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Mealey's Discovery

  • October 17, 2024

    Panel Issues Split Ruling In Tire Trade Dress Suit On Discovery, Daubert, Privilege

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a long-running trade dress dispute between two tire companies, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel partly affirmed a trial court ruling, deeming the asserted trade dress functional and, therefore, not protectable and upholding discovery sanctions and expert testimony exclusion, while reversing in part by finding that litigation privilege barred the defendant’s counterclaims.

  • October 16, 2024

    Georgia Supreme Court: No Attorney-Client Privilege In Jail Phone Calls

    ATLANTA — A Georgia Supreme Court majority on Oct. 15 ruled that jailhouse phone calls between an arrestee and his counsel did not include legal advice and, therefore, were not protected by the attorney-client privilege.

  • October 16, 2024

    Magistrate Denies AGs’ Bid To Stay Discovery Order In Social Media Addiction MDL

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A California federal magistrate judge on Oct. 15 denied a motion by state attorneys general to stay a discovery order in a product liability multidistrict ligation over the purported addictive qualities for adolescents of several of the largest social media platforms, finding that the attorneys general failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits or irreparable harm absent the stay.

  • October 16, 2024

    South Carolina Agency To High Court: No Immunity Waiver In Discovery Subpoena Row

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism (SCDPRT) in an Oct. 15 reply brief defends its application with the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals mandate of a ruling that the department waived sovereign immunity in a discovery subpoena with Google LLC, arguing that state law and binding precedent establish that the state’s attorney general has no authority to waive its immunity.

  • October 16, 2024

    Magistrate Finds Some Motions To Compel Documents Need Revising In Exactech MDL

    BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A New York federal magistrate judge granted in part and denied in part motions to compel the production of documents filed by plaintiffs in the Exactech orthopedic device multidistrict litigation, finding that while some of the documents are relevant to the proceedings, other requests are overbroad and too burdensome.

  • October 15, 2024

    Talc Retailer Facing Mesothelioma Case Wants Hysterectomy Evidence Excluded

    LOS ANGELES — Any jury considering a mesothelioma case should not hear about a woman’s hysterectomy performed after doctors originally mistook her disease for ovarian cancer, as that information will serve only to inflame and confuse the jury, Walmart Inc. argues in a motion in limine seeking to exclude the evidence.

  • October 15, 2024

    Judge Admits Marine Engineering Expert In Asbestos Sovereign Immunity Case

    NEW ORLEANS — After denying reconsideration and precluding a man from relying on a settled party’s experts, a federal judge in Louisiana turned away challenges to a marine engineering expert, saying the expert’s knowledge about Navy shipbuilding practices and asbestos is likely to be helpful to a jury on the issue of derivative sovereign immunity.

  • October 15, 2024

    South Carolina Court Passes On Asbestos Causation, Sanction Questions

    COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Supreme Court left in place a discovery sanction and $3.12 million asbestos verdict, denying a certiorari petition asking it to weigh in on a wide range of issues from causation and intervening cause to the availability of punitive damages and whether a court properly penalized the defendant for its handling of lung tissue sample.

  • October 11, 2024

    Apple Argues For Dismissal Of Government’s ‘Fishing Expedition’ Antitrust Suit

    NEWARK, N.J. — Apple Inc. on Oct. 10 filed a brief supporting its dismissal motion in an antitrust suit against it by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and attorneys general from 20 states, alleging that Apple violated the Sherman Antitrust Act through its monopolization of the smartphone market.

  • October 10, 2024

    Judge Wants Insights Into Discovery Request In Asbestos Case Remand Fight

    SEATTLE — Discovery requests issued after briefing on a motion for remand call into question whether asbestos claims involve allegations of exposure stemming from military vessels at a shipyard, and the parties should meet and confer to resolve the issue or file supplemental briefs on the issue, a federal judge in Washington said.

  • October 10, 2024

    Man On Dismissal: Moline Study A Portion Of Talc Case, Doesn’t Call For Discovery

    NEW YORK — Courts strongly favor granting voluntary dismissals with prejudice as precedent cited by both parties shows, and dismissal would leave no basis or need for ongoing discovery, an asbestos plaintiff tells a federal judge in New York in an Oct. 9 reply brief rebutting claims that his motion to dismiss his case was a bad faith effort to avoid discovery.

  • October 09, 2024

    New York Court: No Privacy Protections For Asbestos Expert’s Talc Study Subjects

    NEW YORK — The subjects of research papers on the connection between cosmetic talc and mesothelioma are clearly relevant to personal injury actions, and because the subjects were never treated by or patients of the researchers, they are not protected by federal health privacy law, a panel of the First Department New York Supreme Court Appellate Division said Oct. 8.

  • October 08, 2024

    DuPont Seeks To Seal More Documents In PFAS Case

    WILMINGTON, N.C. — In the long-running lawsuit brought by residents against E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Co., now known as EIDP Inc., and two affiliates (collectively, DuPont) in North Carolina federal court over alleged contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the companies have filed a brief in support of yet another motion to keep certain documents under seal.  The documents at issue in the current filing are declarations and expert reports that DuPont argues contain “sensitive, nonpublic, commercial business information.”

  • October 07, 2024

    U.S. Supreme Court Denies Cert In Trump Twitter Warrant 1st Amendment Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 7 denied certiorari to X Corp.  (formerly known as Twitter Inc.) in its bid seeking of review whether a warrant obtained by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to search former President Donald J. Trump’s Twitter account and an accompanying nondisclosure order (NDO) violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Stored Communications Act (SCA).

  • October 04, 2024

    Judge: Company Did Not Show Relevance Of Discovery Sought In Fracking Rights Case

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — A federal judge in Pennsylvania has denied a hydraulic fracturing operator’s letter motion to compel discovery in a long-running and complex dispute over whether the operator trespassed and took natural gas from landowners’ property without authorization, ruling that the company had failed to satisfy its burden “to demonstrate that the requested discovery is relevant to a claim or defense at issue in this case.”

  • October 03, 2024

    Discovery Ruling Issued In Insurance Fraud Suit Seeking Relief Under ERISA, UCL

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal magistrate judge substantially granted a motion to compel discovery filed by a cheese manufacturing company in its suit against surgery centers for alleged fraudulent billing for health care plan benefits related to unnecessary or unperformed medical services, restitution under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and violations of California’s unfair competition law (UCL), finding in part that the defendants’ privacy concerns are outweighed by the need for the discovery information that will be reviewed under a stipulated protection order that will address those concerns.

  • October 03, 2024

    Fracking Operator Says 2nd Bid To Compel Discovery In Long-Running Case Fails

    CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — A hydraulic fracturing company filed a response brief in West Virginia federal court on Oct. 2 objecting to a second motion to compel production of documents filed by the plaintiffs in a long-running mineral rights class action, arguing that they sought the same information in the previous motion to compel and the company’s objections to the first motion are still pending.

  • October 02, 2024

    Japanese Firm Can’t Avoid Asbestos Jurisdictional Discovery After N.J. Ruling

    TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey judge declined to reconsider a ruling allowing jurisdictional discovery into a Japanese company’s contacts with the state in an asbestos case after saying his concern about some of the statements made by affiants in support of a motion to dismiss warranted such a move.

  • October 02, 2024

    Mississippi High Court Reverses Summary Judgment In Explosion Coverage Dispute

    JACKSON, Miss. — The Mississippi Supreme Court held that fact issues preclude summary judgment in insurers’ subrogation lawsuit arising from an explosion at a gas processing plant, reversing the lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant and remanding for further proceedings.

  • October 02, 2024

    Florida Federal Judge Tosses FCA Suit For ‘Unconstitutional’ Qui Tam Appointment

    TAMPA, Fla. — Drawing on a dissent issued by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in United States ex rel. Jesse Polansky, M.D., M.P.H. v. Executive Health Resources, a Florida federal judge on Sept. 30 granted defendants’ dismissal motion in a qui tam suit alleging that medical providers and Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers violated the False Claims Act (FCA), finding that the relator lacks standing pursuant to Article II of the U.S. Constitution to pursue a qui tam action on the government’s behalf.

  • October 01, 2024

    Order Lays Out Security Details For ChatGPT Discovery

    SAN FRANCISCO — Discovery in plaintiffs’ consolidated copyright litigation over the data used by OpenAI Inc. to train its large language models (LLMs), including ChatGPT, will occur in a secure room at a computer isolated from the internet and other networks, a federal magistrate judge in California said in adopting stipulated protocol.

  • September 27, 2024

    Judge Partially Grants, Denies Summary Judgment In Homeland Security FOIA Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia has granted in part and denied in part cross-motions for summary judgment filed by a nonprofit news organization and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit regarding three immigration memoranda detailing temporary protected status (TPS) grants and migrant protection protocols.

  • September 26, 2024

    In Camera Review Showed Amazon Used Privilege Designation Too Broadly

    SEATTLE — Saying that almost 80% of the documents produced for in camera review “were improperly designated or over-designated as” subject to attorney-client privilege, a Washington federal judge ordered Amazon.com Inc. to make a variety of productions to plaintiffs who sued it over the unauthorized recording and retention of private conversations.

  • September 25, 2024

    Musk, SEC Debate Sanctions, Other Fallout From Missed Deposition

    SAN FRANCISCO — In a joint statement in the wake of Elon Musk’s failure to appear for investigative testimony the Securities and Exchange Commission asked for court intervention that would ensure “gamesmanship and delay tactics” would end and said it intends to ask for sanctions for missing the deposition.  But Musk said that the order requiring him to appear specifically envisioned rescheduling the event and that the limited window available for the launch of a SpaceX shuttle required his presence.

  • September 24, 2024

    Discovery Ruling Issued In Asbestos Coverage Row Involving Insolvent Insurer

    OMAHA, Neb. — A Nebraska federal magistrate judge granted in part National Indemnity Co. (NICO)’s motion to compel discovery of an insurer in its suit seeking to enforce obligations by multiple insurers, one of whom is now insolvent, for the liability NICO incurred related to claims for asbestos exposure, finding that the attorneys’ eyes only designation (AEO) must be removed from discovery material due, in part, to the insurer’s failure to “articulate why an AEO designation is the right tool to prevent this harm.”