Visuals Unlimited, Inc. v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. et al

Filing 19

ORDER approving the agreed upon terms of 18 Discovery Plan. Length of Trial 5 days. Case Track: Standard. So Ordered by Magistrate Judge Landya B. McCafferty. Ready for Trial on 10/16/2012. Summary Judgment Motions due by 6/15/2012. Dispositive Motion Filing Deadline 4/19/2012. Discovery deadline 8/17/2012.(kad)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

Visuals Unlimited, Inc.
v.

Civil No. 11-cv-415-LM

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
O R D E R
On January 10, 2012, a preliminary pretrial conference
was held in this case.

Attorneys Jennifer Beaudet and

Maurice Harmon appeared for plaintiff Visuals Unlimited,
Inc. (“VUI”); Attorneys Jamie Hage and Christopher Beall
appeared for defendant John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (“Wiley”).
The court approves the agreed-upon terms of the Proposed
Discovery Plan (document no. 18) and resolves the disputes
therein as follows:
Interrogatories: A maximum of 57 interrogatories by
each party to any other party. This total is
inclusive of any subparts; that is, a subpart is
considered a separate question.
Requests for Admission: A maximum of 50 requests by
each party to any other party. Should an amended
complaint be filed, the court will entertain a
reasonable request to extend this number.
Electronic Discovery (Scope of Search): The court
heard arguments from counsel on their respective
positions. The court finds VUI’s proposal to be
reasonable. Thus, Exhibit A to the Discovery Plan
(doc. no. 18-1) is adopted by the court. Wiley
proposed to limit the time frame of the post-

publication ESI search, or what the parties have
labeled as “Email Search 2.” After discussion the
parties agreed, and the court orders, that Email
Search 2 shall be limited to the following time frame:
January 1, 2011, through December 1, 2011.
Electronic Discovery (Format of Production): The
court heard arguments of counsel on their respective
positions. The court finds Wiley’s proposal
reasonable. Accordingly, the parties shall produce
ESI email communications in both pdf and native (.pst)
formats, as described on page 8 of the Discovery Plan.
That is, the producing party shall provide each email
communication as a pdf with a bates-number located at
the lower right-hand corner. The producing party is
not required to add metadata to the native file, e.g.,
the bates number (or any other designation) that
identifies the email communication.
Protective Order: The parties disagree with respect
to a procedural provision in their proposed protective
order. The parties’ respective proposal are located
at Doc. Nos. 18-3 and 18-4. A red-lined version
detailing their disagreements is located at Doc. No.
18-5.
The question in dispute is as follows: In the event
there is a dispute under the protective order
regarding the designation of a document(s) as
“confidential,” who shall bear the burden of bringing
the dispute before the court: the party designating
the document(s) as confidential or the party who
objects to the designation? The parties shall file
memoranda addressing this question on or before
January 25, 2012. The memoranda shall not exceed ten
(10) pages in length.
Informal (Resolution of Discovery Disputes): With
respect to any discovery dispute in the future that
the parties are unable to resolve themselves, each
party shall file with the court a letter explaining
its position with respect to the dispute, and, after
the submissions are received, the court shall schedule
a telephone conference with the parties and resolve
the dispute with an informal order, thereby obviating
the need for formal litigation. If counsel prefer
traditional discovery litigation to the conference2

call procedure set forth above, counsel should put the
discovery dispute before the court in the form of a
formal pleading rather than a letter.
The key deadlines in the discovery plan are summarized
in the chart below.
Scheduling Designation

Deadline

Experts and Experts' Written
Reports
 Experts' Rebuttal Reports


Supplementation under
Rule 26(a)

June 15, 2012
July 15, 2012
September 14, 2012

Challenges to Expert
Testimony

August 17, 2012

Joinder of Additional Parties

March 30, 2012

Third-Party Actions

March 30, 2012

Amendment of Pleadings

March 30, 2012

Dispositive Motions

Dismiss: April 19, 2012
Summary Judgment: June 15, 2012

Completion of Discovery

August 17, 2012

Trial Date

Two-week period beginning
October 16, 2012

SO ORDERED.
__________________________

Landya B. McCafferty
United States Magistrate Judge
Date: January 10, 2012
cc:

Christopher P. Beall, Esq.
Jennifer Turco Beaudet, Esq.
Kathleen A. Davidson, Esq.
Jamie N. Hage, Esq.
Maurice Harmon, Esq.
Robert Penchina, Esq.
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