Edd King v. National General Insurance Company

Background

The plaintiffs and the National General defendants submitted a joint discovery letter after being ordered to meet and confer about the plaintiffs’ request for policyholder data. The plaintiffs said all California Good Driver policyholder data from 2011 forward was relevant and necessary for class certification, particularly to calculate damages on a classwide basis. They also requested data stored on legacy systems from 2008 through the date the defendants implemented their current policy-management system, called NPS.

The National General defendants argued primarily that the data was not necessary before class certification. They offered to produce data for post-June 6, 2011 Good Driver private-passenger automobile policies sold by agents using NPS for non-supergroup entities. Their offer covered data from National General Insurance Company and MIC General Insurance Corporation beginning June 6, 2011, and from Integon National Insurance Company and Integon Preferred Insurance Company beginning September 29, 2011. They represented that this would include more than 96% of potentially affected policyholders. The opinion identifies the National General defendants as National General Insurance Company, National General Assurance Company, Integon National Insurance Company, Integon Preferred Insurance Company, MIC General Insurance Corporation, and Personal Express Insurance Company; it says they do not include Sequoia Insurance Company.

Discovery ruling

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) permits discovery of nonprivileged information relevant to a claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case. The court found that policyholder data stored on NPS was relevant to the plaintiffs’ damages and class membership. It ordered the National General defendants to produce, by May 1, 2023, all policyholder data for Good Driver private-passenger automobile policies sold by agents using NPS for non-supergroup entities. In practical terms, the order required production of all such non-legacy data from January 1, 2011, to the present, including the entity-specific periods stated in the order.

The court found the plaintiffs’ request for pre-2011 legacy-system data inappropriate because they had not shown that the liability period should extend back to 2008. The court nevertheless found legacy-system policyholder data from January 1, 2011, through the date each National General defendant began using NPS relevant to the plaintiffs’ claims. The defendants were ordered to produce that legacy data by June 1, 2023, or on another date agreed to by the parties.

Cost allocation

The defendants estimated that retrieving and extracting the legacy data would cost approximately $80,333, including approximately $23,333 for a database administrator and approximately $57,000 for an outside vendor. Because the legacy systems were no longer in use and were not reasonably accessible, the court granted in part the defendants’ request to shift the production costs. The parties were ordered to meaningfully meet and confer about a reasonable and cost-effective retrieval process. If the plaintiffs elected to proceed with their legacy-data request, the plaintiffs and the National General defendants were required to split the costs of retrieving and producing the legacy documents evenly.

Sealing ruling

The court granted the plaintiffs’ request to seal Exhibit A to Exhibit 100 and Exhibit A to Exhibit 101 of Daniel Wolfram’s March 7, 2023 deposition. The National General defendants did not oppose unsealing the remaining portions of the discovery letter, so the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to seal those portions.

Disposition and classification

The court ordered the specified discovery production, granted in part the defendants’ request to shift legacy-data costs, granted the plaintiffs’ request to seal the two specified exhibits, and denied the plaintiffs’ request to seal the remaining portions of the discovery letter. This is a procedural discovery order because it addressed information exchange and sealing rather than deciding the underlying claims.