Opinion ID: 1811971
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Discovery of Other Litigation

Text: According to Vulcan, [t]he circuit court exceeded its discretion in requiring Vulcan to produce information concerning Vulcan's involvement in, or knowledge of, other litigation, without regard to where or when the litigation was filed, or whether the subject matter of the lawsuits was remotely similar to the claims made in this case. Petition, at 9. This argument relates to requests no. 10, no. 22, and no. 24, as well as to interrogatory no. 20. It should, of course, be noted that one of the inquiries is limited geographically to the State of Alabama (request no. 24), and some of the inquiries are temporally limited to five years (requests no. 10, no. 22, and no. 24), while one of the inquiries has neither temporal nor geographical limitations (interrogatory no. 20). Without reasonable temporal and geographical limitations and subject-matter similarity, Vulcan argues, discovery of the requested material would be unduly burdensome and oppressive, as well as ultimately irrelevant to the question of punitive damages. Petition, at 12. More specifically, Vulcan contends that a reasonable inquiry would be limited to litigation involving Vulcan in the State of Alabama within five years of this dispute. Id. We agree. `The first step in determining whether the court has [exceeded] its discretion is to determine the particularized need for discovery, in light of the nature of the claim. ' Ex parte Henry, 770 So.2d 76, 80 (Ala.2000) (quoting Ex parte Rowland, 669 So.2d 125, 127 (Ala.1995) (emphasis added)). To be relevant to a constitutionally sanctioned punitive-damages review, any extraterritorial conduct of the defendant must have a nexus to the specific harm suffered by the plaintiff.  Campbell, 538 U.S. at 422, 123 S.Ct. 1513 (emphasis added). An action in one state may not be used as a platform to expose, and punish, the perceived deficiencies of [a defendant's] operations throughout the country. Campbell, 538 U.S. at 420, 123 S.Ct. 1513. A defendant's dissimilar acts, independent from the acts upon which liability was premised, may not serve as the basis for punitive damages. A defendant should be punished for the conduct that harmed the plaintiff.... 538 U.S. at 422-23, 123 S.Ct. 1513. This is so, because, as a general rule, a State does not have a legitimate concern in imposing punitive damages to punish defendants for unlawful acts committed outside of the State's jurisdiction. 538 U.S. at 421, 123 S.Ct. 1513. Thus, a litigant may not seek to support a punitive-damages award through discovery aimed at generic, undelineated out-of-state conduct. Our recent cases have stated or applied similar principles, albeit in different terms, in the context of general pretrial discovery. The Court has insisted that discovery requests be closely tailored to the plaintiff's claims. Ex parte Horton, 711 So.2d 979, 983 (Ala.1998). Nationwide discovery has been held overly broad and ... not closely tailored to the nature of the [plaintiff's claims]. Ex parte Henry, 770 So.2d at 80. See Ex parte Orkin, Inc., 960 So.2d 635, 642 (Ala.2006) (an order compelling production of customer files stored in five states was not closely tailored and could not be sanctioned on the unsubstantiated hypothesis that a search of records related to nonparties might uncover fact patterns similar to those underlying the plaintiffs' claims); Ex parte National Sec. Ins. Co., 773 So.2d 461, 465 (Ala.2000) (an order limiting discovery to five years and to the borders of Alabama was closely tailored to the plaintiff's fraud allegations); see also Ex parte Union Sec. Life Ins. Co., 723 So.2d 34, 40 (Ala.1998) (the trial court exceeded its discretion in compelling production of records from a seven-state area in the Southeast). Furthermore, discovery requests must generally be subject to reasonable temporal limitations. In Ex parte Orkin, we said: No bright line exists concerning the maximum period over which a litigant should be required to search for records. The length of that period depends on whether the records being searched are `relevant to the subject matter involved in the dispute.' Rule 26(b)(1), Ala. R. Civ. P.; 8 Wright, Miller & Marcus, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2008 (1994). Even then, a litigant in a fraud action must show a substantial need for discovery of records that concern transactions with nonparties, that are older than five years, and that do not directly relate to the litigant's own claim or defense.  960 So.2d at 643 (emphasis added). See also Ex parte Ocwen Fed. Bank, FSB, supra (trial court did not exceed its discretion in restricting the discovery period to five years); Ex parte Wal-Mart, Inc., 809 So.2d 818, 822 (Ala.2001) (the trial court properly narrowed discovery of customer incident reports and employee accident review forms to Alabama stores and to a five-year period); Ex parte National Sec. Ins. Co., 773 So.2d at 465 (a discovery order limited to five years was proper); Ex parte Union Sec. Life Ins. Co., 723 So.2d at 39 (a discovery order limited to five years and to the borders of Alabama was proper). Although Orkin and some of the cases cited above involved fraud claims, it is well established that greater latitude is allowed for discovery in a fraud case ... because of the heavy burden of proof imposed on one alleging fraud. 960 So.2d at 641. Thus, a fortiori, a temporally unlimited discovery order in a nonfraud case challenging a punitive-damages award, which is subject to the constitutional constraints outlined in BMW, supra, and Campbell, supra, is overly broad in the absence of a showing of a substantial need for the material sought. The relevant claim in this case is intentional interference with contractual or business relations. Request no. 10 seeks production of [a]ny and all documents ... provided to independent auditors ... regarding any other litigation against Vulcan... for the past five (5) years. Request no. 22 seeks production of [c]opies of the complaints in each lawsuit filed [against Vulcan] within the last five years. Request no. 24 seeks production of all documents, records, correspondence, ... or handwritten materials relating to the knowledge which Vulcan and/or its directors, managers or executive officers may have had during the past five (5) years with regard to ... judgments rendered in the courts of Alabama during the past five (5) years. (Emphasis added.) Interrogatory no. 20 seeks specific information on every lawsuit ever filed against Vulcan claiming ... wrongful interference with business or contractual relations, improper restraint of trade, and/or improper price fixing. Vulcan objects to the scope of the requests for information regarding other lawsuits or claims against it. In support of its argument, Vulcan presented the affidavit of William F. Denson III, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of Vulcan. He stated that Vulcan has been in operations for 49 years and that its business is international in scope, and he testified in detail regarding the difficulties and attendant costs of attempting to comply with Blizard's discovery requests. In response, Blizard concedes that, to be relevant, evidence of out-of-state conduct must be similar to the conduct involved in this case. Blizard's brief, at 13-14. More specifically, he states: Evidence of other similar acts of Vulcan is relevant to the trial court's analysis of the degree of reprehensibility of its conduct in a post-judgment analysis of the punitive damages awarded by the jury. Id. at 13. However, he makes no attempt to explain how the extraterritorial conduct of Vulcan that is apparently the subject of these discovery inquiries is similar, or closely tailored, to the litigation involved here. Request no. 24, for example, seeks to discover facts known to all Vulcan's management personnel  wherever they resideregarding every Alabama judgment entered in a five-year period, regardless of the nature of such a judgment. In so doing, request no. 24 goes far beyond the scope of any legitimate inquiry. Request no. 24 is fatally flawed because of the conspicuous absence of similarity to, and nexus with, this litigation. Requests no. 10 and no. 22 are similarly international in scope. Consequently, they are also not closely tailored to this litigation. In addition to being international in scope, interrogatory no. 20 places no temporal restriction on discovery of transactions with nonparties, Ex parte Orkin, 960 So.2d at 643, and Blizard does not attempt to demonstrate a substantial need for discovery of records ... that are older than five years. Id. Interrogatory no. 20, therefore, is impermissibly broad, failing both temporal and nexus requirements. Blizard says it is inaccurate to suggest that Alabama courts have refused to uphold all instances where a trial court did not impose time and area limitations on discovery requests. Blizard's brief, at 14 (emphasis added). For that proposition, however, he cites only Ex parte Philadelphia Life Insurance Co., 682 So.2d 392 (Ala.1996). It is true that in Ex parte Philadelphia Life, a fraud case, this Court refused to impose temporal or geographical restrictions on the plaintiffs' interrogatories and production requests. Philadelphia Life has not been cited by any court. It is obviously inconsistent with our more recent cases, and is hereby overruled. We conclude, therefore, that the trial court exceeded its discretion in compelling production of requests no. 10, no. 22, and no. 24 and interrogatory no. 20. The petition is granted insofar as it relates to those discovery items. [4]