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Mealey's Discovery

  • 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.

  • 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.”

  • 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    NEW ORLEANS — Issuing an unpublished per curiam opinion rejecting the trial court’s interpretation of protective orders, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a ruling that “those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.”

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • November 05, 2025

    Expert Opposes Sanction For Asbestos-Talc Study Email Destruction

    NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — There was no way to know that defendants would want an expert’s emails about a study, more than three years before the filing of a trade libel case, and even if the originals were deleted, Pecos River Talc LLC never investigated whether it could obtain the evidence through other means, an asbestos-talc expert tells a federal judge in Virginia in opposing sanctions for evidence spoliation.

  • November 05, 2025

    Kentucky High Court: Ruling Cut Off Plaintiff’s Jurisdictional Discovery Rights

    FRANKFORT, Ky. — Issuing a partial reversal and remand, the Kentucky Supreme Court said there was enough evidence that an out-of-state handgun manufacturer that faced a product liability lawsuit fell within Kentucky’s long-arm statute, but the record is insufficient as to due process because the manufacturer’s “failure to timely meet its discovery obligations until shortly before the trial court’s ruling deprived [the appellant] of an ‘ample opportunity’ to conduct and complete jurisdictional discovery.”

  • November 04, 2025

    FirstEnergy Argues 6th Circuit’s Mandamus Grant Vacates Deposition Order

    CINCINNATI — In its response to investors’ petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc filed in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, FirstEnergy Corp. argues that the panel’s grant of FirstEnergy’s petition for mandamus vacating a lower court’s order includes the lower court’s deposition testimony order because there is no distinction between deposition testimony and investigatory documents from law firms retained by FirstEnergy.

  • November 04, 2025

    Special Master: Hospital Must Comply With Subpoena On Mesothelioma-Talc Study

    NEW YORK — A medical provider already ordered to comply with a subpoena seeking information related to the identities of individuals in expert Jacqueline Moline’s mesothelioma-talc studies cannot avoid compliance with an identical subpoena in a different case, a special master in New York said in recommending that the court grant a motion to compel.

  • November 03, 2025

    DOJ Subpoena Seeking Gender-Affirming Care Patient Data Quashed By Federal Judge

    SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge granted a gender-affirming care provider’s motion to quash a U.S. Department of Justice subpoena that sought patient medical and communications data, holding that the subpoena was politically motivated, overbroad and an abuse of investigative authority; in the same order, the judge denied the provider’s motion to seal proceedings but granted its motion to strike a DOJ praecipe that improperly introduced new evidence in violation of local rules.

  • November 03, 2025

    Bifurcation, Discovery Stay Affirmed In Bad Faith Insurance Coverage Dispute

    HARTFORD, Conn. — A Connecticut appeals court affirmed a trial court’s judgment in an insurance coverage dispute arising from an automobile collision, holding that the lower court properly exercised its discretion in bifurcating the proceedings and staying discovery and correctly entered judgment against the policyholder after finding no evidence of unfair settlement practices or bad faith on the insurer’s part and determining that the claimant failed to provide an adequate record for appellate review.

  • October 31, 2025

    9th Circuit To Rehear Forfeiture Case Involving Discovery Failures En Banc

    SAN FRANCISCO — Ordering en banc rehearing, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated a 2-1 ruling that affirmed a trial court’s decision to strike a man’s claim opposing forfeiture of more than $1 million, which was seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), in light of his refusal to comply with repeated orders to provide additional responses to discovery interrogatories to establish his standing.

  • October 31, 2025

    4th Circuit Affirms Default, Exclusion Rulings, $811M Judgment In Scheme Case

    RICHMOND, Va. — Affirming that entities and individuals behind a purported bond scheme that targeted immigrants facing deportation must pay approximately $811 million in restitution and penalties, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a revised opinion concluding in part that entry of default judgment was an appropriate sanction for a “panoply of . . . discovery misconduct and failure to participate in this litigation”; the panel also upheld exclusion of proposed witnesses and exhibits as a proper remedy for nondisclosure.

  • October 30, 2025

    Motion To Compel Denied In RICO Insurance Fraud Suit Against Physician, Practices

    DETROIT — A Michigan federal judge on Oct. 29 denied a motion to compel discovery by a physician and medical practices in a suit accusing them of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and Michigan’s No-Fault Act by participating in a scheme to defraud Allstate by submitting fraudulent bills for treatments that were not medically necessary, finding that Allstate correctly showed that the documents at issue were privileged.

  • October 29, 2025

    Delaware Vice Chancellor Allows Challenge To Asbestos Trust Record Rules

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Companies frequently named in asbestos litigation likely have only one avenue to obtain information on plaintiffs’ asbestos trust claims crucial to the defense of suits and may continue with their challenge to trust rules that would preserve those filings for only a year, a Delaware vice chancellor said in denying a motion to dismiss.

  • October 29, 2025

    Merits Briefing In Subpoena Case Concludes; High Court Sets Argument

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court has scheduled oral argument for Dec. 2 in a dispute concerning a non-self-executing subpoena for information including the identity of pregnancy center donors, and merits briefing concluded with the filing of three amicus curiae briefs by entities that — like the respondent, New Jersey’s attorney general — urge the high court to affirm the challenged ruling against the center operator.

  • October 28, 2025

    Magistrate Grants Motion To Compel Discovery In ‘Upcoding’ Insurance Fraud Suit

    KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee federal magistrate judge granted in part a motion to compel discovery in a suit filed by UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co. and related entities alleging that medical staffing companies were “upcoding” claims, resulting in millions of dollars in overpayment, finding that the staffing companies failed to show the “disproportional” nature of the discovery request for production (RFP) related to financial reports regarding the impact of coding on profits.

  • October 27, 2025

    Motion To Compel Granted In RICO Suit Over Fraudulent No-Fault Claims

    BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A New York federal magistrate judge on Oct. 23 granted an insurer’s motion to compel a response to a subpoena issued to a nonparty owned by one of the individual defendants in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit alleging that individuals, medical providers and physicians participated in a multimillion-dollar fraudulent scheme to bill the insurer for medically unnecessary services, finding that the documents sought through the subpoena are relevant to the suit.

  • October 24, 2025

    Split Panel Affirms Denial Of Arbitration In German Discovery Dispute

    PHILADELPHIA — Addressing a question of first impression, a split Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed an order denying a bid by third-party litigation funders to compel arbitration of an application for discovery for use in Germany because the discovery application does not qualify as a “civil action” under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), while a dissenting judge said the case should be remanded for a “second look.”

  • October 22, 2025

    Defendant: Documents From Other Cases Are Not Relevant In Ethylene Oxide Dispute

    MARIETTA, Ga. — A company that operates medical equipment sterilization facilities has filed a brief in Georgia state court arguing that plaintiffs who sued it for alleged injuries related to exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO), the chemical used to sterilize medical equipment, should not be permitted to introduce documents from other similar cases on grounds that they are irrelevant and involve legal issues different from those at play in the case at hand.

  • October 22, 2025

    3rd Circuit: Judge Failed To Explain Denial Of DMCA Subpoena Sought By Streamer

    PHILADELPHIA — A Delaware federal judge should have explained the reason for denying a YouTube and Twitch streamer’s motion for a subpoena requiring Google LLC and another platform to identify certain allegedly infringing users under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, vacating the judge’s dismissal and remanding for further proceedings.

  • October 21, 2025

    Judge: J&J Won’t Get Access To Asbestos Expert’s Lab But Can Depose Employee

    TRENTON, N.J. — Allowing Johnson & Johnson entities to inspect expert William Longo’s laboratory at this stage would be too burdensome, but they may depose one of his employees on past testing methods, the judge overseeing the federal multidistrict talc litigation in New Jersey said Oct. 20 in partially sustaining objections to a special master’s ruling.

  • October 17, 2025

    Judge Won’t Hasten Damages Deadline, Says Anthropic Must Face Copyright Claims

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — In a pair of rulings, a federal judge in California said she would not hasten previous deadlines for music publishers to produce damages estimates and that the artificial intelligence copyright claims against Anthropic PBC may proceed.

  • October 17, 2025

    In Fee Case, Colorado High Court Rules 6-1 That ‘Citizen’ Includes Newspaper

    DENVER — With the chief justice dissenting, the Colorado Supreme Court reversed and remanded a lower court’s judgment in a Colorado Open Meetings Law (COML) case, ruling in part that a newspaper “falls within the meaning of the word ‘citizen’” as used in the law “and is therefore entitled to seek attorney fees if it prevails in a COML action”; it also reversed a ruling that any attorney-client privilege concerning an executive session was waived.