Somnia, Inc. v. Change Healthcare Technology Enabled Services, LLC

Background

Somnia brought claims against Change for allegedly breaching a Master Services Agreement. The agreement concerned revenue-cycle management and related services that Change provided for Somnia’s clients from 2014 until the relationship ended in 2018.

After the court ruled on Change’s motion to dismiss in February 2021, the parties exchanged discovery. Somnia’s counsel stated that Somnia had collected and produced approximately 300 gigabytes of information, resulting in more than 3 million responsive pages. Counsel stated that Change had produced approximately 25,000 documents, or 90,000 pages, from ten custodians.

Application for a Pre-Motion Conference

Somnia asked for a pre-motion conference concerning two discovery disputes. First, it argued that Change’s discovery responses and production were incomplete, including because Change allegedly had not searched or produced documents from people involved in billing, coding, collections, and other account work. Second, Somnia requested read-only access to its data through Change’s software. Somnia stated that its damages expert needed that access because the raw data could not be adequately cross-referenced without the software. Change opposed the requests and asserted that Somnia already had the raw data; according to Somnia’s counsel, Change did not otherwise claim that access would be difficult or burdensome.

The application was a request to address the disputes through the court’s pre-motion process. The opinion did not decide whether Change’s discovery was deficient, whether Change had to search additional custodians, or whether Somnia was entitled to read-only software access.

Ruling

Judge Philip M. Halpern denied the application without prejudice to renew. The court stated that, if Somnia wished to seek a pre-motion conference, it had to follow the court’s Individual Practices, including the requirement that the pre-motion letter be a joint letter from all counsel, limited to five double-spaced pages, outlining the discovery disputes. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate the motion sequence pending at Doc. 80.

Effect of the Order

The order resolved the procedural application but did not resolve the underlying discovery disputes or the parties’ contract claims. Because the application was denied without prejudice to renewal, the order’s stated terms did not bar Somnia from submitting a renewed request that complied with the court’s requirements.