Chen-Oster v. Goldman, Sachs & Co. LLC.

Background

The court reviewed letters concerning pretrial preparation. The plaintiffs requested an order requiring Goldman Sachs to provide prompt deposition dates for 33 of its 46 named trial witnesses who had not previously been deposed, produce personnel documentation and employee identification numbers when applicable, remove eight witnesses from its trial list for alleged disclosure violations, and expedite a decision on the plaintiffs’ first motion in limine, which is a request about what evidence may be presented at trial.

Goldman Sachs said the deposition-date request was moot because it had provided dates for all 33 witnesses. It also said it had produced basic personnel information, including work experience, education, tenure, and job responsibilities. Goldman Sachs opposed the remaining requests. The court noted that discovery had closed.

Rulings on the plaintiffs’ requests

The court denied as moot the plaintiffs’ request for deposition dates for the 33 witnesses. It denied the request for personnel documentation and, when applicable, employee identification numbers. The court concluded that the plaintiffs’ reliance on a 2019 discovery order was misplaced and stated that discovery in the action had closed.

The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(c)(1) to strike eight individuals from Goldman Sachs’s trial witness list: Jacqueline Arthur, Anne-Victoire Auriault, Vivek Bantwal, Stephanie Rader, Akila Raman, Jennifer Roth, Pamela Ryan, and Laurence Stein. Rule 26 generally requires parties to identify people likely to have discoverable information. The court found that Goldman Sachs did not identify these eight individuals under Rule 26 until the parties exchanged trial witness lists in early 2023, more than two years after fact discovery closed on November 20, 2020.

The court determined that excluding the eight witnesses was appropriate. It found that Goldman Sachs did not adequately explain the late disclosures, had not shown that the witnesses’ testimony was important or unavailable from properly disclosed witnesses, and faced a case in which discovery had long been closed and trial was scheduled for June 7, 2023. The court found the prejudice factor neutral because the depositions were still feasible, but concluded that the overall factors favored exclusion.

The court denied the plaintiffs’ request to expedite its decision on the first motion in limine, stating that it would issue a decision on the parties’ motions in limine in due course. The court clarified that its witness-preclusion analysis was not a decision on any pending motion in limine.

Redaction request

Goldman Sachs separately asked the court to permit limited redactions in Exhibit C, specifically the name and email address of a current employee who did not publicly represent the company. The plaintiffs did not oppose those particular redactions but argued that Exhibit C contained additional unjustified redactions.

The court granted Goldman Sachs’s request to redact the employee’s name and email address, finding that the interests supporting those redactions outweighed the presumption of public access. The court found that Goldman Sachs had not justified the additional redactions. By March 24, 2023, Goldman Sachs was required either to file a revised Exhibit C containing only the permitted redactions or provide a detailed explanation for the additional redactions. The clerk was directed to terminate the motion at ECF No. 1429 and amend the docket caption to match the order.

Classification

This is a procedural order because it resolved discovery, witness-disclosure, pretrial-evidence, and public-access issues without deciding the underlying claims. Judge Analisa Torres issued the order.