Keene v. City and County of San Francisco

Background

The court was handling consolidated and related cases referred to collectively as the “Vaccine Cases.” The City and County of San Francisco proposed a centralized discovery plan to coordinate discovery, avoid duplicative requests and disputes, conserve judicial resources, and reduce unnecessary burdens. The court solicited the plaintiffs’ positions and received multiple objections.

Ruling

The court found the City and County’s proposal reasonable. It granted the City and County’s request to adopt the proposed discovery plan and overruled the plaintiffs’ objections. The court dissolved its previously entered discovery stay, directed that discovery proceed under the new plan, and made previously served discovery requests and deadlines null under the order.

Discovery procedures

The order generally required the parties to use questionnaires instead of multiple sets of interrogatories and requests for documents. The parties were to prepare questionnaires seeking information from the opposing side and submit unresolved disputes through jointly filed letter briefs. The parties could reserve objections to questionnaire responses until the information was potentially used as evidence.

After the questionnaires were finalized and any disputes resolved, the parties would have 60 days to respond. Upon a showing of good cause, the court could allow a second set of questionnaires or limited additional written discovery tailored to particular plaintiffs’ facts or claims. Each plaintiff could presumptively serve ten requests for production of documents, ten requests for admission—excluding requests about document authenticity—and ten interrogatories.

For depositions, the City and County was required to make up to ten witnesses available under Rule 30(b)(6) in the consolidated cases. Each plaintiff could take up to five fact-witness depositions. Certain witnesses relevant to at least ten plaintiffs or three cases could be deposed for up to two full days, with up to seven hours of testimony per day; other fact-witness depositions were limited to one seven-hour day. Written discovery was to be completed before depositions unless the parties agreed to early depositions, in which case the witness could not later be reexamined.

Plaintiffs’ liaison counsel was directed to coordinate deposition schedules, with limits of no more than two depositions per day and eight per week. Liaison counsel was also to coordinate the order in which the plaintiffs’ attorneys would take deposition time for each witness.

Disposition

The order granted the City and County’s request to adopt its proposed discovery plan and overruled the plaintiffs’ objections. It did not decide the merits of the underlying claims.