Scholastic Inc. v. St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company
- Jesse Furman
- 1:23-cv-03485
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Scholastic v. St. Paul, Judge Furman granted in part and denied in part Travelers’ discovery motion, ordering some production but protecting materials covered by another case’s confidentiality order.
Scholastic must produce documents it withheld solely on relevance grounds by May 30, 2024, while Travelers cannot obtain through this order materials protected by the underlying lawsuit’s confidentiality order when parties to that lawsuit object to disclosure.
What happened
In Scholastic Inc. v. St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, Travelers sought documents from an earlier lawsuit to defend Scholastic’s insurance-coverage claim. The requested materials included deposition transcripts, expert reports, mediation statements, expert materials, and documents filed under seal.
The court granted in part and denied in part the discovery motion. It denied the request for materials covered by the earlier lawsuit’s confidentiality order when parties to that lawsuit objected to disclosure. It granted the request for materials Scholastic withheld solely because it considered them irrelevant and ordered Scholastic to produce those documents by May 30, 2024.
Judge Jesse M. Furman also directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the relevant docket entry. The order addressed discovery only and did not decide whether Travelers’ insurance coverage arguments were correct.
The detailed version
- Scholastic Inc. v. St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company · No. 1:23-cv-03485
- Jesse Furman
- May 24, 2024
Background
Scholastic seeks insurance coverage from St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, which the opinion identifies as Travelers, for defense costs and settlement amounts connected to an underlying lawsuit brought by Vanderbilt University against Scholastic, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Ted Hasselbring. Travelers maintained that the underlying breach-of-contract and trademark-infringement claims were not covered under the insurance policy and noted that its motion for judgment on the pleadings was pending.
Travelers asked the court to require Scholastic to produce several categories of documents from the underlying lawsuit: thirteen deposition transcripts and exhibits, three expert reports, joint mediation statements, documents provided to Scholastic’s experts, and documents filed under seal. Travelers argued that these materials were important to its coverage defenses and to any later allocation of covered and noncovered defense costs and settlement amounts. Scholastic withheld some materials because of a confidentiality order in the underlying lawsuit and withheld other materials because it considered them irrelevant. Travelers stated that it had agreed to comply with the confidentiality order.
Ruling
The court construed Travelers’ letter as a motion to compel discovery and granted it in part and denied it in part. To the extent Travelers sought materials from the underlying lawsuit that were subject to that lawsuit’s confidentiality order and parties to that lawsuit objected to disclosure, the court denied the motion. The court stated that Travelers had not cited authority showing that this court could or should override another court’s protective order.
To the extent Scholastic withheld materials related to the underlying lawsuit solely on relevance grounds, the court granted the motion. Applying the broad scope of relevance for discovery, the court concluded that the requested materials concerning Ted Hasselbring were related to Scholastic’s coverage claim. The court ordered Scholastic to produce the documents covered by that ruling no later than May 30, 2024. It also directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the relevant docket entry. The opinion does not resolve the pending insurance-coverage dispute on the merits.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.