United States v. LABQ Clinical Diagnostics, LLC

Background

This order memorialized the court’s ruling on the record on August 13, 2025. The United States moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(1), which permits a party to ask the court to compel discovery, against LabQ Clinical Diagnostics, LLC, Dart Medical Laboratory, Inc., Community Mobile Testing, Inc., and Moshe Landau.

Production of text messages and data dictionary

The United States sought two categories of information identified in Exhibit A to its August 8, 2025 letter: (1) non-privileged, phone-based text communications from specified employees that responded to the United States’ document requests; and (2) a data dictionary describing the fields in the defendants’ internal database.

The court granted this part of the motion as unopposed. It ordered the defendants to produce the specified text messages by October 1, 2025, and the data dictionary by August 30, 2025.

Additional depositions

The United States also moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(1) for permission to take two depositions of Moshe Landau: one concerning financial discovery and one concerning the merits. Rule 30(a)(2)(A)(ii) requires court permission to depose a person who has already been deposed in the case.

The court explained that whether to allow another deposition depends on the circumstances, including whether the deposition would unnecessarily repeat earlier questioning, whether the requesting party had other ways to obtain the information, and whether the burden outweighed the likely benefit. The defendants did not object to a financial-discovery deposition but proposed using their accountant instead of Landau.

The court granted the motion. It reasoned that Landau had the most direct personal knowledge of the financial transactions involved and appeared to have the greatest financial interest in them among the defendants. The court also found that the two depositions would not be repetitive because they would address different subjects and mostly different periods, and that the complexity of the case made it possible that one seven-hour deposition would not be enough. The court found no indication that the depositions would be oppressive or intended to annoy or embarrass Landau.

Disposition

The motion to compel production was granted as unopposed, and the motion to take two depositions of Moshe Landau was also granted. The Clerk of Court was directed to close the motion at Dkt. No. 673.