Discovery Coordination and eDiscovery in Mass Tort Litigation
At trial, the best discovery story is no story at all.
But plaintiffs' lawyers often seek to create a discovery story. In attempts to wear down defendant companies and create sanction opportunities for later use at trial, they often embark on extensive, unnecessary, and expensive discovery—sometimes for years.
This was the case with plaintiffs' counsel in the bellwether medical device trial McKenna v. Breg. The Williams Love law firm aggressively sought discovery from Breg, Bowman and Brooke's client, in state and federal courts in Colorado, Minnesota, Arizona and Oregon.
Beginning in 2009, these plaintiffs' counsel made exaggerated claims that the company had not produced internal correspondence involving the FDA's "rejection" of an application for regulatory clearance (the FDA never rejected the application), sought extensive depositions in multiple courts, and made demands that an external vendor be provided unfettered access to corporate servers and backup tapes.
In the face of these aggressive discovery tactics, the Bowman and Brooke discovery team managed each challenge successfully. Throughout the litigation, we prevailed on motions to compel, obtained court orders to shift the cost of data reproductions to plaintiff, and won protective orders on the discoverability of documents produced to the federal government. At one point, when a court threatened to assess sanctions on plaintiffs' counsel, we forced plaintiffs to withdraw motions pending simultaneously in four courts.
In the end, Breg arrived at the courthouse in its first trial against Williams Love in McKenna v. Breg with no adverse discovery history, no court orders limiting our evidence, and no adverse jury instructions related to discovery. In other words, the best discovery story—no story.
Read a detailed report about the verdict in McKenna v. Breg.
CASE RESULTS DEPEND UPON A VARIETY OF FACTORS UNIQUE TO EACH CASE. CASE RESULTS DO NOT GUARANTEE OR PREDICT A SIMILAR RESULT IN ANY FUTURE CASE.