This is the time of year for Best and Worst lists.  Our own lists of the best and worst drug and device law decisions of 2016 will be coming out soon.  Meanwhile, we have no doubt that the worst moments in our own day-to-day practice consist in litigating about litigation.  That is, whether on offense or defense, it is mind-numbing to fight over, not the merits of the case, but whether some party is complying with the rules of civil procedure.

We said “offense or defense,” but who are we kidding?  Discovery in our cases is wildly asymmetrical.  Plaintiffs grudgingly sign health record authorizations, while our clients are forced to disgorge millions of documents, at an expense many times over what most defendants in other civil litigations who have already been found liable (of course, our clients have thus far not been found liable for anything) end up paying in total. Producing electronically stored information (ESI) is virtually impossible to get fully right, but plaintiffs ask for, and all too frequently get, a requirement that corporate defendants furnish certificates of completion.  Such certificates are not required by any rules.  Somehow, overreaching plaintiffs have managed to persuade some courts to take something as silly and unrealistic as the discovery rules and make them even worse.   Pretty soon, court hearings devolve into plaintiff lawyers ruefully marching to the lectern to complain about alleged gaps in discovery and demand sanctions.  Forget about the fact that this litany of carping is on behalf of an inventory of plaintiffs whose mostly meritless claims go gleefully untested until the defendant waves a white flag and submits to a fairy tale otherwise known as a settlement grid.  Apropos of the season, we say humbug.

It is a pleasant surprise when a court calls an end to the discovery gotcha game.  That happened last week in Small v. Amgen, Inc., No. 2:12-cv-476-FtM-PAM-MRM (Dec. 14,  2016).  We have written on the Small case before.  See here, for example.  The issue teed up most recently in the Small case was the plaintiffs’ motion for sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 for an alleged failure to comply with the court’s omnibus discovery order.  The Small court held that “[f]or all its sound and fury … Plaintiffs’ Motion fails – utterly – to identify any actual violation” of the court’s prior orders.   That magisterial “utterly” conveys a sense of weariness and frustration.  Yes, we know the feeling.Continue Reading Good Things Come in Small Packages: M.D. Fla. Rejects Plaintiff’s Discovery Gotcha Gamesmanship