Opinion
Mdl Docket No. 4:03-CV-1507-WRW.
November 4, 2004
ORDER RE: RULINGS FROM OCTOBER 21, 2004 HEARING
Based on the findings of fact and conclusions of law, as well as agreements between the parties made in the November 2, 2004 status conference, the following is ordered:
I. Plaintiffs' Motion to Compel Wyeth to Amend its Privilege Logs (Doc. No. 312).
Plaintiffs' Motion to Compel Wyeth to Amend its Privilege Logs is GRANTED in part and are still under consideration in part.
Plaintiffs' motion is granted, to the extent that the court notes with approval, Wyeth's agreement to provide the following information, when it is available, for each document on the logs produced so far, and on all documents claimed as privileged in the future: the page length of the document (and bates numbers if it is a redacted document); the job title of the authors and recipients — what Wyeth calls a "cast of characters"; and the identity of the lawyer(s) affiliated with the situation giving rise to the privilege claim.
As to certain documents on the logs, the court will inspect the following two subsets of documents in camera:
1) All documents that were sent to third parties
2) A sample of 2% of the documents not sent to third parties and not redacted. The first document selected will be number 3 on the list, or the first one following 3 that has not been excluded as third party or redacted; the next will be 53, the next 103, and so on through all three logs.
These two sets of documents will be provided to the court under seal by November 15, 2004.
II. Request for Order setting a Production Schedule for Wyeth's Sales Force Databases (Doc. No. 340)
Wyeth must make its best efforts to produce to Plaintiffs at least 200,000 entries from the Leapfrog/Sales Works call notes fields by November 23, 2004. Wyeth will continue to produce subsets of entries on a monthly basis thereafter. The final schedule for production is still under consideration and will be discussed again at the December 10, 2004 status conference.
III. Service Issues
Each Defendant must identify a person to whom notice and request may be sent under Fed.R.Civ.P. 4(d). This identification will be made no later than November 9, 2004 and will be effective for any case that is commenced in federal court and asserts HT-related claims subject to transfer to MDL-1507, but will not be effective for any other cases.
Lead and Liaison Counsel for each side will serve all papers on Lead and Liaison counsel for the other side. Plaintiffs' Liaison Counsel is specifically directed to serve all papers filed by Class Counsel on Ms. Littlepage, and vice versa.
IV. Motion to Compel Service of Plaintiffs' Fact Sheets (Doc. No. 349)
This motion is GRANTED. Accordingly, each Plaintiff will serve hard copies of her Fact Sheet on Defendants' Lead and Liaison Counsel and will also serve the Fact Sheet (by electronic copy) on all concerned Defendants. By letter, Ms. Littlepage will instruct all plaintiffs' counsel of this.
V. Plaintiffs' Motion to Compel Barr Duramed Defendants to Produce an Objective Index (Doc. No. 351)
This Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. The Barr and Duramed Defendants are ordered to produce to the PSC the objective data referenced in MDL Doc. No. 227, Part III C, that is currently available to these Defendants in the database created to manage its documents already produced or to be produced in this litigation.
The parties have agreed to postpone a potential dispute over how much, if any, of Barr and Duramed's replication costs the PSC should bear. Barr and Duramed's vendor will submit an estimate of the cost of this data production before actually completing the project. The parties will then confer about this cost issue. If the parties cannot agree, simultaneous briefs on the issues are due December 6, 2004 and I will hear arguments at the December 10, 2004 status conference.
VI. Plaintiffs' Motion for Protection of Document Review Selection from Disclosure (Doc. No. 352)
This Motion is GRANTED until December 11, 2004, at which time the Order for protection will expire, unless renewed at the December 10, 2004 status conference. No Defendant will produce the selection of documents for copying made by the MDL PSC to state court plaintiffs except as follows:
Any Defendant who is served with a request from a state court plaintiff to produce the documents already selected by the PSC in this MDL will immediately notify Zoe Littlepage, Liaison counsel, and this Court. The defendant who is so served will also inform the plaintiff's counsel and the judge in that state court case that this order has been entered, and supply both of them with a copy of it. This Court will be happy to discuss the matter with any state court judge who is considering a motion to compel production in that state court case of the PSC's selected documents protected by this order. Until and unless this Court (or another court) issues an order to defendant to produce such selected documents, no defendant shall disclose to a state court plaintiff the documents selected by the PSC.
VII. Defendants' Motion to Adopt Practice Procedure Order No. 4 (Doc. No. 346-1)
As submitted, Defendant's Motion to Adopt Practice Procedure Order No. 4 is DENIED. However, a master complaint and answer system will be implemented in this case as follows:
For pretrial purposes, Plaintiffs will file a Master Complaint and Defendants may file a Master Answer. The parties have agreed that Plaintiffs will submit the Master Complaint by December 1, 2004 and each defendant electing to file a Master Answer will do so and/or will otherwise respond according to rules 8, 9, and 12 by January 15, 2005.
I have taken under consideration the use of Short Form Complaints and Short Form Answers.
VIII. Motion to Extend Time to Answer Complaints (Doc. No. 346-2)
This motion is GRANTED. Accordingly, all Defendants are granted an extension of time to answer complaints until further order of the Court.
IX. Scope of Court's Order Severing and Transferring Multi-Plaintiff Suits
This issue is still under consideration by the Court. Additional, simultaneous briefs from both sides are due November 5, 2004 by 5 p.m. Additional arguments on this issue will be heard at the December 10, 2004 hearing.
Mr Khorrami's oral motion for additional time to respond regarding his multi-plaintiff complaints is GRANTED. Oral arguments via telephone will be held on November 4, 2004 at 2:30 p.m. Participants in this telephone conference will be Shawn Khorrami, Michel Mills or his designee, Erik Walker, Zoe Littlepage or her designee, and counsel for Wyeth.
X. Filing of Papers with the Court: how many copies?
Parties will file three copies of any pleading or other paper (and a fourth copy if a party wants a time and date stamped copy).
XI. Schedule of Status Conferences for 2005
The following dates are the schedule for MDL status conferences in 2005
January 14, 2005 February 18, 2005 March 25, 2005 April 22, 2005 June 1, 2005 (in conjunction with class certification motion) June 24, 2005 July 22, 2005 August 19, 2005 September 16, 2005 October 14, 2005 November 18, 2005 December 16, 2005
A semi-mandatory dutch treat reception will start at 5 p.m. on the evening before each status conference will be held at the Legacy Hotel. The status conferences will start at 9:00 a.m.
XII. Everything Else
Based on the above, the following motions are DENIED AS MOOT: Defendants' Motion to Amend Practice Procedure Order 1 (Doc. No. 286), Defendants' Motion to Extend Time to Answer HT Complaints Filed in this Judicial District (Doc. No. 287), Plaintiffs' Motion to Compel Production of Documents (Doc. No. 325), Defendants' Order for Production Schedule (Doc. No. 360), and Defendant Barr and Duramed's Motion for Relief from Standing Order Regarding Cost and Production of Core Documents (Doc. No. 364).
IT IS SO ORDERED.