A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for tag: RFAs

Objections Are Not Evidence

Nathan R. Hoeschen, June 18, 2023
RFAs Reargument

Judge Andrews issued an interesting opinion last week, in another case that breaks new ground on reconsideration. The (extremely) abridged and expurgated procedural history in MirTech, Inc. et al v. AgroFresh, Inc., C.A. No. 20-1170-RGA (D. Del. June 14, 2023) (Mem. Op.) is as follows:

  • Agrofresh moved for summary judgment on one of its counterclaims alleging breach of a settlement agreement requiring the plaintiffs to assign them several foreign patent applications
  • The plaintiffs responded by arguing that Agrofresh had actually dropped most of these claims. In support, they cited an RFA objection where Agrofresh argued that "[n]o claim or defense at issue in this lawsuit . . . relates to [the allegedly dropped applications]."
  • The Court denied …
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"Remember That Time a Plaintiff Tried to Serve 23,668 RFAs?"

Andrew E. Russell, May 10, 2022
RFAs Discovery Dispute

"Our RFAs will blot out the sun!" Possessed Photography, Unsplash

I have a feeling that, when the question of "how many RFAs can we serve if there is no limit" comes up going forward, we are all going to remember this case.

In FG SRC LLC v. Xilinx, Inc., C.A. No. 20-601-WCB (D. Del.), plaintiff apparently served 23,688 RFAs on the defendant, each one requesting an admission that a document produced by the defendant was authentic.

You may be thinking "Was this all in one set of RFAs?? Did they type this all out?!?" and it appears that the answer is "yes." According to the Court, the plaintiff served a "3,604-page document entitled 'First Requests for Admission of Authenticity.'" That's 9.1 RFAs per page.

I have to imagine they used a computer script or something similar to draft these. I hope they didn't condemn a poor associate or paralegal to their office for a week to type these out.

In any case, the defendant—shockingly!—objected that having to respond to 23,668 individual RFAs was "abusive, unreasonable, and oppressive." Judge Bryson ...

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