Federal Agency Fails To Prove Adequacy Of FOIA Search
Posted on May 7, 2015
Following an altercation at a Philadelphia airport in 2006, Plaintiff filed a FOIA request with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) seeking “copies of all records, reports, follow-up reports, and similar material from any TSA office containing her name initiated by any and all TSA officers, officials, investigators, and personnel.” The TSA identified 375 responsive pages and released 285 pages. Following various objections, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania reviewed the withheld documents in camera and concluded that the TSA...
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State Court Considers Possible Waiver Of Privilege Over Claims File In Workers’ Comp Case
Posted on May 4, 2015
Last week, the Supreme Court of South Dakota reversed a trial court judge who had concluded an insurer had impliedly waived the attorney-client privilege and thus had to produce all disputed documents in unredacted form. The plaintiff had brought the suit against the insurer for bad faith in resolving the plaintiff’s underlying workers’ compensation claims. The plaintiff brought a motion to compel seeking the full claim file as well as information on 199 other high-dollar claims that the insurer had handled under an initiative to deal with high-dollar claims. The Circuit Court...
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Waiting To Bring Motion To Compel After Fact Discovery Ends Carries Risk
Posted on Apr 30, 2015
In a case involving the disputed safety of a medical device in the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, the parties encountered multiple discovery disputes. Following the close of the discovery period, the plaintiff filed a motion to compel asking the court, among other things, to order the defendant medical device manufacturer to provide an index for documents it produced in discovery indicating by Bates Number the documents responsive to each particular request. The court concluded that the motion to compel was untimely. Here, fact discovery ended on December...
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Court Orders Insurer’s Handwritten Notes Discoverable Despite Work-Product Doctrine
Posted on Apr 25, 2015
Last week, a Maine court took up a discovery fight regarding certain claim and underwriting files maintained by an oil and gas company’s insurer with respect to multi-forum MTBE litigation. The oil and gas company contended that as a result of the more than 60 MTBE lawsuits filed against it, the company incurred significant unreimbursed expenses in connection with the investigation, defense, and settlement of the claims and expected to incur more expenses in future suits. The company contacted its primary insurer and alleged that the applicable product hazard limits of liability...
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Federal Court Weighs Trade Secret Concerns With Discovery Goals In Tire Blowout Case
Posted on Apr 23, 2015
In a products liability tire blowout case, the parties entered into an agreed protective order protecting the disclosure and use of confidential information. The parties disagreed on whether to include a sharing provision and the court rejected the plaintiffs’ request for a sharing provision that would allow the plaintiffs to share designated confidential information with other “as-yet unnamed plaintiffs or potential plaintiffs in other litigation.” As discovery proceeded, the defendant tire manufacturer withheld a significant amount of information on the grounds that the...
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Discovery Into Subjective Beliefs Of Individuals Settling Claims Not Allowed By Oklahoma Federal Court
Posted on Apr 22, 2015
The estate of an individual killed as a result of injuries sustained in a catastrophic railroad collision sued the railroad and the parties settled the case for $1 million. The settlement agreement released the railroad the deceased’s treating physician “from any and all claims and liabilities of any kind or nature, whether or not heretofore asserted or otherwise known, to the same extent that [the railroad] is released.” The railroad later brought a contribution claim against the treating physician in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma....
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Walruses In The Nation’s Capital?
Posted on Apr 18, 2015
According to yesterday’s opinion from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, “There are no Pacific walruses in Washington, D.C. — not even at the National Zoo.” An environmental group seeking to protect the safety of Pacific walruses asked the court to review a regulation from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service allowing certain oil and gas industry players to unintentionally “take” (harm, harass, or disturb, but not kill) Pacific walruses in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska. The court, however, decided to grant the...
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