United States v. Dish Network, L.L.C.

297 F.R.D. 589, 86 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1245, 2013 WL 5575864, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146202
District Court, C.D. Illinois·Decided October 9, 2013·No. No. 09-3073·Published·Cited by 5 cases

Opinion

OPINION

SUE E. MYERSCOUGH, U.S. District Judge:

This cause is before the Court on the Objections to Opinion 240 Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a) (d/e 249) filed by Plaintiffs United States of America, and the States of California, Illinois, North Carolina, and Ohio. In Opinion 240, United States Magistrate Judge Byron G. Cudmore granted in part and denied in part Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel and Reopen the Deposition of Ken Sponsler and Motion to Compel Discovery Over Dish’s Privilege Assertion (d/e 203).

Plaintiffs object to Opinion 240 in two respects. First, Plaintiffs object to Magistrate Judge Cudmore’s interpretation of the scope of “considered” as used in Rules 26(a)(2)(B)(ii) and 26(b)(4)(C)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Plaintiffs assert that this Court should find the term “considered” encompasses all aspects of an expert’s prior retentions that objectively involve the subject matters covered by the expert’s report. Second, Plaintiffs object to Magistrate Judge Cudmore’s determination that Dish was not required to disclose documents (including 22 documents1 on Dish’s privilege log) relating to data given by Dish to John Taylor and PossibleNow for prior call record analyses performed in 2008.

I. INTRODUCTION

The facts and background pertaining to this dispute are accurately set forth in Magistrate Judge Cudmore’s Opinion (d/e 240). To summarize, Plaintiffs sought to compel the disclosure of information provided to two of Dish’s expert witnesses, Ken Sponsler, Vice President and General Manager of ComplianeePoint, DM Inc. (Compliance-Point), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Possible Now, Inc. (PossibleNow), and John Taylor, Director of Project Management and Quality Assurance for PossibleNow. Plaintiffs also sought to reopen the deposition of Sponsler.

In October 2012, Sponsler provided an expert report in rebuttal to the expert report provided by Plaintiffs’ witness Debra Green. However, Sponsler had previously consulted for Dish for many years on matters including telemarketing compliance.

Taylor conducted an analysis of Dish’s call records for the time period of 2007 through 2010 (the 2012 Analyses) and provided a report. Taylor had previously performed similar analyses of call records for the time period of 2004 through 2007 during settlement negotiations with the Federal Trade Commission in this case (the 2008 Analyses).

Magistrate Judge Cudmore substantially granted Plaintiffs’ Motion. Judge Cudmore: (1) ordered that Dish make Sponsler available for an additional deposition, not to exceed three hours, at which Plaintiffs may inquire about facts and data that Sponsler learned during his past experience which he considered in forming his opinions, including facts and data that he learned during his experience with both Defendant Dish Network, L.L.C., and other businesses2; (2) overruled Dish’s claim of privilege for disclosing (a) the identity of the businesses with which Sponsler worked and (b) the facts and data that Sponsler learned from his experience with Dish and other clients and considered in formulating his opinions; (3) directed Dish to disclose any additional documents related to Sponsler’s prior experience with Dish that contain facts and data that Sponsler considered in formulating his opinions; and (4) ordered that Dish disclose the facts or data that Joey Montano, currently the Resource Manager for Customer Service Center Administration at Dish, supplied to [592]*592Taylor and that Taylor considered in preparing his expert opinions, if such information had not already been disclosed.

Magistrate Judge Cudmore also re-reviewed 11 documents that Plaintiffs claimed Dish must disclose due to using Sponsler and Taylor as expert witnesses. Magistrate Judge Cudmore found that “Rule 26(b)(4) did not waive the attorney client privilege” that he had already found applied to 10 of the documents. Opinion 240, p. 14. Magistrate Judge Cudmore found that the remaining document, EKDW 00477902, would remain privileged because the work-product privilege was not waived. Judge Cudmore reserved ruling on 11 additional documents listed in the Motion because those documents had not yet been submitted for review. Those 11 documents have now been submitted to the Court.

Despite substantially prevailing on the Motion, Plaintiffs object to Judge Cudmore’s Opinion in two respects. First, Plaintiffs assert that Opinion 240 seems to hold that a party may withhold work product given to a testifying expert during a past retention so long as the expert says he did not consider the information in forming his new opinions, even if the prior work product relates to the expert’s new opinions. Second, Plaintiffs assert that Opinion 240 improperly holds that Dish is not required to disclose facts, data, and assumptions given to Taylor for his 2008 Analyses.

Plaintiffs ask this Court to: (1) hold that “considered” under Rule 26(a)(2)(B) encompasses all information an expert received during prior retentions if the information relates to the subject matter in the expert report; and (2) order Dish to produce the 22 withheld documents and all other documents or information not yet disclosed that identify facts, data, or assumptions Taylor used to perform the 2008 Analyses.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

A magistrate judge may hear and determine matters that are not dispositive of a claim or defense. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a); 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A). Routine discovery matters are generally considered nondispositive. Westefer v. Snyder, 472 F.Supp.2d 1034, 1036 (S.D.Ill.2006). When a district court considers objections to a magistrate judge’s ruling on a nondispositive matter, the magistrate judge’s disposition will be set aside only if it is clearly erroneous or contrary to law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a); 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A).

III. 2010 AMENDMENTS TO RULE 26

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2)(A) requires that a party disclose “the identity of any witness it may use at trial to present evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, 703, or 705.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(A). That disclosure must be accompanied by the written report of any witness retained or specially employed to provide expert testimony in the case. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(B).

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United States v. Dish Network, L.L.C., 297 F.R.D. 589, 86 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1245, 2013 WL 5575864, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146202 (C.D. Ill. 2013).

297 F.R.D. 589 (United States v. Dish Network, L.L.C.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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