Harleysville Worcester Insurance Company v. Consigli & Associates, LLC

Background

The parties submitted a joint letter about the deadline for completing fact discovery. The court had previously directed them to complete discovery on claims that were not stayed by the end of January 2024. The parties disagreed about whether the deadline should be extended to February 16, 2024, or to April 30, 2024.

Zurich American Insurance Company proposed completing written discovery and document production by February 15, 2024, completing fact-witness depositions by April 30, 2024, and reporting by April 30 whether any party intended to seek expert discovery. Starr Indemnity & Liability Company supported Zurich’s proposed schedule. Zurich argued that additional time was needed because it believed Harleysville’s document production and privilege log were incomplete or defective and because several depositions remained outstanding. Zurich also argued that the insurers’ potential duty to indemnify Consigli for claims in the underlying New York Supreme Court action remained at issue.

Harleysville Worcester Insurance Company, Consigli & Associates, LLC, National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, Pa., and 99 Wall Development supported a shorter extension through February 16, 2024. Harleysville argued that only limited discovery remained and that a longer extension would delay its request for dispositive motion practice. Consigli agreed with Zurich that the duty to indemnify could not be determined until the underlying lawsuit was resolved, but argued that Zurich’s late deposition notices were overbroad and untimely. National Union and 99 Wall likewise objected to Zurich’s notices and supported the shorter extension.

Court’s Order

The court granted an extension of the fact-discovery deadline to February 16, 2024, to accommodate already scheduled depositions. The court adjourned the pre-motion conference, previously scheduled for February 21, 2024, to March 20, 2024, at 3:00 p.m. Under the court’s individual rules, pre-motion letters were due two weeks after fact discovery closed, and replies were due one week later.

The court stated that it would not extend the discovery deadlines any further, “let alone by several months,” in response to the late request. It explained that the parties had been instructed on December 20, 2023, to meet and confer so that fact discovery could be completed by the end of January, and that the discovery process had already taken more than a year. The order did not decide the parties’ underlying insurance-coverage disputes or resolve the objections to the deposition notices.