R. L. Mlazgar Associates, Inc. v. Focal Point, L.L.C.

Background

R. L. Mlazgar Associates, Inc. moved to compel discovery, obtain permission to reconvene depositions, and have the court decide whether a disputed email was protected by attorney-client privilege. The motion also sought additional document searches using 20 search terms. The defendants opposed the motion but stated that they were reviewing 106 documents for redactions.

The court had previously ordered the defendants to produce relevant, nonprivileged documents identified in their review by May 20, 2024. The deadline for fact-discovery motions, other than motions involving depositions, was June 20, 2024. The court later extended the deadline for completing depositions and related motions to October 31, 2024, while warning that another extension would require extraordinary circumstances.

Analysis

106 documents

The court ordered the defendants to produce the 106 documents with redactions consistent with the parties’ prior agreement by November 26, 2024. Alternatively, the defendants had to file a letter explaining why they could not meet that deadline. The court declined to impose sanctions at that time but warned that failure to comply could lead to sanctions later.

Additional keyword search

The court denied the request to require additional searches. It found the request untimely because the applicable discovery deadlines had expired and the plaintiff had not raised the issue during the relevant status conference or otherwise shown why it could not have acted earlier. The court also noted that granting the request would require extending both the fact-discovery deadline and the related motion deadline.

Disputed email and depositions

The plaintiff asked the court to find that the disputed email was not privileged or that any privilege had been waived. The court had previously found that the record did not clearly establish a waiver. It concluded that the privilege issue was moot because the deposition deadline had passed and the court would not extend it further.

The court denied the request to reconvene depositions. It found that the plaintiff’s failure to fully raise its document-discovery concerns before discovery closed and before the original depositions did not establish the extraordinary circumstances required for another extension. The court also concluded that the additional depositions were not proportional to the needs of the case.

Fees and final disposition

Because the motion was granted in part and denied in part, the court declined to award attorney fees to either party. The order states that the plaintiff’s motion was "GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART": the defendants had to produce the 106 documents or file a letter showing cause, the motion was denied in all other respects, and each party had to bear its own costs and fees. The court also denied the plaintiff’s requests for additional briefing and related exhibits.

Classification

This is a procedural order because it resolved discovery, privilege, deposition, and fee issues without deciding the parties’ underlying claims.