Oakley v. MSG Networks Inc.

Background

The court considered letters from Charles Oakley and MSG Networks, Inc., Madison Square Garden Sports Corp., and Sphere Entertainment Group, LLC, which the opinion collectively calls “MSG.” The letters concerned Oakley’s contemplated motion for spoliation sanctions related to MSG’s lost corporate emails. Spoliation sanctions are penalties that may be imposed when a party fails to preserve relevant information. Oakley said he could not determine whether to seek sanctions until he received and reviewed information from Microsoft about MSG’s emails.

MSG maintained that the emails were lost because of a third-party technical malfunction. Oakley had not yet determined whether the inboxes were deleted or lost because of that malfunction or because of affirmative steps or omissions by MSG. The court cited the requirements for sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e), including proof that the opposing party failed to take reasonable steps to preserve the information and that the loss caused prejudice or resulted from an intent to deprive the other party of the information.

Text-message request

Oakley also requested a hearing and an opportunity to cross-examine James Dolan about his use of a corporate cellphone to send text messages concerning events on February 8, 2017. The court agreed with MSG that the text messages were outside the scope of discovery. In an earlier ruling, the court had determined that MSG’s document-production obligations extended to corporate emails, not corporate text messages, because Oakley’s prior motion to compel had requested corporate emails only.

The court stated that Oakley could not repackage his previously unsuccessful arguments about corporate text messages as part of a spoliation dispute. It also relied on the law-of-the-case doctrine, which generally prevents relitigation of issues the court has already expressly or implicitly decided.

Rulings

The court held that Oakley’s contemplated sanctions motion was, at best, premature because he lacked enough information to establish a good-faith basis for seeking sanctions. It therefore ordered that Oakley’s request for a pre-motion conference on the contemplated sanctions motion was DENIED without prejudice to renewal following completion of discovery on this issue. If Oakley renews the request, he must submit a letter of no more than one single-spaced page explaining whether, after completing all discovery on the issue, he believes he has a good-faith basis to seek sanctions. The court will then advise the parties whether more letters or briefs are required.

The court separately ordered that Oakley’s request for a hearing and opportunity to cross-examine James Dolan about text messaging was DENIED. The clerk was directed to terminate the motion pending at Doc. No. 296. The order did not decide whether spoliation sanctions should ultimately be imposed.