Sportvision, Inc v. MLB Advanced Media L.P.
- Paul Gardephe
- 1:18-cv-03025
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Sportvision v. MLB Advanced Media, Judge Figueredo ordered a response and scheduled a discovery conference without deciding MLBAM’s sanctions request.
The order affects the plaintiffs and MLB Advanced Media, L.P. by setting a response deadline and discovery conference; it does not decide the requested sanctions.
What happened
In Sportvision, Inc. et al. v. MLB Advanced Media, L.P., MLB Advanced Media asked the court to bar the plaintiffs from using documents obtained from TrackMan and a TrackMan deposition as a discovery sanction.
MLB Advanced Media claimed that the plaintiffs had not produced nearly 300 pages of TrackMan documents until after fact discovery closed and expert reports were served. The opinion text does not include the plaintiffs’ full response to that request.
Judge Valerie Figueredo directed the plaintiffs to respond by April 17, 2023, and scheduled a telephone discovery conference for April 20, 2023. The court did not decide the requested sanctions in this order.
The detailed version
- Sportvision, Inc v. MLB Advanced Media L.P. · No. 1:18-cv-03025
- Paul Gardephe
- Apr. 10, 2023
Nature of the Order
The provided text contains a letter-motion from defendant MLB Advanced Media, L.P. ("MLBAM") and a short court order. The court order directs the plaintiffs to respond to the letter-motion by April 17, 2023, and schedules a telephone discovery conference for April 20, 2023. The text does not show a ruling on the requested discovery sanctions.
MLBAM’s Request
MLBAM asked the court to prevent the plaintiffs from affirmatively using at a motion, in an expert report, at a hearing, or at trial: (1) the corporate deposition of TrackMan, Inc.’s representative, Hans Deutmeyer; and (2) documents the plaintiffs obtained from TrackMan through a third-party subpoena. MLBAM sought this remedy under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(c)(1), which can bar a party from using information that it was required to disclose but did not disclose, unless the failure was substantially justified or harmless.
MLBAM’s Position
MLBAM asserted that the plaintiffs received three TrackMan document productions between June 2021 and February 2022 but did not provide them to MLBAM. According to the letter-motion, the productions totaled nearly 300 pages and were not disclosed until after TrackMan’s April 2022 deposition, the close of fact discovery, and service of the plaintiffs’ opening expert report in March 2023.
MLBAM argued that the late disclosure prevented it from questioning Deutmeyer about the documents and prejudiced its defenses to the plaintiffs’ patent-infringement, trade-secret-misappropriation, and unfair-competition claims. MLBAM also asserted that the plaintiffs had violated their disclosure obligations under the federal discovery rules and the parties’ Joint Discovery Protocol.
Disposition
Judge Valerie Figueredo ordered the plaintiffs to file a response by April 17, 2023, and scheduled a telephone discovery conference for April 20, 2023. The provided text does not state whether the court granted, denied, or otherwise resolved MLBAM’s request to exclude the TrackMan evidence. It also does not include the plaintiffs’ substantive response to the letter-motion.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.