La. Court Denies Motion to Compel Discovery in Asbestos Drilling Mud Additive Case

BATON ROUGE, La. –– A Louisiana federal court has denied an asbestos plaintiff’s attempt to compel discovery, concluding that efforts to obtain seven years’ worth of well logs from 40 years ago covering over half a million square miles in the Gulf of Mexico were not “proportional to the needs of the case.”

In the Aug. 9 opinion, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana ultimately concluded that the plaintiff failed to carry his burden of proving that the information request was relevant to his lawsuit.

David Hsieh filed the underlying complaint, contending that he developed …