Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_16-md-02691/USCOURTS-cand-3_16-md-02691-17/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 367
Nature of Suit: TORTS - Personal Injury - Health Care/Pharmaceutical Personal Injury/Product Liability
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Personal Injury

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Order Concerning Qualification of Documents Generated by a Party as Authentic or a Business Record 

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

(SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION) 

IN RE: VIAGRA (SILDENAFIL CITRATE) 

PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION 

This Document Relates to: 

All Cases 

Case No.: 3:16-md-02691-RS 

MDL No. 2691 

[Proposed] PRETRIAL ORDER NO. 7 

CONCERNING QUALIFCATION OF 

DOCUMENTS GENERATED BY A 

PARTY AS AUTHENTIC OR A 

BUSINESS RECORD 

Pursuant to the parties’ joint submission to the court, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that: 

1. Order Applicable to All Cases in MDL Proceeding

This Order shall apply to all cases currently pending in MDL No. 2691 and to all related 

actions that have been or will be originally filed in, transferred to, or removed to this Court and 

assigned thereto. This Order is binding on all parties and their counsel in all cases currently 

pending or subsequently made a part of these proceedings and shall govern each case in the 

proceedings unless it explicitly states otherwise. 

2. Authenticity of Documents Provided or Generated by a Party

a. Documents Presumed Authentic: Documents produced and/or purportedly 

generated by any Party that purport to be copies of documents prepared or received by the 

Party, or by an officer, director, employee or agent of the Party, shall be presumed to be a 

faithful and authentic reproduction of the original and, subject to other applicable rules of 

evidence, admissible as such, unless any objecting Party establishes, through a motion in limine

or otherwise, that the document is not authentic. All other evidentiary objections other than 

authenticity are preserved. 

b. Presumption of Authenticity Limited to Portion Generated by Party: For the 

Purposes of this Order, a document in its entirety is deemed to have been generated by a Party 

only if that Party or one of its then-directors, officers, agents or employees created all of the 

document. If a Party or one of its then-directors, officers, agents or employees only created a 

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portion of a document, such as a portion of a chain of e-mail, only that portion of the document 

is deemed to have been generated by that Party. 

3. Business Records Introduced in Depositions

Documents, whether produced by a Party or Non-Party, introduced as an exhibit during 

a deposition in these proceedings that purport to be copies of memoranda, reports, records, or 

data compilation in any form of acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses presumptively 

shall be considered a business record of that Party within the meaning of Federal Rule of 

Evidence 803(6) or analogous applicable state court rules, subject to the following. 

4. Objections to Documents Marked as Exhibits in Depositions

Within 30 calendar days of the receipt of the transcript of a deposition hereafter taken in 

the MDL proceedings, any Party wishing to contest the presumptive authenticity of any 

document(s) previously produced and/or purportedly generated by that Party that were placed 

into the record of that deposition as deposition exhibits shall advise Plaintiffs’ Liaison Counsel 

and Defendants’ Liaison Counsel in writing of: 

(1) the deposition and exhibit number, as well as the Bates numbers, of any exhibit 

where the producing or purportedly generating Party claims lack of authenticity and/or 

failure to qualify as a business record within the meaning of F.R.E. 803(6) or applicable 

analogous state court rules; and,

(2) a detailed statement of the grounds for the claim of lack of authenticity and/or the 

failure to qualify as a business record within the meaning of F.R.E. 803(6) or applicable 

analogous state court rules. 

Any objection shall be deemed to have been made for all depositions in which the 

exhibit is used from that time forward. Any such exhibits not so identified within 30 calendar 

days shall be deemed faithful and authentic reproductions of the original and/or business 

records within the meaning of F.R.E. 803(6) or applicable analogous state court rules. The 

Parties shall make a good faith effort not to mark deposition exhibits en masse for the sole 

purpose of bringing those exhibits within the scope of this section. 

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5. Documents Provided by Non-Parties

Documents produced and/or purportedly generated by a non-Party shall be presumed to 

be a faithful and authentic reproduction of the original, unless any objecting Party establishes 

through a motion in limine or otherwise, that the document is not authentic and/or fails to 

qualify as a business record of the non-Party within the meaning of Rule 803(6) or applicable 

analogous state court rules. Documents produced and/or purportedly generated by a non-Party 

that have been or, hereafter, are placed into the record as a deposition exhibit shall be deemed 

faithful and authentic reproductions of the original and/or business records within the meaning 

of F.R.E. 803(6) or applicable analogous state court rules unless any Party raises an objection 

within the timeframe set forth above. 

6. Remedies After Notification of any Objection to Authenticity and/or Status as a 

Business Record

Upon being notified that an exhibit is claimed to be inauthentic and/or fails to qualify as 

a business record, after meeting and conferring with opposing Liaison Counsel, either party 

may, with consent of opposing counsel or with leave of Court, initiate appropriate discovery 

limited to seeking to further establish authenticity and/or the status of the document as a 

business record. 

a. Limited Scope of Deposition: Any deposition noticed solely to establish the 

authenticity or business record status of a document shall be limited strictly to that purpose for 

the specific document at issue and shall not address any other unrelated matters. 

b. Deposition of Common Witnesses: Where such a deposition is taken of a 

common witness who has or may be deposed on other matters in this MDL, that deposition shall 

not count against either Parties’ limits on the number of depositions established by other Court 

Order. However, any such deposition must be taken in accordance with the schedule set forth in 

Pretrial Order No. 6. Nothing in this Order shall be construed to amend any Orders entered by 

the Court in any other fashion. 

/ / / 

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7. Limitations of Order

a. No Effect on Other Rules of Evidence: This Order addresses only the 

authenticity and/or business record status of any particular document, and should not be read to 

apply to any other rule of evidence implicated by said document. 

b. No Waiver of Objections to Similar Documents: The failure of any Party to 

object to any document shall not constitute an admission or concession by that Party that similar 

documents to which the Party does object are authentic and/or qualify as business records under 

applicable federal or state rules. For example, the failure to object to each email being treated as 

authentic and/or a business record does not foreclose such an objection to any individual email. 

8. Parties to Meet and Confer on Authentication and Business Record Status

The Parties shall make good faith, cooperative efforts, through the meet and confer 

process or otherwise, to resolve any issues concerning the authenticity and/or business record 

status of documents subject to this Order so as to minimize the time and resources of the parties 

and of the Court devoted to such matters. 

Dated: ____________________________________ 

 THE HONORABLE RICHARD SEEBORG 

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 

10/19/16

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