Zuffa files motion to delay discovery in antitrust lawsuit

Zuffa has filed a Motion to Stay Discovery in the antitrust lawsuit filed by former UFC fighters.  According to the papers filed Wednesday, Zuffa requests that discovery is halted until the court addresses Zuffa’s Motion to Dismiss and Motion to Transfer Venue.

The Motion to Stay Discovery is set to be heard by the Honorable Edward J. Davila on September 10, 2015 in U.S. District Court in San Jose.

Essentially, Zuffa states that the discovery process is costly and burdensome and that it should not have to start the process until the court determines its Motion to Dismiss which shall be heard on July 23^rd.  Alternatively, it argues that discovery should be pending until the court decides the Motion to Transfer Venue (oral argument was heard May 7^th).

According to the filing, plaintiffs’ counsel and Zuffa’s counsel met and conferred on April 15^th to determine a pretrial plan for the case.  You can see the results here.  The parties agreed to mediation to occur no later than September 30, 2015.  However, the parties disagreed as to whether discovery should commence.  Plaintiffs sent Zuffa 59 Requests for Production of Documents on April 26^th per Zuffa’s Motion to Stay.  The parties have exchanged its preliminary witnesses on May 8^th.

Per the Motion to Stay Discovery, Zuffa argues that its Motion to Dismiss would resolve all issues if the Court grants the motion.  Thus, discovery would be a moot point.  It argues that it should not have to begin working on discovery that it describes as “extensive, burdensome and costly.”  The requests appear to seek a voluminous amount of financial information from Zuffa.  It also seeks a broad amount of information.

The Motion refers to a two-step test used by federal courts in California for evaluating a request for stay during the pendency of a dispositive motion (i.e., Motion to Dismiss).  First, the pending motion must dismiss the entire case (or the issue in which discovery is aimed).  Second, whether the court may determine the motion without the discovery.  Zuffa states the court can dismiss the case without the need for conducting discovery.

Here, Zuffa obviously is seeking to dismiss the entire case.  In addressing the second part of the above test, Zuffa states that since Plaintiffs’ claims rely on Zuffa’s contracts, it argues that those are in the hands of the plaintiffs already and there is no need for discovery.  It also states that the financial information sought in its requests are not needed before Zuffa’s Motion to Dismiss.

Payout Perspective:

And so begins the discovery fight that occurs in almost every civil lawsuit.  You can see that Zuffa does not want to do unnecessary work it believes is extensive and costly while at the same time provide plaintiffs with the type of information that may allow them to amend their Complaint.  Plaintiffs believe that they have a right to start the litigation process and the stay is merely a stall tactic so that Zuffa does not have to hand over financial information that may fall into the public eye.  As someone that has been on both sides of the discovery fight, this is a close call for the court.  While plaintiffs want this case to move expeditiously and believe that they have a right to discovery, Zuffa believes it would be unnecessary to conduct discovery if the court dismisses the case.

Whatever the ruling, you can expect a fight over Zuffa financial documents and whether or not the requests are overbroad, relevant and/or necessary with respect to the current lawsuit.