Ascot Valley Foods, Ltd. v. ADF Foods, Ltd.
- Ona Wang
- 1:22-cv-02655
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Ascot Valley Foods v. ADF Foods, Judge Wang denied sanctions, deemed amendment leave moot, and reopened discovery.
ADF Foods may rely on its amended damages disclosures subject to any later evidentiary ruling, while Ascot Valley Foods receives an opportunity to seek additional discovery concerning those calculations. The order does not decide the parties’ underlying contract or trade-secret claims.
What happened
Ascot Valley Foods, Ltd. v. ADF Foods (USA), Ltd. concerns ADF Foods’ late disclosure of calculations supporting its counterclaim damages after discovery had closed. Ascot Valley Foods opposed the disclosure and asked the court to exclude the calculations as a sanction.
The court found that ADF Foods had to correct its disclosures and interrogatory answers under the discovery rules, so it did not need the court’s permission to amend them. Although ADF Foods’ omission was preventable, the court found that excluding the damages information was too severe because the information was important, Ascot Valley Foods had time to seek additional discovery, and the trial was not yet scheduled.
Judge Ona T. Wang denied ADF Foods’ motion for leave to amend as moot and denied Ascot Valley Foods’ sanctions motion. The court reopened fact and expert discovery until December 19, 2025, and directed the parties to propose any additional discovery and a schedule for completing it.
The detailed version
- Ascot Valley Foods, Ltd. v. ADF Foods, Ltd. · No. 1:22-cv-02655
- Ona Wang
- Dec. 3, 2025
Background
Ascot Valley Foods brought contract claims concerning the manufacture of meatless meatballs. ADF Foods asserted counterclaims for breach of contract and disclosure of trade secrets. ADF Foods later amended its required disclosures under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 and its interrogatory answers to provide calculations supporting its counterclaim damages. It made those amendments after fact and expert discovery had closed and after discovering that the calculations had not previously been provided.
ADF Foods moved for leave to amend. Ascot Valley Foods opposed the request and cross-moved for an exclusion sanction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(c)(1), which can prevent a party from using information that was not properly disclosed.
Court’s analysis
The court held that ADF Foods’ request for permission to amend was moot because Rule 26(e) independently requires a party to supplement or correct a disclosure or interrogatory answer when it learns that the earlier response was materially incomplete or incorrect. The court noted that ADF Foods amended its disclosures and answers within a week of discovering the omission.
The court denied the requested exclusion sanction. It found that ADF Foods’ failure was not substantially justified because it resulted from a preventable error. But the court also found that exclusion was not warranted after considering the importance of the damages calculations, the alleged lack of substantial prejudice to Ascot Valley Foods, the availability of additional discovery, and the fact that no party had moved for summary judgment on the counterclaims and trial was set for April 2026. The court stated that any request to exclude evidence at trial should instead be raised in a motion before the trial judge.
Disposition
Judge Ona T. Wang ordered that ADF Foods’ application for leave to amend its Rule 26 disclosures and interrogatory answers was DENIED AS MOOT. Ascot Valley Foods’ motion for sanctions was DENIED. The court reopened fact and expert discovery until December 19, 2025, directed the parties to submit a joint letter proposing any additional discovery and a schedule by December 5, 2025, and directed the Clerk to close the filing associated with ECF 92.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.