Holland v. Lions Gate Entertainment and Films
- Analisa Torres
- 1:21-cv-02944
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Holland v. Lions Gate Entertainment and Films, Magistrate Judge Cott denied Holland’s motion to compel discovery because it violated procedural rules and sought material unrelated to his defamation claim.
Cory Darnell Holland, Sr.’s request for additional discovery was denied; the defendants opposed the request.
What happened
In Cory Darnell Holland, Sr. v. Lions Gate Entertainment and Films, et al., Holland, who was representing himself, asked the court to require defendants to provide discovery to support what he called a pattern of plagiarism by a defendant. The case’s remaining claim was defamation.
The court said Holland had not followed the judge’s requirement to meet and confer with defendants before filing the motion. It also said he did not provide the information required by the court’s local discovery rule, including the specific requests, defendants’ responses, and reasons additional documents were needed. Even if the court considered the substance of the request, it found the requested discovery unrelated to the remaining defamation claim.
The court denied the motion to compel and directed the clerk to close and mark the motion as denied. Magistrate Judge James L. Cott issued the order.
The detailed version
- Holland v. Lions Gate Entertainment and Films · No. 1:21-cv-02944
- Analisa Torres
- Apr. 13, 2023
Background
Cory Darnell Holland, Sr., also identified in the caption as “KING,” filed a motion to compel discovery on April 5, 2023. He sought discovery to continue showing what he described as a pattern of plagiarism by defendant Kemp. Defendants opposed the motion.
The opinion states that the case’s remaining claim was defamation, not plagiarism. It does not identify the specific discovery requests Holland sought beyond the stated purpose of supporting the alleged plagiarism pattern.
Reasons for the ruling
The court denied the motion for three reasons. First, Holland did not follow the judge’s individual rules requiring the parties to meet and confer before filing a discovery motion. His motion did not say that a conference had occurred, and defendants stated that it had not.
Second, the court found that Holland failed to comply with Local Civil Rule 37.1. That rule required him to identify each discovery request at issue, defendants’ response, and the reasons he believed he was entitled to additional documents. The court recognized that Holland was proceeding without a lawyer but stated that self-represented parties must still comply with applicable court rules.
Third, the court addressed the substance of the request. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 limits discovery to information relevant to the parties’ claims and defenses and proportional to the needs of the case. The court concluded that discovery concerning plagiarism was not related to Holland’s remaining defamation claim, so the motion lacked merit even apart from the procedural defects.
Disposition
The court denied Holland’s motion to compel discovery. It directed the clerk to close Docket No. 104 and mark it as “denied.” The order was signed by Magistrate Judge James L. Cott.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.