Rouse v. H.B. Fuller Company

Background

The plaintiffs objected to several discovery decisions made by Magistrate Judge John F. Docherty during a November 4, 2024 case-management conference. The disputes concerned: (1) discovery about events before 2016; (2) discovery of electronically stored information generated after April 2023 or September 2023, depending on the document custodian; and (3) the scope of a deposition notice seeking testimony from the defendants’ corporate representatives under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6).

The district court reviewed the magistrate judge’s non-final pretrial decisions under a deferential standard. It could reverse only if a decision was clearly erroneous or contrary to law.

Pre-2016 discovery

The court found that the November 4 transcript did not show that Magistrate Judge Docherty had ruled on the plaintiffs’ request for the defendants to collect and produce pre-2016 documents. Instead, the magistrate judge had directed the parties to meet and confer and report back if they could not resolve the issue. The district court therefore said it could not sustain an objection to a ruling that had not been made.

The court separately upheld the limitation on pre-2016 Rule 30(b)(6) deposition testimony. It characterized the plaintiffs’ objection as an improper attempt to challenge the magistrate judge’s earlier, March 2024 decision limiting the backward-looking period for discovery. The plaintiffs had not appealed that earlier decision. The district court also noted that its October 2024 decision declining to dismiss the plaintiffs’ fraudulent-concealment allegations had not decided those allegations’ merits and did not reopen the earlier discovery ruling.

Post-2023 discovery

The parties disputed whether the defendants had to keep producing documents after their April 2023 or September 2023 collections. In August 2024, Magistrate Judge Docherty had granted the plaintiffs’ motion to compel in part and denied it in part, requiring post-September 2023 production for the Andree plaintiffs because they had purchased the product in October 2023. He declined to order general, ongoing “rolling” discovery but allowed the plaintiffs to make more focused requests, subject to objections.

The plaintiffs later served requests seeking all documents and communications from April 1, 2023, to the present. The magistrate judge struck those requests because they sought the general rolling discovery he had previously declined to order. The district court held that the plaintiffs’ challenge was an untimely attempt to attack the August 2024 ruling and overruled the objection. It also stated that, even if the challenge had been timely, the plaintiffs had not shown that the ruling was contrary to law.

Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topic

Rule 30(b)(6) allows a party to depose an organization through one or more representatives on specified subjects. The plaintiffs’ Topic 58 sought testimony about the factual bases for all affirmative defenses and all denials in the defendants’ answer.

The district court upheld Magistrate Judge Docherty’s decision to strike Topic 58, except for the specific questioning the magistrate judge had permitted. The court found the topic overly broad because it would require a witness to gather and explain all factual support for every defense and denial. It also agreed that the topic could intrude on attorney work-product protection, which generally protects lawyers’ mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, and legal theories developed for litigation.

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ reliance on a different case involving more specific deposition topics. Unlike those topics, Topic 58 covered all denials and all affirmative defenses rather than a particular claim or defense. The court also found that the defendants’ promised supplementation of their responses to the plaintiffs’ interrogatory about affirmative defenses could provide the requested information.

Disposition

Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan ordered that the plaintiffs’ objections to Magistrate Judge Docherty’s November 4, 2024 decision on Rule 30(b)(6) deposition topics were overruled. He separately ordered that the plaintiffs’ objections to that decision on the scope of discovery were overruled. The order concerned discovery management and did not resolve the underlying claims.