition Order Against FirstEnergy
CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied investors’ petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc seeking clarification of its order granting FirstEnergy Corp.’s petition for mandamus vacating a lower court’s production order, agreeing with FirstEnergy Corp. that the panel’s decision vacated the lower court’s deposition testimony order because there is no distinction between deposition testimony and investigatory documents from law firms retained by FirstEnergy.
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November 17, 2025
Deponent Ordered To Pay More Than $60,000 For Fees, Costs In Health Plan Case
CHICAGO — An Illinois federal magistrate judge who previously determined that a deponent’s “obstructive and combative behavior and dilatory tactics” warranted three extra hours of deposition and monetary sanctions awarded more than half of the $105,875.20 requested for related attorney fees in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action that challenges the expenses and allocations by trustees of a nationwide multiemployer health plan.
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November 14, 2025
Plaintiffs Get Discovery Extension, Extra Depositions In TIAA Cross-Selling Case
NEW YORK — Over opposition from nonparties and defendants in a putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act case potentially involving participants in thousands of retirement plans, a New York federal judge on Nov. 13 extended the fact discovery deadline and authorized the plaintiffs to take 10 additional depositions of nonparty plan sponsors.
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November 14, 2025
OpenAI Must Produce 20 Million Chat Logs, Magistrate Judge Says
SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI entities must produce 20 million ChatGPT chat logs after a federal magistrate judge in New York said the company never explained why existing protective orders and its own de-identification efforts would not sufficiently protect user privacy.
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November 13, 2025
Insurers’ Objections To Discovery Orders Substantially Overruled In COVID-19 Suit
NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York substantially overruled insurers’ objections to discovery orders that granted in part and denied in part a holding company for the U.S. interests in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group’s motion to compel the insurers to produce certain documents they have withheld as privileged in a coronavirus coverage dispute.
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November 12, 2025
J&J Entity, Medical Group Debate Motion To Compel In Asbestos-Talc Study Case
NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York will decide whether a subpoena to a health care provider seeks relevant information about the authors of an asbestos-talc study or is simply “a huge net” hoping to find something among millions of emails and other documents after briefing on a motion to compel ended with a Johnson & Johnson spinoff’s reply in support of the motion.
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November 12, 2025
Panel Affirms Denial Of Motion For Surveillance, GPS Evidence In Drug Arrest Appeal
MIAMI — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court judge’s denial of a defendant’s motion to compel production of evidence that was the basis for a search warrant of his home, comprising audio/video surveillance, GPS data and the identity of a confidential informant, finding that the defendant failed to show on appeal the evidence sought was material and that he “only speculated that the evidence would be exculpatory.”
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November 12, 2025
Interpreting Protective Orders, 5th Circuit Reverses, Directs Return Of Documents
NEW ORLEANS — Issuing an unpublished per curiam opinion rejecting the trial court’s interpretation of protective orders, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a ruling that “those orders bar a party from producing back to its opponent documents that the opponent had produced under the orders in [a] prior suit.”
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November 10, 2025
Government Gets OK For Amicus Argument In High Court Subpoena Case
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its Nov. 10 order list, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a motion by the U.S. Solicitor General to participate as amicus curiae and for divided oral argument on Dec. 2 in a dispute concerning a non-self-executing subpoena for information including the identity of pregnancy center donors.
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November 10, 2025
5th Circuit Dismisses Legislative Privilege Appeal For Lack Of Jurisdiction
NEW ORLEANS — Dismissing an interlocutory appeal concerning legislative privilege in a civil rights lawsuit over a school district’s hair policy, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concluded that under the “circuit’s third-party and non-party standing limitations,” it lacks jurisdiction because no appellant has standing to appeal.
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November 06, 2025
GLP-1 MDL Judge Agrees Plaintiffs Not Entitled To Slides In Discovery Spat
PHILADELPHIA — The Pennsylvania federal judge who oversees the multidistrict litigation involving diabetes and diet drugs that consumers allege cause gastrointestinal and other injuries overruled objections filed by plaintiffs who disagreed with a special master’s decision to not require the drug manufacturers to produce certain animal histopathology slides the plaintiffs contend are relevant to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medications at issue.