Chevron Mining Inc. v. Skanska USA Civil West Rocky Mountain District, Inc

Background

Chevron sought expedited discovery and an order requiring Skanska to produce transcripts of deposition and hearing testimony from an arbitration between Skanska and Tetra Tech EC, Inc., along with any related settlement. The court had previously ordered that Chevron could take expedited discovery from Skanska.

Skanska had not produced the arbitration transcripts and settlement. Skanska acknowledged that it could produce them electronically with little effort. Its stated concern was that Tetra Tech might sue if Skanska produced the materials without a court order. Skanska and Tetra Tech also argued that the earlier order allowed Chevron to take discovery but did not itself require production, or did not require production outside the procedures in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34.

Ruling

The court ordered Skanska to produce the arbitration transcripts and settlement. Under Rule 34(b)(2), and based on good cause discussed in the earlier order, the court shortened the time for Skanska to respond to Chevron’s request. It ordered production by September 13, 2019, at noon.

The parties also disputed arbitration expert reports. Because Chevron had not included those reports in the definition of the arbitration materials for which it sought immediate production, the court declined to shorten the production deadline for the expert reports. That decision was without prejudice to Chevron requesting the reports through the standard Rule 34 procedures.

Effect of the Order

The order required production of the arbitration transcripts and settlement on an expedited schedule. It did not require expedited production of the expert reports, and it did not resolve the underlying dispute between Chevron and Skanska. Judge Laurel Beeler signed the order as a United States Magistrate Judge.