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Mealey's Discovery

  • March 06, 2026

    Expedited Discovery Ordered Related To Nonrenewal Of FEMA Workers In RIF Suit

    SAN FRANCISCO — The federal government defendants in a lawsuit by unions, groups and local governments challenging an executive order (EO) and memorandum implementing the EO that resulted in widespread layoffs of federal workers filed a 49-page Microsoft Excel document on March 5 in a federal court in California in response to an expedited discovery order issued two days earlier regarding “the individual(s) involved in the decisions regarding the renewal of” Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) cadre of on-call response/recovery (CORE) employees.

  • March 06, 2026

    In Mixed Ruling, Idaho High Court Reverses Summary Judgment, Sanctions

    BOISE, Idaho — Resolving an appeal of numerous decisions that favored a manufacturer sued in connection with a fatal farming accident, the Idaho Supreme Court reversed and remanded a three-sentence oral summary judgment ruling, reversed a grant of sanctions for alleged scheduling misrepresentations, affirmed the decision to strike “untimely opposition to summary judgment” and affirmed the award of attorney fees and costs for a motion to compel responses to discovery requests.

  • March 05, 2026

    Workday Takes Issue With Discovery Letter, Exhibits In AI Discrimination Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal magistrate judge in California on March 4 granted an administrative motion to remove an exhibit from a contested joint discovery letter that defendant Workday Inc. claims plaintiffs filed without consent and that varies drastically from the last draft version it saw.  The case involves allegations that Workday’s artificial intelligence applicant screening program discriminates against minorities and those with disabilities.

  • March 05, 2026

    Discovery Deadline Extended Again In Hurricane Coverage Dispute Involving LIGA

    BATON ROUGE, La. — After previously granting homeowners’ motion to extend discovery to provide expert disclosures, a Louisiana federal magistrate judge in a docket-only order granted a motion by the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (LIGA) to further extend discovery in the homeowners’ Hurricane Ida coverage dispute with an insurance carrier participating in the U.S. government’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and LIGA.

  • March 04, 2026

    Magistrate Deems Reserve Information ‘Relevant’ In Diocese Sex Abuse Coverage Row

    NEW YORK —  Finding that information about financial reserves may be “relevant” to the issue of a now-insolvent insurer’s coverage for claims against a New York Roman Catholic diocese for clergy’s alleged sexual abuse of children, a New York federal magistrate judge ordered the insurer to produce the reserve information in a suit over the insurer’s duty to defend and indemnify in underlying suits over the alleged sexual abuse.

  • March 03, 2026

    Amici To High Court In Merits Briefs: Rule Geofence Warrant Unconstitutional

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In 17 amicus curiae merits briefs filed in the U.S. Supreme Court on March 2, amici including X Corp., NetChoice, the Cato Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union support the petitioner, who was convicted of armed robbery through cell phone location evidence obtained through a geofence warrant that he argues was an unconstitutional violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; additionally, amicus Google LLC supports neither side but opines that “law enforcement was required to obtain a warrant to access that data.”

  • March 02, 2026

    Judge Won’t Bar Daubert Exclusion Questioning, But Asbestos Soil Expert Is Out

    NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana said she would not impose a blanket prohibition on trial questions about whether experts were excluded in other asbestos cases but warned counsel not to go into excessive detail about the rulings in those cases.  Days earlier, the judge said a shipyard should have known that it had a duty to preserve soil samples tested by an expert who had yet to be deposed in an asbestos case rapidly approaching trial, excluding the expert and any expert opinions relying on her soil testing.

  • March 02, 2026

    High Court Won’t Review D.C. Circuit’s Section 1782 Discovery Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 2 denied a certiorari petition in which a law firm that represented plaintiffs who sued two Qatari financial firms for purportedly providing financial assistance to terrorists urged the high court to prevent foreign litigants from using a federal law that permits discovery for use in foreign proceedings as a means of evading “binding protective orders” protecting sensitive materials from discovery.

  • February 26, 2026

    Parties Brief Delaware Court On Preservation Of Asbestos Bankruptcy Trust Data

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Bankruptcy trusts are the only reliable source of claims data, and an equitable bill of discovery permits a ruling preserving the evidence, repeat litigants in asbestos cases tell a Delaware Supreme Court in an appellee brief.

  • February 26, 2026

    Nonparties Win Subpoena Fight In Case Over TIAA Cross-Selling

    NEW YORK — Saying in a memo endorsement order that she “does not believe it is appropriate” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 “to force the nonparty Universities to bear this burden for information of such limited relevance,” a New York federal judge denied a motion to compel compliance with subpoenas that was filed by the plaintiffs in a putative class Employee Retirement Income Security Act case potentially involving participants in thousands of retirement plans.

  • February 25, 2026

    Soil Sample Destruction Earns Expert Exclusion From Asbestos Suit

    NEW ORLEANS — A shipyard should have known that it had a duty to preserve soil samples tested by an expert who had yet to be deposed in an asbestos case rapidly approaching trial, a federal judge in Louisiana said in excluding the expert and any expert opinions relying on her soil testing.

  • February 25, 2026

    Judge Says Nvidia May Not Avoid Discovery While Court Considers Stay

    OAKLAND, Calif. — Nvidia Corp. must engage in written discovery stemming from an amended complaint expanding the universe of copyright material it allegedly used in the training of its artificial intelligence while the court considers both a motion to dismiss and a motion to stay discovery pending the resolution of the first motion.

  • February 24, 2026

    Opening Merits Brief Is Filed In High Court’s Geofence Warrant Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a Feb. 23 merits brief arguing in part that accessing location information culled from user’s mobile devices via a geofence warrant constitutes a search, a man who was convicted of armed robbery through evidence obtained via such a warrant urged the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that the warrants violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

  • February 24, 2026

    Magistrate Won’t Dismiss Counterclaims, Grants Stay In Liability Coverage Dispute

    JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — A Pennsylvania federal magistrate judge on Feb. 23 dismissed a professional liability insurer’s motion to dismiss bad faith and fiduciary duty counterclaims but granted an alternate motion to bifurcate and stay the counterclaims in the insurer’s declaratory judgment suit disputing coverage for an underlying action arising from alleged sexual abuse by a pediatrician.

  • February 24, 2026

    Parties To Fronting Arrangement Case Stipulate To Dismiss Claims, Counterclaims

    NEW ORLEANS — The parties to litigation over a disputed fronting agreement involving a managing general agent (MGA) and an insurer filed a stipulation of dismissal in a Louisiana federal court, stating that they have agreed to dismiss with prejudice all claims, counterclaims and intervenor claims.

  • February 24, 2026

    2nd Circuit Affirms Ruling Starting Discovery From Firm For Foreign Proceedings

    NEW YORK — Distinguishing Kiobel v. Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a grant of an application for discovery of documents from a U.S. law firm for use in foreign proceedings under Title 28 U.S. Code Section 1782.

  • February 24, 2026

    Judge Signs Agreed Order On Access To Expert’s Talc Testing, Lab

    CHICAGO — Merck & Co. Inc. is set to supplement expert reports and disclosures after an Illinois judge signed an agreed order on the discovery schedule and granted the company access to talc samples tested by plaintiff expert Stephen Compton and access to his lab.

  • February 24, 2026

    Magistrate Judge Says Shipyard Must Produce Employee File In Asbestos Case

    NEW ORLEANS — The relevant factors warrant compelling an employer to produce an employee’s work file in an asbestos case, with certain protections in place to protect against privacy violations and embarrassment, a federal magistrate judge in Louisiana said.

  • February 23, 2026

    Insurers Seek U.K. Broker Testimony In Gold Mine Coverage Breach Dispute

    NEW YORK — The defendants in an insurance coverage dispute arising out of alleged damage to gold mining equipment filed a motion in a New York federal court seeking the issuance of letters rogatory to compel sworn oral testimony in the United Kingdom from an insurance broker and two of its senior executives regarding the creation, drafting and placement of the property insurance program at issue.

  • February 23, 2026

    City Waives Response To Officers’ Petition For Review Of COVID Shot Data Suit Toss

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The city of Chicago waived its right to respond to a petition for writ of certiorari filed by current and former police officers asking the U.S. Supreme Court to address a circuit split regarding discovery and determine if a decision in an early 20th century smallpox case “should be limited or overturned in favor of a tiers-of-scrutiny approach in assessing First Amendment religious discrimination claims” in challenging the dismissal of claims that collection of their COVID-19 testing results and vaccination statuses violated federal and state law.

  • February 23, 2026

    Idaho High Court Affirms Discovery Sanctions Against Pro Se Litigant

    BOISE, Idaho — Affirming judgment in favor of a health system and related defendants that a jury awarded $52.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages, the Idaho Supreme Court said in part that the pro se appellant who was sanctioned for refusing to meet his discovery obligations had “continuously tested the patience of two experienced trial judges for over a year until they reasonably concluded that there was no alternative to striking his answer and entering default because every other measure had failed to secure his compliance” and his appellant arguments lacked “any factual or cogent legal basis.”

  • February 19, 2026

    Magistrate Grants Government’s Medical Records Bid In FCA Suit Over Coding ‘Fraud’

    NEW YORK — A New York federal magistrate judge on Feb. 18 granted the U.S. government’s request for medical records in its suit against Anthem Inc. alleging violations of the 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 the request is “timely” and that the records “are in fact needed.”

  • February 19, 2026

    Mining Company: Recent Bankruptcy Plan Discovery Dooms Asbestos Case

    NEW ORLEANS — A recently discovered plan of reorganization supports the position that a Chapter 11 bankruptcy discharged all debts and liabilities and bars an asbestos suit against an alleged successor entity, a mining company argues after a federal judge in Louisiana denied its summary judgment motion based on the document’s absence.  The plaintiffs moved for contempt sanctions shortly after that ruling, citing “repeated misconduct” by the defendant, including reliance on the previously missing evidence.

  • February 19, 2026

    Judge: Work Product Protections Apply To Pro Se Plaintiff’s AI Use

    DETROIT — A pro se plaintiff’s use of artificial intelligence in a case is subject to protections, and because AI is a tool and not a person, providing it information about the case did not waive work product protections, a federal magistrate judge in Michigan said in denying a motion to compel.

  • February 18, 2026

    Government: Camp Lejeune Plaintiffs’ Bid To Nix Evidence Should Be Denied

    RALEIGH, N.C. — The U.S. government on Feb. 17 filed a brief in North Carolina federal court arguing that, with regard to the litigation over drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune, the Plaintiffs’ Leadership Group’s (PLG) motion in limine requesting that the district court preclude the government from offering evidence of any award, payment or benefit immaterial to and/or outside of the scope of the offset provision in the Camp Lejeune Justice Act (CLJA), should be denied except for with respect to the PLG’s requested relief regarding unenumerated programs such as TRICARE.