Phillips v. The National Basketball Association

Background

The defendants filed a letter motion to compel discovery responses. The plaintiffs responded. The court said both sides were at fault for not adequately conferring before bringing the disputes to the court.

Rulings on the Discovery Disputes

Medical information and authorizations. The court explained that emotional-distress damages fall into three categories: garden-variety, significant, and egregious. A plaintiff asserting only garden-variety emotional distress does not have to produce medical records. A plaintiff seeking the other categories must produce records supporting those claims. The plaintiffs had to tell the defendants whether they were pursuing more than garden-variety emotional-distress damages. If they were, they had to produce responsive mental-health records. Physical-health records were required only if a plaintiff claimed a physical injury related to emotional distress or a physical injury affecting mental health. The plaintiffs also had to provide compliant authorizations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), with each authorization identifying only one provider.

Ayotte’s interrogatory. Ayotte had to fully answer Interrogatory No. 9. The court said counsel’s statement that Ayotte “could not find comparable work” did not answer the question because it did not identify the efforts Ayotte made to find comparable work.

Mauer’s interrogatory and documents. Mauer had to fully answer Interrogatory No. 9 and comply with related Requests for Production Nos. 67 and 69. The court said that merely providing a list of companies was not a complete answer.

Mauer’s book-deal documents. Mauer’s objection to Requests for Production Nos. 63 and 64 was rejected. A possible confidentiality agreement with a nonparty did not excuse producing the documents, particularly because a protective order was in place. However, Mauer did not have to produce those documents if he was not seeking damages for the alleged lost book opportunity. He had to tell the defendants whether he intended to claim those damages and then comply with the requests consistent with that decision.

Phillips’s interrogatory and documents. Phillips had to answer Interrogatory No. 15 and comply with Requests for Production Nos. 66 and 72. Based on the plaintiffs’ response letter, the court stated that Phillips appeared likely to comply.

Audio and video recordings. Regarding the second set of requests, the plaintiffs appeared to clarify that no videos existed and that only audio recordings existed, which had already been produced. If any videos existed, the plaintiffs had to produce them.

Allegedly unreadable documents. The plaintiffs represented that they had produced the documents in the condition in which they possessed them. The court therefore treated this dispute as resolved.

Disposition

The order resolved the defendants’ letter motion to compel and directed the clerk to terminate the motion at Docket 55. The opinion does not use the terms “granted” or “denied” for that motion.