In Re CSX Corp.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

137 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 137 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Generally, the scope of discovery is within the trial court’s discretion. However, the trial court must make an effort to impose reasonable discovery limits. The trial court abuses its discretion by ordering discovery that exceeds that permitted by the rules of procedure. Our procedural rules define the general scope of discovery as any unprivileged information that is relevant to the subject of the action, even if it would be inadmissible at trial, as long as the information sought is ‘reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.’ ... Although the scope of discovery is broad, requests must show a reasonable expectation of obtaining information that will aid the dispute’s resolution. Thus, discovery requests must be ‘reasonably tailored’ to include only relevant matters.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Oncology & Hematology Associates v. South Carolina Department of Health & Environmental Control · In re Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n

2. “[I]n American Optical, an asbestos-litigation case, the trial court ordered the defendant to turn over every document ever produced relating to asbestos. We held the order was overbroad, because “ordering a defendant to produce virtually all documents regarding its products for a fifty-year period is an abuse of ... discretion.” In Dillard, we held the trial court’s order was overly broad, because it required Dillard to produce every incident report filed between 1985 and 1990 in all 227 Dillard stores nationwide. The Court explained that “requests for document production may not be used simply to explore.” Finally, in Texaco, the plaintiffs claimed injurious workplace exposure to benzene and requested all safety and toxicology docu ments written by the corporate safety director, including those documents regarding other employees’ exposure and plants where the plaintiffs never worked. The request also extended into a time period during which the plaintiffs did not work with the company.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In Re Nolle

3. “A central consideration in determining overbreadth is whether the request could have been more narrowly tailored to avoid including tenuous information and still obtain the necessary, pertinent information.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In re Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n