NCMIC Ins. Co. v. Allied Professional Ins. Co. et al.

Background

NCMIC Insurance Company and Allied Professional Insurance Company are involved in a declaratory action concerning which insurer must provide coverage for claims arising from a therapeutic massage. Allied insured Charlotte Erdmann under a massage-professional liability policy, while NCMIC insured Erdmann’s employer, Valley Chiropractic Clinic, under a chiropractic-malpractice policy. After the underlying lawsuit settled, Allied counterclaimed for equitable contribution toward its share of the settlement.

The order addressed two discovery motions. NCMIC moved to compel Allied to provide answers to interrogatories and deposition questions from Allied’s corporate representative under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6), which permits an organization to designate a representative to testify about information known or reasonably available to the organization. Allied moved to strike an errata sheet in which NCMIC proposed 103 changes to the deposition testimony of its own corporate representative.

NCMIC’s Motion to Compel

NCMIC sought information about Allied’s relationships with the Association of Bodywork and Massage Professionals (ABMP) and the National Chiropractic Council (NCC), including relationships, insurance offerings, promotional materials, and Charlotte Erdmann’s possible ABMP membership. The court held that those business relationships were not relevant to deciding which insurance policy provided primary coverage. Under the coverage analysis described by the court, the relevant issues included the competing policy language and which policy was intended to cover the particular risk.

The court therefore denied NCMIC’s request to compel information about Allied’s business relationships with ABMP and NCC. It granted the motion to the extent NCMIC sought copies of Allied’s insurance policy forms offering chiropractic professional liability or similar coverage from 2015 through 2021. It denied the motion in all other respects, including requests for documents concerning policies offered through ABMP or NCC, materials about ABMP membership benefits, and documents relating to or showing Erdmann’s ABMP membership.

The court found that some instructions from Allied’s counsel and some refusals by Allied’s representative to answer deposition questions were improper under the federal discovery rules. The court nevertheless declined to impose the sanctions NCMIC requested. It reasoned that the deposition remained usable and that much of the information sought was not relevant. The court said Allied should have sought a protective order rather than instructing the witness not to answer on the stated grounds.

Allied’s Motion to Strike

NCMIC’s corporate representative, Keith Henaman, gave deposition testimony on November 10, 2025. NCMIC later served an errata sheet proposing 103 changes, using “Make accurate” as the reason for every change. The court adopted a flexible but cautious approach to changes under Rule 30(e), which allows a deponent to list changes in form or substance but requires reasons for those changes.

The court found that only two proposed changes were sufficiently justified: correcting the name of an individual and changing “$3,00,000” to “$3,000,000.” The court rejected the remaining changes because they materially altered or expanded Henaman’s testimony without adequate explanations. The court cited, among other examples, a proposed change from “Yes” to “No” and a proposed replacement of “I don’t know” with a detailed explanation.

Disposition

Judge Shannon G. Elkins ordered that NCMIC’s Motion to Compel and Allied’s Motion to Strike were both granted in part and denied in part as described above. Each party must bear its own costs associated with the motions.