Planet Aid, Inc. v. Reveal, Center for Investigative Reporting
- Maxine Chesney
- 3:17-cv-03695
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Planet Aid v. Reveal, Judge Corley granted the plaintiffs’ motion seeking letters rogatory to obtain foreign witness discovery.
Planet Aid, Inc. and the other plaintiffs may seek documents and depositions from the five identified foreign declarants through letters rogatory. The order also concerns Reveal, Center for Investigative Reporting, and the other defendants because the discovery relates to declarations supporting their pending motion to strike.
What happened
Planet Aid, Inc. and other plaintiffs asked the court to issue letters rogatory—formal requests for assistance from a foreign court—to obtain documents and depositions from five Malawian citizens. The request concerned declarations those individuals had submitted for the defendants’ pending motion to strike the first amended complaint.
The plaintiffs said the requested testimony was relevant to their defamation claims and needed to respond to the motion to strike. The court agreed, finding that the declarants had relevant information and that no more convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive alternative source was available. The defendants did not oppose the motion but disagreed with factual statements in it.
In Planet Aid, Inc. v. Reveal, Center for Investigative Reporting, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley granted the motion. The court said it would sign and seal the letters and return them to plaintiffs’ counsel for forwarding to the U.S. Department of State.
The detailed version
- Planet Aid, Inc. v. Reveal, Center for Investigative Reporting · No. 3:17-cv-03695
- Maxine Chesney
- Feb. 24, 2020
Background
Planet Aid, Inc. and other plaintiffs moved under 28 U.S.C. § 1781 and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) and 28(b) for issuance of letters rogatory. A letter rogatory is a formal request from a court handling a case to a foreign court for help performing a judicial act, such as taking evidence.
The proposed letters sought documents from and depositions of five people identified as Malawian citizens: Harrison Longwe, Kandani Ngwira, Innocent Chitosi, Mbachi Munthali, and Marko Zebiah. The defendants did not oppose the motion, although they disagreed with factual statements and characterizations in the plaintiffs’ motion.
Court’s analysis
The plaintiffs sought the letters because the defendants’ pending motion to strike the first amended complaint relied on declarations from all five people. The plaintiffs said they needed to examine the declarants under oath to test their testimony and address the motion to strike. They also argued that the requested testimony was relevant to their defamation claims and proportional to the needs of the case.
The court agreed. It found that the five declarants were witnesses with relevant information because they had submitted declarations supporting the motion to strike. The court also noted that the first amended complaint identified three of them—Longwe, Ngwira, and Zebiah—as alleged sources of specific defamatory statements. Applying the federal discovery rules, the court concluded that the requested discovery was relevant and that no alternative source was more convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive.
Disposition
The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for issuance of letters rogatory. It stated that it would sign and seal each proposed letter and return the letters with original signatures and seals to plaintiffs’ counsel for forwarding to the United States Department of State. The order disposed of Docket No. 258.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.