‘Rolling Production’ of Documents to Begin Friday in Verizon Fraud Case

Lawyers for the 27 named plaintiffs in the fraud class action alleging Verizon pads the monthly bills of its postpaid wireless customers with a secretive administrative charge (docket 3:21-cv-8592) have served two sets of discovery requests on Verizon since late September, lead plaintiff counsel Stephen DeNittis of DeNittis Osefchen told a virtual status conference Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen imposed a partial stay in the proceedings in the fall, pending the 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court review of Chen’s July 1 order denying Verizon’s motion to compel the dispute to arbitration. Chen’s partial stay enables the plaintiffs to ask Verizon to produce documents it has on the 27 customers while the 9th Circuit appeal progresses. The parties have been able to work out an agreement on the first set of discovery requests, and “rolling production” of the documents involved is scheduled to begin Friday, said DeNittis. He’s “cautiously optimistic” the parties will come to terms on the second set of discovery requests, he said. Chen scheduled the next status conference May 23 at 2:30 p.m. PDT. Verizon filed its opening brief (docket 22-16020) in the 9th Circuit appeal on Nov. 21, arguing that Chen's denial of the motion to compel arbitration was "deeply flawed." The plaintiffs' answering brief is due March 17. With the 9th Circuit's briefing schedule "in place, I guess we'll wait to see how that rolls out," Chen told the conference.