Roc Nation LLC v. HCC International Insurance Company, PLC
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:19-cv-00554
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Roc Nation v. HCC, Judge Engelmayer ordered HCC to respond by February 7 before addressing two discovery disputes.
Roc Nation, LLC and HCC International Insurance Company, PLC, because the order set a deadline for HCC’s response and postponed the court’s consideration of the discovery disputes.
What happened
Roc Nation, LLC sued HCC International Insurance Company, PLC over payment under a key-person insurance policy after Jordan Feldstein’s death. The opinion text is a court order addressing letters about discovery disputes, not a decision on the insurance claim.
Roc Nation asked the court to require HCC to provide a fuller calculation of the claim, reproduce an underwriting document without redactions, and produce a privilege log for documents withheld as privileged. These requests appear in Roc Nation’s letter, but the opinion does not state that the court granted them.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer gave HCC until February 7, 2020, to respond to Roc Nation’s discovery letter and stated that the court would then address both disputes. The text does not show a final ruling on the requested discovery relief.
The detailed version
- Roc Nation LLC v. HCC International Insurance Company, PLC · No. 1:19-cv-00554
- Paul Engelmayer
- Feb. 5, 2020
Background
Roc Nation brought an insurance lawsuit after HCC allegedly refused to pay the amount Roc Nation claimed under a “Key Person” policy covering the risk of Jordan Feldstein’s death in December 2017. The document supplied is a letter from Roc Nation’s counsel concerning three proposed discovery disputes, followed by the court’s scheduling order. It does not decide the parties’ underlying insurance claims.
Discovery disputes described by Roc Nation
Roc Nation asked HCC to supplement its response to Interrogatory No. 9, which requested the formula HCC contended should be used to calculate Roc Nation’s claim. Roc Nation argued that HCC’s response listed several amounts as “unknown” and that HCC should provide actual figures based on information already produced. Roc Nation relied on the federal rules requiring interrogatories to be answered fully and incomplete responses to be supplemented.
Roc Nation also challenged HCC’s redactions to an underwriting-policy document. Roc Nation argued that the redacted material was relevant to its breach-of-contract and bad-faith claims and to HCC’s defense concerning representations in the insurance application. It asked the court to require HCC to reproduce the document without the redactions.
Finally, Roc Nation said HCC had withheld hundreds of responsive documents as privileged without providing a privilege log. A privilege log is a document identifying withheld materials and stating the basis for withholding them. Roc Nation asked the court to require production of nonprivileged documents and a privilege log on a shortened schedule.
Court’s action
The court stated that it had received a discovery-dispute letter from HCC, Roc Nation’s response to that letter, and Roc Nation’s separate letter. The court set Friday, February 7, 2020, as the deadline for HCC’s response to the second discovery dispute and stated that it would address both disputes after that response. Judge Paul A. Engelmayer therefore scheduled further consideration of the discovery issues; the text does not state that he granted or denied Roc Nation’s discovery requests.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.