Court remonstrated parties for overly contentious discovery disputes and excessive court filings.
The federal court in Las Cruces, New Mexico, rescinded its discovery bifurcation order in a putative class action lawsuit filed by New Mexico dairy farmers against Defendants non-profit dairy cooperatives and associated entities, for having conspired to suppress pay to dairy farmers in violation of the Sherman Act. The court’s order (1) granted in part Plaintiffs’ Motion for Reconsideration of the Discovery Bifurcation Order and to Compel Defendants to Respond by rescinding the Bifurcation Order and denied as moot the request to compel discovery responses; (2) granted Plaintiffs’ Motion to Suspend Certain Deadlines; (3) vacated previously scheduled discovery conference and motions hearing; (4) ordered that the parties file a new Joint Status Report no later than January 31, 2025; and (5) ordered a scheduling conference be held on February 13, 2025 (Othart Dairy Farms, LLC v. Dairy Farmers Of America, Inc., No. 2:22-cv-00251-MIS-DLM (D.N.M. Jan. 8, 2025)).
Background. Seven New Mexico dairy farms filed a one count complaint against non-profit dairy cooperatives Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. (DFA) and Select Milk Producers, Inc. (Select Milk) and their co-owned marketer, the Greater Southwest Agency (GSA). Plaintiffs alleged that Defendants violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by conspiring to fix prices of raw Grade A milk in the Southwest U.S. by sharing pricing information, selectively “de-pooling” milk, and coordinating price decisions. Plaintiffs filed on behalf of themselves and on behalf of a class consisting of all dairy farmers who produced and sold milk to Defendants within DFA’s Southwest Area region any time from January 1, 2015, until the present. Defendants moved to dismiss on May 31, 2022, which the court denied on March 11, 2024.
The court subsequently entered a Scheduling Order that bifurcated discovery into class certification discovery and merits discovery. On October 16, 2024, Plaintiffs moved to reconsider the Court’s Bifurcation Order and to compel responses to their requests for production. On November 19, 2024, Plaintiffs moved to suspend all future deadlines because they were impacted by the ongoing discovery disputes.
Parties filing multiple, separate exhibits. The court first took issue with having “to sift through a blizzard of filings totaling 451 pages” filed by the parties. The court noted that it wasted valuable time and resources trying to locate exhibits using the “parties’ murky citations.” Thus, going forward, counsel will be required to attach all exhibits to the brief and may not submit multiple, separate documents as exhibits. The court also directed counsel to refer to exhibits with a document number and pinpoint citation. The parties generally have not complied with the provision of D.N.M. LR-Civ. 10.5 that directs parties to attach only the pages of an exhibit that are relevant to the motion, or to the provision of D.N.M. LR-Civ. 10.6 that directs counsel to mark relevant portions of exhibits. Though the parties did comply with the directive in D.N.M. LR-Civ. 10.5 that allows counsel to agree to exceed page limits, the court found that the parties’ submissions were inordinate and violated the spirit of that rule. Thus, any future exceptions will require court approval.
Bifurcation order. The court implemented bifurcated discovery in part to lower costs and move the class certification period forward smoothly to reduce prejudice to the parties. The attorneys in this lawsuit, however, have been unwilling to work together and bifurcation failed to garner the intended effects. Moreover, the attorneys’ inflexibility has impeded judicial economy. Accordingly, the court in its discretion rescinded the bifurcation order so that discovery on both class certification and merits will proceed simultaneously.
Scheduling conference. The court vacated the January 16, 2025, telephonic discovery conference and the January 23, 2025, in-person motion hearing. Instead, the parties were instructed to use these two dates as opportunities to meet and confer and draft a new Joint Status Report with suggested deadlines as well as limits concerning written discovery and depositions. The deadline to submit the Joint Status Report is now January 31, 2025. The court also suspended deadlines pending a new scheduling order and will hold a telephonic scheduling conference on February 13, 2025.
Motion to compel discovery. The court denied Plaintiffs’ request to compel discovery responses as moot. Because of the changes to the discovery parameters, Plaintiffs will withdraw, amend, and re-serve their discovery requests on Defendants after the February scheduling conference. At the scheduling conference, the parties should be prepared to discuss and resolve any overarching discovery disputes that remain, such as geographic scope.
Warning. Finally, the court warned counsel that although the court understands there are disagreements in litigation, counsel have been contentious every step of the way. Moving forward, the parties are required to make an authentic effort to use the resources available to genuinely engage during regular discovery status conferences and to utilize the court’s assistance through informal discovery hearings prior to filing discovery motions. If there is a discovery dispute that cannot be resolved through regular discovery status conferences or informal discovery hearings, the court will set formal discovery motions for in-person hearings in Las Cruces, and lead counsel will be required to appear.
The Case is No. 2:22-cv-00251-MIS-DLM.
Judge: Martinez, D.
Attorneys: Abby R. Wolf (Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP) for Othart Dairy Farms, LLC. Alfred Carroll Pfeiffer (Latham & Watkins LLP) for Dairy Farmers of America, Inc.
Companies: Othart Dairy Farms, LLC; Dairy Farmers of America, Inc.
Cases: Antitrust NewMexicoNews
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