Mealey's Discovery
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February 28, 2025
Judge Won’t Let AI Copyright Plaintiffs Set Search Terms
SAN FRANCISCO — Plaintiffs’ efforts at relitigating issues they lost undermines rulings designed to prevent delays, and the parties appear to be “taking turns to simply conjure up something about which to fight,” a judge overseeing consolidated federal copyright litigation in California involving artificial intelligence said Feb. 27 in denying requested discovery.
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February 28, 2025
Iowa High Court: Psych Tests May Be Disclosed Only To Licensed Psychologists
DES MOINES, Iowa — A trial court erred in granting an insurance company’s motion to compel production of a plaintiff’s psychological test materials in a dispute over uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM) benefits, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled, finding that state law unambiguously holds that discovery of such materials may be made only from one licensed psychologist to another.
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February 28, 2025
2nd Circuit Affirms Quashing Of New York Discovery Subpoenas For German Suit
NEW YORK — The plaintiff in a German lawsuit over purported securities violations did not establish her right to subpoena her opponent in that suit for discovery in New York federal court under U.S. Code Title 28 Section 1782, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, finding that the necessary factors of Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. had not been satisfied.
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February 28, 2025
3rd Circuit Panel Upholds Dismissal Of Vaccine Refusal Case For Discovery Defiance
PHILADELPHIA — A panel of the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has affirmed the dismissal with prejudice — as a sanction for refusing to cooperate with discovery requests and comply with discovery orders — by a Pennsylvania federal court of a former employee’s lawsuit alleging that her employer failed to accommodate her religious objection to being vaccinated for COVID-19 in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
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February 28, 2025
2nd Circuit: Section 1782 Discovery Request Broad, Peripheral To Probate Suit
NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a trial court’s denial of a man’s foreign discovery request under U.S. Code Title 28, Section 1782, finding no abuse of discretion in its holding that the requested materials were only peripherally related to the remaining issue in a Brazilian probate proceeding and an “extremely broad” fishing expedition for an as-yet-unfiled criminal suit over his brother’s alleged hiding of assets.
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February 27, 2025
Petitioners In Baltimore Bridge Collapse Suit Ordered To Be Deposed In U.S.
BALTIMORE — A federal chief magistrate judge in Maryland on Feb. 26 granted claimants’ motion to compel petitioners and their management agents and employees to submit to depositions in a Maryland federal court in an exoneration lawsuit brought by the owner and technical manager of the ship that allided with and destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
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February 27, 2025
Federal Circuit Won’t Reverse Discovery Order In Memory Chip Patent Fight
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A California federal judge did not err when ordering a defendant-appellant technology company to turn over 73 pages of source code to plaintiff-respondent entities in a patent infringement dispute over flash memory chips, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Feb. 26, denying a petition for a writ of mandamus.
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February 25, 2025
Exclusion Of Expert Was Too Harsh Of A Sanction, Tennessee Appeals Court Says
JACKSON, Tenn. — A Tennessee trial court failed to show that a woman’s violation of a discovery order “was contumacious, intentional, blatant, or otherwise so egregious as to justify the harshest sanction available, i.e., exclusion of [her] expert and dismissal of her lawsuit,” a state appeals court held, reversing the exclusion of the witness and award of summary judgment.
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February 24, 2025
Judge Denies Some Motions On Jurisdiction, Orders Asbestos Discovery
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A distribution agreement specifically referencing Rhode Island as a market keeps a supplier in an asbestos-talc suit, and the alleged failure to produce discovery in another case warrants jurisdictional discovery into related companies as well, a justice in the state said, partially granting motions for dismissal.
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February 21, 2025
Citing ‘Glacial Pace,’ Plaintiffs In AI Copyright Suit Seek To Compel Discovery
SAN FRANCISCO — While the company behind the Claude artificial intelligence promises to produce discovery before upcoming deadlines, its “glacial pace” over the last four months necessitates a court order compelling the production by certain deadlines to ensure that it doesn’t benefit from further delay, plaintiffs in a copyright suit tell a federal judge in California in a Feb. 20 letter brief.
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February 21, 2025
4th Circuit Finds Pro Se Plaintiff Was Wrongly Denied Post-Stay Discovery
RICHMOND, Va. — A trial court abused its discretion in denying a plaintiff’s request for discovery as untimely in a negligence suit against the United States, a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, holding that even if a second request served after the lifting of a discovery stay was untimely, a pre-stay request was not.
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February 20, 2025
9th Circuit: Prison Review Reports Were Privileged, Shouldn’t Have Been Produced
SAN FRANCISCO — Reversing a trial court’s ruling to produce certain prison review reports in response to discovery requests by a plaintiff prisoner and intervenor publications, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority found that the primary purpose of the meetings from which the reports come is to obtain legal counsel, making the reports protected by the attorney-client privilege.
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February 18, 2025
Magistrate Orders Another Attempt To Resolve Discovery Row In Breach Lawsuit
FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas federal magistrate judge ordered parties to “confer and make a good-faith effort to resolve” a discovery dispute that is the subject of a motion to compel in four reinsurers’ consolidated lawsuits against National Transportation Associates Inc. (NTA) over allegations of inflated provisional commissions and breach of various agreements.
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February 14, 2025
Magistrate Sustains Some Deposition Objections In Social Media Addiction MDL
OAKLAND, Calif. — A California federal magistrate judge sustained some objections in a product liability multidistrict ligation over the purported addictive qualities for adolescents of several of the largest social media platforms, finding that certain deposition topics related to the “factual basis” for the plaintiff states’ beliefs “are contention deposition topics” and not appropriate for the MDL.
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February 13, 2025
Discovery Facilitator Named In Delaware Suit Over Alleged Asset Dissipation
WILMINGTON, Del. — A discovery facilitator has been appointed in a Delaware Chancery Court case concerning the “Agera transactions” — a complex asset-swap arrangement that the plaintiffs allege resulted in the “dissipation of at least $250 million.”
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February 13, 2025
Judge Upholds Limits On Depositions, Discovery In ChatGPT Copyright Case
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California denied a motion for relief from a pretrial order, turning away arguments that limits on depositions were improper in such a complex copyright infringement case and that OpenAI entities’ income was relevant evidence in the case.
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February 12, 2025
Plaintiffs Seek To Compel Discovery From Maker Of Firefighter Gear In AFFF MDL
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee (PEC) in the multidistrict litigation for the firefighting agent called aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) has filed a reply brief in South Carolina federal court seeking to compel a defendant to respond to the PEC’s requests for production of documents and interrogatories, arguing that it is “undisputed” that the defendant sold what is referred to as turnout gear (TOG) that contained per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to firefighters across the country.
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February 12, 2025
Texas State Agencies Say They Are Immune From Paraquat Discovery, Seek Court Order
BENTON, Ill. — Texas state agencies have moved an Illinois federal court to take judicial notice of a ruling in a Texas federal court that quashed certain subpoenas that were issued in the multidistrict litigation for liability from injuries connected to the pesticide paraquat, arguing that the MDL court should rule that the agencies are immune from third-party discovery.
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February 12, 2025
California Judge Limits Testing In Mesothelioma Case To BAP1 Gene
OAKLAND, Calif. — An asbestos defendant may perform genetic testing in an asbestos case, but because expert testimony suggests that science has shown that only a BAP1 mutation can independently cause mesothelioma, the testing will be limited to that single issue, a judge in California said in partially granting a motion to compel production of a sample for testing.
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February 12, 2025
6th Circuit Affirms Former Exec’s Losses In ‘Top Hat’ Severance Benefits Row
CINCINNATI — Affirming that the executive severance plan at issue in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit “qualifies as a top-hat plan,” a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel upheld discovery and judgment on the administrative record rulings against the appellant and found no error in the striking of his jury demand.
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February 11, 2025
Depositions Stayed, Intervention Ruling Deferred In GEICO $1M No-Fault Fraud Suit
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A New York federal magistrate judge on Feb. 10 deferred ruling on the U.S. government’s motion to intervene but granted its motion to stay depositions for 90 days in a no-fault insurance fraud suit alleging that the defendants, some of whom have been indicted in a related criminal case, participated in a “scheme” to submit to GEICO for payment fraudulent no-fault insurance charges of more than $1 million, finding that the government showed that a stay is warranted but failed to indicate whether the parties consented to intervention.
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February 11, 2025
Federal Circuit: New Judge Needed In Patent Row After Expert Testimony Issues
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ordered a new trial on patent infringement to be held in front of a different judge in a North Carolina federal court, holding that the judge who previously oversaw a patent dispute between two biomedical companies repeatedly made statements that could call into question his appearance of fairness in the case.
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February 11, 2025
2nd Circuit: Former CEO’s Misdeeds Defeated Privilege Via Crime-Fraud Exception
NEW YORK — Any attorney-client privilege claimed in certain communications between a company’s former chief executive officer and his counsel was negated by the crime-fraud exception in light of securities filing failures and allegations of sexual misconduct, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found.
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February 10, 2025
Supreme Court Asked To Review Expert Disclosure Production Authority
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Appealing a New York federal judge’s order requiring him to produce expert disclosures, as well as a denial of mandamus on the matter by the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, a software developer accused of money laundering via a cryptocurrency app filed a petition for certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify when such disclosures may be ordered.
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February 06, 2025
Claimant Met Burden Of Showing She Is Disabled From Own Occupation
SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge granted a disability claimant’s motion for judgment on the administrative record after determining that the claimant met her burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that she was disabled from performing the duties of her own occupation because her disability prevented her from sitting for more than four hours at a time.