KPH Healthcare Services, Inc. v. Mylan N.V.

District Court, D. Kansas·Decided November 28, 2022·No. 2:20-cv-02065·Unknown

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS

KPH HEALTHCARE SERVICES, INC., ) a/k/a KINNEY DRUGS INC., ) FWK HOLDINGS LLC, ) and CÉSAR CASTILLO, LLC, ) individually and on behalf of all those ) similarly situated, ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) Case No. 2:20-cv-02065-DDC-TJJ ) ) MYLAN, N.V., MYLAN ) PHARMACEUTICALS INC., MYLAN ) SPECIALTY L.P., PFIZER, INC., ) KING PHARMACEUTICALS, INC., ) and MERIDIAN MEDICAL ) TECHNOLOGIES, INC., ) ) Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER This matter is before the Court on the Mylan Defendants’ Motion to Compel Discovery From Plaintiffs (ECF No. 224). Mylan seeks an order requiring Plaintiffs to amend certain of their responses and produce documents responsive to Mylan’s First Set of Document Requests to All Plaintiffs, and to amend certain of their responses to Mylan’s First Set of Interrogatories to All Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs oppose the motion.1 As set forth below, the Court will grant the motion in part and deny it in part. I. Relevant Background

1 See ECF No. 235. On April 1, 2022, Mylan served its First Set of Documents Requests to All Plaintiffs and its First Set of Interrogatories to All Plaintiffs.2 Mylan’s RFPs included 57 directed to all Plaintiffs as well as additional requests directed to each of the three individual Plaintiffs. Mylan directed 18 Interrogatories to Plaintiff KPH, 17 to Plaintiff FWK, and 15 to Plaintiff César Castillo, LLC (“Castillo”). Each Plaintiff timely responded. The parties met and conferred

several times during the following weeks, resulting in Plaintiffs amending and supplementing their responses to certain Interrogatories. Although the parties also addressed their differences over certain RFPs during their conferral process, as of the filing of this motion Plaintiffs had produced no documents responsive to any RFP. Mylan recounts the parties’ efforts to resolve their differences through numerous exchanges of written correspondence over several weeks. Ultimately, the parties reached an impasse and this motion followed. Based on the parties’ efforts, the Court finds they have complied with the requirements of D. Kan. R. 37.2. II. Summary of the Parties’ Arguments

Mylan organizes its motion by discussing Plaintiffs’ common objections to each of the six general categories of the discovery at issue. Plaintiffs’ original response included objections that: (1) Mylan’s downstream discovery requests are irrelevant as a matter of law and unduly burdensome; (2) requests focused on the typicality of FWK’s claims and FWK’s adequacy to serve as a class representative are irrelevant; (3) discovery related to KPH’s status as McKesson’s assignee is privileged; (4) requests seeking documents relating to communications Plaintiffs have had with the parties, counsel, or retained experts in In re: EpiPen (Epinephrine

2 See ECF No. 180. 2 Injection, USP) Marketing, Sales Practices and Antitrust Litigation, No. 17-md-2785 (D. Kan.) (“the MDL”) or in another direct purchaser action pending in the District of Minnesota (“the Minnesota case”) regarding EpiPen or any action or potential claims or defenses in this action, are privileged; and (5) requests to KPH regarding its assignment from McKesson and to FWK seeking transcripts of deposition testimony from FWK relating to another putative class action

are confidential. Mylan retains its challenges to these objections and although Plaintiffs have withdrawn certain objections, Mylan asks the Court to order Plaintiffs’ compliance. Finally, Mylan seeks supplemental answers to certain interrogatories to which it contends Plaintiffs have not fully responded. Plaintiffs agree to supplement an interrogatory to FWK, maintain objections to an interrogatory to Castillo, and argue they have sufficiently answered interrogatories posed to all Plaintiffs. III. Legal Standard Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) sets out the general scope of discovery and provides as follows:

Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties' relative access to relevant information, the parties' resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Information within this scope of discovery need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.3

Relevancy is to be “construed broadly to encompass any matter that bears on, or that reasonably could lead to other matter that could bear on” any party’s claim or defense.4

3 Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 4 Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351 (1978). 3 Information still “need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.”5 When the discovery sought appears relevant, the party resisting discovery has the burden to establish the lack of relevancy by demonstrating that the requested discovery (1) does not come within the scope of relevancy as defined under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), or (2) is of such marginal relevancy that the potential harm occasioned by discovery would outweigh the ordinary presumption in favor of

broad disclosure.6 Conversely, when the relevancy of the discovery request is not readily apparent on its face, the party seeking the discovery has the burden to show the relevancy of the request.7 Relevancy determinations are generally made on a case-by-case basis.8 “A party asserting an unduly burdensome objection to a discovery request has ‘the burden to show facts justifying [its] objection by demonstrating that the time or expense involved in responding to requested discovery is unduly burdensome.’”9 The objecting party must also show “the burden or expense is unreasonable in light of the benefits to be secured from the discovery.”10 Objections that discovery is unduly burdensome “must contain a factual basis for the claim, and the objecting party must usually provide ‘an affidavit or other evidentiary proof of the time or expense involved in responding to the discovery request.’”11

As this action arises under a federal statutory scheme, federal law provides the rule of decision regarding application of the attorney-client privilege. The essential elements of the

5 Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 6 Gen. Elec. Cap. Corp. v. Lear Corp., 215 F.R.D. 637, 640 (D. Kan. 2003). 7 McBride v. Medicalodges, Inc., 250 F.R.D. 581, 586 (D. Kan. 2008). 8 Brecek & Young Advisors, Inc. v. Lloyds of London Syndicate 203, No. 09-cv-2516-JAR, 2011 WL 765882, at *3 (D. Kan. Feb. 25, 2011). 9 Stonebarger v. Union Pac. RR Co., No. 13-2137-JAR-TJJ, 2015 WL 64980, at *5 (D. Kan. Jan. 5, 2015) (quoting Shoemake v. McCormick, Summers & Talarico II, LLC, No. 10–2514–RDR, 2011 WL 5553652, at *3 (D. Kan. Nov. 15, 2011)). 10 Id. 11 Id. 4 attorney-client privilege are: (1) where legal advice of any kind is sought (2) from a professional legal advisor in his capacity as such, (3) the communications relating to that purpose, (4) made in confidence (5) by the client, (6) are at his instance permanently protected (7) from disclosure by himself or by the legal advisor, (8) except if the protection is waived.12 Under the law of this circuit, an attorney’s communication to a client is also protected if it is “related to the rendition

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KPH Healthcare Services, Inc. v. Mylan N.V., (D. Kan. 2022).

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