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Mealey's Discovery

  • April 15, 2025

    Nevada High Court: Man Who Had Politicians Investigated May Not Remain Anonymous

    LAS VEGAS — In a one-paragraph order, the Nevada Supreme Court denied a petition for a writ of prohibition by a John Doe who claimed that he had a right under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to proceed anonymously after he was sued for invasion of privacy by two local politicians who were surveilled by a private investigator he hired.

  • April 11, 2025

    Residents Say Motion To Compel Discovery In Lead-Tainted Water Case Fails

    GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Residents who sued Benton Harbor, Mich., and its officials over lead contamination in the drinking water have filed a response brief in Michigan federal court arguing that the court should deny a motion to compel discovery on grounds the motion was filed before the parties reached an impasse, which the plaintiffs argue is a violation of local and federal rules.

  • April 09, 2025

    4th Circuit Wants Response To Motion To Dismiss Expert Subpoena Appeal

    RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals asked for a response to a motion to dismiss an appeal of a ruling quashing a subpoena targeting an asbestos expert after the target of that subpoena said dismissal of the underlying action mooted the issue.

  • April 09, 2025

    Magistrate Grants Wells Fargo’s Motion To Withhold Discovery In $300M Ponzi Suit

    MIAMI — A Florida federal magistrate judge granted in part Wells Fargo’s motion to withhold discovery in a putative class action alleging that Wells Fargo aided and abetted fraud in a “massive” Ponzi scheme purportedly orchestrated by owners of insurers, some of which are now in receivership, resulting in elderly investor victims losing more than $300 million after scheme operators sold them promissory notes secured by collateral in stranger-oriented life insurance policies (STOLIs).

  • April 07, 2025

    Plaintiffs Lay Out Witness Timeline After Remand Of Asbestos Case

    LOS ANGELES — Plaintiffs tell a federal judge in California that they were mistaken about when they sought out and identified co-workers after the judge questioned the timing in a ruling finding that a stipulation eliminating liability arising from government work and government contractor and immunity defenses stripped the case of federal jurisdiction and that the action’s complexity warranted remanding it to a Los Angeles County court.

  • April 07, 2025

    Magistrate Judge Rules On Discovery Dispute In Toe Cartilage Implant Device Case

    CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia federal magistrate judge granted in part a man’s motion to compel the manufacturer of a synthetic cartilage implant (SCI) device used to treat arthritis in a toe joint to compel discovery of documents relating to similar incidents.

  • April 04, 2025

    Magistrate Judge: OpenAI’s Definition Of Competitor ‘Wildly Overbroad’

    NEW YORK — OpenAI entities’ portrayal of a small Chilean company working on artificial intelligence language bias as a competitor is “wildly overbroad” and would render anyone working in the field of AI a competitor, a federal magistrate judge in New York said in denying a protective order seeking to shield certain documents from an expert witness.

  • April 04, 2025

    9th Circuit Reverses Denial Of Discovery Of Online Article Author’s Identity

    SAN FRANCISCO — A district court erred in denying a foreign party’s request for discovery to learn the identities of the author of a purportedly defamatory online article and the operator of a website where it was posted, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, finding that the court wrongly based its denial on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution without determining whether any such rights were implicated.

  • April 03, 2025

    AI Copyright Plaintiffs Ask Judge To Confirm Extension After Discovery Breach

    SAN FRANCISCO — Artificial intelligence copyright plaintiffs on April 2 asked a federal judge in California to enforce a recent ruling granting more time to respond to a summary judgment motion as result of the violation of a discovery agreement, saying the failure to turn over what the court already recognized as relevant evidence and its broad privilege claims are making responding “burdensome.”

  • April 03, 2025

    Judge In Biocell Breast Implant MDL Upholds Magistrate Judge’s Discovery Orders

    NEWARK, N.J. —The New Jersey federal judge overseeing the Biocell breast implant multidistrict litigation denied the appeal of two case management orders relating to the shifting of costs to the plaintiffs for certain manufacturing batch record (MBRs) and the scope of a deposition of a corporate representative.

  • April 02, 2025

    9th Circuit: Inmate Entitled To Some Discovery About Lethal Injection Drugs

    SAN FRANCISCO — Affirming a trial court’s order largely granting a death row prisoner’s request for discovery about the execution drugs used by the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC), a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that the state “did not show, to the requisite degree, how its strong interest in enforcing its criminal laws . . . would be inappropriately harmed or burdened by allowing the challenged discovery.”

  • April 01, 2025

    Magistrate Grants Hurricane Coverage Quash Motion, Says Discovery ‘Not Unlimited’

    NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal magistrate judge granted the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association’s (LIGA) motion to quash discovery in a hurricane coverage dispute in which the homeowners seek discovery of more than 200 requests for admission from LIGA regarding whether it paid for repairs of certain items in the home, finding that “[w]hile discovery can be broad, it is not unlimited.”

  • April 01, 2025

    Insurer, Reinsurer Seek To Oppose Reconsideration Of Cleanup Case Production Ruling

    PADUCAH, Ky. — An insurer and reinsurer seek leave from a Kentucky federal magistrate judge to file an opposition to a ferrosilicon producer’s motion for reconsideration of a January ruling that denied the producer’s motion to compel production of documents from the insurers in a dispute over pollution-related cleanup costs; they argue in their reply in support of their motion for leave that the motion for reconsideration violates at least two prior orders and improperly raises new arguments.

  • March 31, 2025

    Canadian Asbestos Miner Can’t Secure Removal Of Judge From Asbestos Case

    LOS ANGELES — Allowing that Asbestos Corp. Ltd. (ACL) lacks any support for its “open-ended, unregulated, and chaotic notion” that it can seek removal of the judge presiding over the Los Angeles County asbestos litigation and that the idea runs counter to the “basic concept” of coordinated proceedings, a judge in California struck and denied the challenge.

  • March 31, 2025

    West Virginia High Court Prohibits Counsel’s Deposition In Estate, Trust Dispute

    CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A trial court’s order permitting the defendants in a fiduciary duty and corporate waste case in a family-run business to depose the plaintiff’s counsel “invades the province of the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine,” the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled, granting the plaintiff’s petition for a writ of petition to reverse the discovery order.

  • March 28, 2025

    Citing Case Complexity, Judge Declines Jurisdiction Over State Law Asbestos Claims

    LOS ANGELES — Plaintiffs must disclose when they learned the identify of certain coworkers in an asbestos case, and a stipulation eliminating liability arising from government work and government contractor and immunity defenses stripped the case of federal jurisdiction, and the action’s complexity warrants remanding it to a Los Angeles County court, a federal judge in California said while retaining jurisdiction over only pending motions.

  • March 28, 2025

    Contempt, Sanctions Upheld For Discovery Noncompliance In Bankruptcy Proceeding

    NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a bankruptcy court’s holding of contempt against two parties that did not comply with a discovery subpoena, as well as a corresponding imposition of sanctions with an award of attorney fees, ruling that the appellants and their counsel did not avail themselves of many opportunities to comply with court orders or to adequately explain their noncompliance.

  • March 27, 2025

    D.C. Circuit Stays Discovery In States’ Constitutional Challenge To DOGE

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 26 granted an emergency motion, filed by President Donald J. Trump, his “senior advisor” Elon Musk and the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to stay a trial court’s discovery order that permitted a group of states that sued over purported constitutional violations in the creation of DOGE to conduct expedited discovery into the department’s leadership and past and future actions.

  • March 27, 2025

    Judge Partly Grants, Partly Denies Insureds’ Motion To Strike In Water Damage Suit

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California on March 26 granted in part and denied in part insureds’ motion to strike portions of their insurer’s trial declarations in a dispute over the insureds’ water damage loss.

  • March 27, 2025

    New York Justice: Asbestos Study Subpoena Challenge Wasn’t Contempt

    NEW YORK — An asbestos expert’s and hospital’s delay in producing the identities of asbestos-talc study participants while they challenged a ruling requiring compliance with the subpoena constitutes zealous advocacy rather than clear disobedience, a New York justice said in declining to find contempt on the grounds that doing so would “chill such advocacy” and that attorney fees weren’t appropriate.

  • March 26, 2025

    Seal Motions Granted In Computer Fraud Row Between Spyware Firm And WhatsApp

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A California federal judge granted in part and denied in part motions to seal in WhatsApp’s suit against a spyware firm related to the firm’s alleged computer fraud, granting WhatsApp’s motion as to some requests because the “redactions are sufficiently narrow” and granting some of the spyware firm’s requests to seal regarding “limited redactions.”

  • March 25, 2025

    Copyright Plaintiffs: Microsoft Has Relevant Evidence In OpenAI Suit

    SAN FRANCISCO — A magistrate judge imposed the wrong standard in concluding that Microsoft Corp. has to produce records related to OpenAI entities’ alleged copyright infringement because Microsoft’s $13 billion investment in the entities and their close relationship with the tech giant means Microsoft almost certainly possesses evidence relevant to the case, plaintiffs told a federal judge in California in seeking relief from the ruling.

  • March 25, 2025

    Shipyard’s Employment Record Production Moots Motion To Compel

    NEW ORLEANS — A federal magistrate judge in Louisiana denied as moot a motion to withdraw a motion to compel production after a shipyard – through what it termed “great effort” – secured authorized release of employment records in a take-home asbestos case.

  • March 25, 2025

    11th Circuit Affirms Denial Of Discovery Subpoena In Long-Running RICO Suit

    ATLANTA — Considering four consolidated appeals by a Florida woman accused of being involved in her ex-husband’s money-laundering scheme, an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that a trial court properly denied her petition for a subpoena to obtain certain confidential documents that she filed in a Florida racketeering lawsuit for use in a criminal suit in Liechtenstein as “an attempted end-run around . . . prior rulings.”

  • March 21, 2025

    Expedited Discovery Order Reaffirmed In Union’s Suit Over DOGE Access To DOL

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., denied reconsideration of a limited expedited discovery order in a lawsuit by labor unions and nonprofits challenging access to U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) records by personnel from U.S. Digital Service and the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization (together, DOGE) and granted an amended motion for expedited discovery filed by the plaintiffs, opining that new evidence that the DOGE personnel are now also employed by the DOL “presents further reason that [DOGE’s] reporting structure needs clarifying.”