GREEN et al v. COSBY

Filing 19

MEMORANDUM AND/OR OPINION. SIGNED BY HONORABLE JOHN R. PADOVA ON 9/4/15. 9/4/15 ENTERED AND COPIES E-MAILED.(mbh, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

~Pi : i'' "' "'Jj)

TAMARA GREEN, et al.

MISCELLANEOUS ACTION

V.

~ICHAn. ,, 1,tJiJ.i, Cler:,

WILLIAM H. COSBY, JR.

"!'.ii===-Dep. Clerk
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AND NOW, this

NO. 15-144

ORDER-MEMORANDUM

'I tilday of September, 2015, upon consideration of Defendant's Motion
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for Leave to Take Discovery Regt'ling a Potential Violation of this Court's June 11, 2015 Order
(Docket No. 10), Andrea Constand's Motion to Intervene as of Right Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P.
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,

24(a)(2) (Docket No. 12), and fthe Responses to both of those Motions, IT IS HEREBY

ORDERED as follows:

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1.

Defendant's MotioJ for Leave to Take Discovery is DENIED.

2.

Andrea Constand's Motion to Intervene is DISMISSED as moot insofar as it seeks
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leave to intervene ab.d DENIED insofar as it seeks attorney's fees and costs.
On June 2, 2015, DefeJdant William H. Cosby commenced the instant miscellaneous
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action with the filing of a motion/to quash a subpoena that the plaintiffs in a Massachusetts action
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against Defendant had issued to Ppiladelphia lawyer Delores H. Troiani, Esq. See Green v. Cosby,
Civ. A. No. 14-30211 (D. Mass.1 (the "Green Case"). The subpoena commanded Ms. Troiani to
turn over to counsel for the Green plaintiffs any documents concerning the Green plaintiffs that Ms.
Troiani had in her possession due to her representation of Andrea Constand in a prior action against
Defendant in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. See Constand v. Cosby, Civ. A. No. 05-1099
In the Motion to Quash, Defendant argued that documents that

(E.D. Pa.) (the "Constand Case")
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the subpoena sought were cove~ed by a confidentiality provision in the Constand settlement
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agreement and that Ms. Troiani ivas therefore prohibited from producing them in response to the
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subpoena. Before we reached the merits of Defendant's arguments regarding the confidentiality of
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the subpoenaed documents in the

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otion to Quash, the Massachusetts court stayed all discovery in

the Green Case pending the court's decision on a motion to dismiss that Defendant had filed in that
case. In light of that stay, the parties to the instant action requested that we "hold the Motion to
Quash Subpoena in abeyance,

unl~ss and until the Massachusetts court lifts the stay of discovery."

(June 10, 2015 letter, Docket No. 6.) In response to that joint request, on June 11, 2015, we entered
an Order, in the language propose1 by the parties, holding the Motion to Quash in abeyance.
On July 18, 2015, The Njw York Times published an article in which it stated that it had
obtained Defendant's deposition transcript in the Constand Case, which was publicly available
through a court reporting service, and it reported on the contents of that deposition. Six days later,
on July 24, 2015, Defendant filed the instant Motion for Leave to Take Discovery Regarding a
Potential Violation of this Court' June 11, 2015 Order. Defendant asserts in the Motion that Ms.

to The New York Times, and hear ues that any such involvement would have constituted a violation
of this Court's June 11, 2015 OrCler. Defendant therefore seeks discovery designed to determine
whether Ms. Troiani did, in fact, 1lay any role in the release of the transcript to the media. Notably,
Defendant has also filed a motior in the Constand Case, in which he argues, inter alia, that Ms.
Constand and Ms. Troiani have reached the Constand confidentiality agreement by failing to use
their best efforts to ensure that th, court reporting service kept the deposition transcript confidential.
(See Motion Regarding Plainti,s Breaches of the Parties' Confidential Settlement Agreement,
Constand, C1v. A. No. 05-1088 (~.D. Pa. July 25, 2015), ECF No. 114.)
In addressing Defendant'l request for discovery, we cannot accept Defendant's underlying
and essential premise that our 1une 11, 2015 Order regulates what Ms. Troiani does with the
Constand documents outside of he context of the Green plaintiffs' subpoena. The scope of our
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Order is limited not only by its wording but also by the context of the subpoena. As Defendant's
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recent filing in the Constand Case !makes clear, the essential limitations on what Ms. Troiani may do
with regard to the Constand doctents are set forth in the Constand settlement agreement and not
in our June 11, 2015 Order. On /its face, our June 11, 2015 Order did nothing more than hold in
abeyance Defendant's Motion t9 Quash the subpoena that the Green plaintiffs served on Ms.
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Troiani in light of the Massachus~tts court's stay of discovery, and cannot be read to regulate Ms.
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Troiani's conduct, if any, in

co~ection with a third party's release of Constand documents to the

media or to give Ms. Troiani notite of any such regulation. We therefore cannot conclude that Ms.
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Troiani's involvement, if any, in !e recent release of Defendant's Constand deposition transcript to
The New York Times would con titute a violation of our June 11, 2015 Order, whether or not it
violated the parties' confidentiJlity agreement.

Accordingly, Defendant may not probe the

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circumstances of that release thrf ugh discovery in this miscellaneous proceeding, and we deny
Defendant's Motion for Leave to take Discovery.
We also have before us l\iis. Constand's Motion to Intervene, in which Ms. Constand asks
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that she be permitted to intervene in this case to (1) oppose Defendant's Motion for Leave to Take
Discovery, and (2) conduct her ol\:vn discovery if we permit Defendant to engage in the discovery
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that he has requested. However, fgiven our denial of Defendant's Motion without the need for Ms.
Constand's intervention, we di sfss the Motion to Intervene as moot. We likewise exercise our
discretion to deny Ms. Constand]s request for attorney's fees and costs that she has incurred as a
result of her ultimately unnecessaty intervention motion.
BY THE COURT:

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