Zuffa denied motion to stay discovery in antitrust lawsuit

A Nevada judge has denied Zuffa’s motion to stay discovery in the antitrust lawsuit filed by former fighters.  In addition, it appears that the court will want the parties to come up with a plan to allow the plaintiffs some of its discovery requests.

A Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit brought by Zuffa has yet to be heard by the court after the case was transferred from San Jose to Las Vegas but the court’s allowance of some of the discovery might infer that this case will not.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy A. Leen denied Zuffa’s Motion to Stay Discovery.  The order indicates that “[t]he parties are directed to meet and confer and submit a proposed form of Confidentiality and Protective Order, as well as ES1 Protocols, within 30 days from today’s date [July 28^th].”

In addition, the order stated that the Court “is going to impose restrictions on discovery while the District Judge considers the pending Motion to Dismiss…” it goes on to state, “Plaintiffs’ Counsel are encourage to reconsider their broad discovery requests.”

In federal court, there is a discovery “master” or judge that determines discovery disputes as was done here.  Judge Richard Boulware will preside over the actual court case.  This differs from state court where the trial court judge typically decides discovery motions too.

H/t:  Bloody Elbow

Payout Perspective:

The ruling appears to be a “cookie-cutter” of sorts as you might infer that the encouragement by the Court for Plaintiffs to reconsider its “broad” requests suggests that the Court does not want to grant Zuffa’s motion to halt discovery.  But, it acknowledges that the requests for a broad swath of financial statements, balance sheets and other receipts going back years and years is too cumbersome and unwieldly.  Thus, Plaintiffs will get a chance to obtain some documents but perhaps not everything it is seeking.  Despite not getting everything it asks for, Plaintiffs might get enough information to amend its complaint and survive a motion to dismiss.  In the alternative, you might think of this as the Court allowing Plaintiffs the opportunity to obtain some documents prior to the Court dismissing its case.  Hence, it was given a chance to prove its case.

The parties are to “meet and confer” to come up with a plan for discovery.  This happens a lot in discovery disputes where the Court forces the sides to work together.  Even with the hope of compromise, we still may see issues sprout up and fights over certain requests/documents.  Clearly, Zuffa will want to protect certain information while Plaintiffs will deem it discoverable.  We shall see how expansive this discovery fight continues and whether it plays into the inevitable Motion to Dismiss.