Williams v. Affinity Insurance Services, Inc.

Background

Plaintiffs Isabel Williams and Jeffrey Pytel purchased travel-insurance policies through Carnival Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line. They sought discovery from Affinity Insurance Services, AIS Affinity Insurance Agency, and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Services concerning travel-insurance policies sold through other retail partners and transactions involving people other than the plaintiffs.

The class had not yet been certified, and class-certification motions were due April 3, 2025. The court explained that district courts have discretion over whether to allow discovery before class certification and whether to require an initial showing that the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 are met.

Discovery about other policies and transactions

The plaintiffs relied on cases allowing discovery about products that they had not purchased when the purchased and unpurchased products were substantially similar. The defendants argued that this approach was no longer valid and that the plaintiffs had to make an initial showing that Rule 23’s class-action requirements were satisfied.

The court declined to order discovery covering every possible retail partner or transactions beyond the plaintiffs’ purchases. The plaintiffs did not explain how many other retailers or transactions would be involved, and the defendants said that dozens of retailers might be implicated. Because the scope was undefined, the court could not determine whether the discovery would be proportionate under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1).

The court also found that the plaintiffs’ statements supporting substantial similarity were conclusory and insufficient. The court therefore denied the plaintiffs’ requests for discovery concerning retailers beyond Carnival and Norwegian and denied their requests for discovery concerning transactions completed by unnamed plaintiffs.

Redacted documents

The parties separately disputed whether the defendants had to produce unredacted versions of responsive documents. The plaintiffs argued that relevance-based redactions were improper because a protective order was already in place. The defendants argued that the plaintiffs were not entitled to extraneous information.

The court stated that redacting responsive documents based on relevance or responsiveness is generally improper. It also found that the defendants had not explained why the existing protective order was inadequate. The court ordered the defendants to produce unredacted versions of documents responsive to the plaintiffs’ requests within 14 days of the order.

Disposition

The order denied the specified discovery requests and ordered production of the unredacted responsive documents. It stated that the order disposed of docket entry 83.