Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson gave the Kadrey plaintiffs most, but not all, of the additional depositions they requested. The plaintiffs requested 31 additional depositions, but received 21 by Judge Hixon’s grant. Meta got its 8 additional depositions (but did not prevail on limiting the plaintiffs to 16 total as well).
But Judge Hixson made it clear he expects the plaintiffs to get moving and “avoiding a train wreck at the close of fact discovery,” on December 13. Judge Hixson noted: “the fact that Plaintiffs have taken only four depositions to date is a big red flag.”
Judge Hixson admonished: “The Court is approving a significant increase in the number of depositions with eight weeks and three days left in fact discovery. This will only work if the parties promptly take their allotted depositions with the documents they have from discovery requests they served and from the custodians they identified months ago. This will not work if the parties decline to take depositions until they receive things they don’t have yet. We are late in fact discovery, and the parties are expected to know who they want to depose and what documents they want to use with each witness. The witnesses are expected to have already blocked out time to prepare and be deposed. This is an important case, and the Court expects witnesses to rearrange their schedules and make themselves available promptly for deposition.”