United States: Texas Supreme Court Limits Discovery To Products Plaintiffs Can Connect To Claims

By Elizabeth Runyan Geise, Joanne M. Gray, Shepard M. Remis - Eric I. Goldberg contributed to the preparation of this article

In a recent decision, the Texas Supreme Court showed once again that it will intervene to curtail overbroad and burdensome discovery allowed by some Texas trial courts. In In re Graco Children’s Prods., 2006 Tex. LEXIS 1073, No. 05-0479 (Tex. Oct. 27, 2006), the Texas Supreme Court granted mandamus to curtail broad discovery requests allowed by the trial court because the requests were immense and did not concern the defective product at issue in the litigation. In reaching this result, the court cited four prior decisions in which it similarly intervened in products cases through mandamus to reverse discovery – allowed by trial courts – that concerned products not at issue in those cases. Here, the court prevented discovery on a tangential but potentially damaging issue, a massive fine paid by the defendant for other products, because the plaintiffs could not identify any connection between the fine and the products at issue in the case.

This decision is significant to products liability defendants in Texas for several reasons. First, the decision reaffirms the holding in prior Texas Supreme Court cases that discovery in products cases is limited to products directly related to a plaintiff’s claims. Second, and relatedly, the decision confirms that a defendant’s past misconduct regarding an unrelated product does not, without an additional showing, permit extensive discovery concerning the unrelated product. Finally, this decision and its predecessors should encourage defendants to push Texas courts to limit overbroad discovery requests that the plaintiff cannot connect to a valid claim it has made in the litigation.

In re Graco involved a lawsuit brought by plaintiff Patricia Galnares whose Jeep Liberty rolled over on a Mississippi interstate killing her five-week-old son Michael. After the accident, police found Michael’s body on the front seat floorboard.

Subsequently, Galnares sued the manufacturer of the child seat in the car at the time of the accident, Graco Children’s Products. She alleged that the seat’s harness malfunctioned because it was found unbuckled at the scene. Graco contended that the child seat was not in use at the time of the accident because Galnares’ brother told police that Galnares was feeding the child and the child was not in the child seat, which was in the back seat of the car, when the Jeep rolled over.

Prior to trial, Graco paid a $4 million fine to the Consumer Products Safety Commission ("CPSC") for failing to report defects in "dozens" of child-related products, including high chairs, swings, strollers, toddler beds and infant carriers. The fine was the largest in CPSC history. But while infant carriers were included in the fine, the defect at issue was a problem in the carrying handle used when carrying the seat – not in the harness. And none of the product defects at issue in the CPSC fine involved the five-point harness that the plaintiffs alleged had failed during the car accident.

Nonetheless, Galnares sought discovery of 20 categories of documents that "mentioned or referred to any of the defects, products, complaints, or people who might have been involved with those products or the investigation" that led to the fine. Graco objected, arguing that none of those products were relevant to Galnares’ suit. The trial court, however, ordered over 20,000 pages of documents in three states be produced and that Graco also produce two corporate representatives for deposition.

The Texas Supreme Court granted Graco’s petition for mandamus after the intermediate appellate court rejected Graco’s appeal. While noting that the "scope of discovery is within the trial court’s discretion," the Supreme Court held that this discovery order was "well outside the bounds" of the trial court’s discretion because there is "no apparent connection between the alleged defect and the discovery ordered." The court rejected Galnares’ argument that the discovery she requested was appropriate because "she is not required to take Graco’s word" that none of the defective products subject to the CPSC fine included a harness like the one at issue in this case. While the court agreed that Galnares could probe deeper on this issue, it held that "there are ways to find out without producing 20,000 documents." Instead, the court explained that Galnares must narrowly tailor her request to the relevant product defect as opposed to general discovery requests that would have been extensive, costly and of little benefit to the issues in her case.

The court also noted that Galnares’ interest in the CPSC fine against Graco was understandable: "[a]ny attorney would be interested in a record-breaking sanction against an adversary in an upcoming trial." But here the evidence was a "blind alley," since "evidence about different products and dissimilar accidents has long been inadmissible as it generally proves nothing while distracting from the accident at hand." Indeed, the court concluded, "[t]his case could have been tried more than a year ago, had not [plaintiff] directed her attention at products she never used and defects she never alleged."

In the end, neither the size of the request nor its lack of clear connection to Galnares’ claims, alone, led the court to its decision. Instead, the court focused on the interplay of the size of the request with the slim possibility that it would result in evidence relevant to the plaintiff’s claims.¹ Thus, if the CPSC fine did cover the five-point harness, or if Galnares’ requests were more narrowly tailored, it is likely that they would have survived review.

In re Graco is significant because it reaffirms a consistent line of Texas high court rulings limiting the scope of discovery in products liability cases to products that the plaintiff can connect to his or her claims. Suppositions and hunches are not enough to support broad and costly discovery requests. In reaching the result in In re Graco, the Texas Supreme Court cited a series of prior decisions in which it has limited, through mandamus, discovery allowed by trial courts:

• In re CSX Corp., 124 S.W. 3d 149 (Tex. 2003) (granting mandamus against order allowing discovery about companies and time periods unrelated to plaintiff’s benzene exposure claim);

• In re American Optical Corp., 988 S.W. 2d 711 (Tex. 1998) (granting mandamus against order allowing discovery about respiratory protection products plaintiff never used);

• Texaco Inc. v. Sanderson, 898 S.W. 2d 813 (Tex. 1995) (granting mandamus against order allowing discovery about substances, jobsites or time period relevant to plaintiffs’ benzene and asbestos exposures claims);

• General Motors Corp. v. Lawrence, 651 S.W. 2d 732 (Tex. 1983) (granting mandamus against order allowing discovery concerning cars that did not contain the allegedly defective fuel filler-neck).

Thus, In re Graco joins a growing line of Texas Supreme Court cases that indicate that the Texas high court will not allow oppressive, burdensome discovery in products cases. While some Texas trial courts have long had a reputation of being plaintiff-friendly, In re Graco reaffirms, once again, that the Texas Supreme Court is ready and willing to intervene when discovery orders from trial courts are unreasonable. These decisions, taken together, should discourage plaintiffs from serving onerous and burdensome discovery requests on parties without being able to justify the size of the request with a high likelihood that it will result in evidence relevant to the plaintiff’s claims. If plaintiffs and trial courts fail to heed these warnings, In re Graco should encourage defendants to challenge such discovery requests via mandamus. If you have any questions on the information contained in the alert, please contact:

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