Judge Albright’s Latest Changes to Venue and Fact Discovery Practices

Judge Albright issued two amended standing orders, which are now published on the Western District of Texas website here and here.

Here are the highlights:

Venue Discovery:

• Judge Albright amended his prior standing order regarding venue discovery, imposing limits on the number of discovery requests and deposition time. Initially allowing unlimited discovery, the standing order now limits each party to:
• five (5) interrogatories,
• ten (10) requests for production, and
• ten (10) hours of deposition testimony.
• The time to respond to such discovery requests is reduced to twenty (20) days, and all venue or jurisdictional discovery shall be completed no later than three months after the filing of the initial motion.
• The deadline to respond to a defendant’s motion to transfer is not due until two weeks after the completion of venue or jurisdictional discovery, and the defendant will have two weeks to file a reply after the plaintiff’s response.

Opening of Fact Discovery:

• Judge Albright has made a slight amendment to his previous order to resolve transfer motions before Markman hearings (see discussion here). In that previous order, the court noted that it would resolve any pending motions for inter-district transfer prior to a Markman hearing, including postponing the Markman hearing if necessary.
• In this amended standing order, Judge Albright has noted that when postponing a Markman hearing, fact discovery will open one day after the originally scheduled Markman hearing date.