[author: Eric Troutman]
Interesting one from December.
In Bell v. Hawx 2025 WL 3677347 (E.D. Cal. Dec. 18, 2025) a defendant’s motion to dismiss had been granted because the plaintiff had failed to allege sufficient facts about the calls at issue.
Plaintiff filed an amended complaint and added more facts but also requested early discovery to obtain a copy of the call transcripts for the calls made on behalf of the defendant to permit Plaintiff to allege further facts and defeat the motion to dismiss.
The court denied the request for early discovery finding it was contrary to the general rule that discovery commences only after a Rule 26(f), which had not yet occurred.
The court found plaintiff had not shown good cause to open discovery since reciting a line-by-line transcript of the calls was not necessary to state a claim and since the grant of discovery would delay the ruling on the motion to dismiss.
Can’t say I disagree here. A plaintiff is supposed to have sufficient facts to state a claim before filing suit. Using discovery to prove a viable claim exists is a misuse of the litigation process– you have to have a good faith basis for factual pleading before commencing suit per Rule 11.
Will keep an eye on this.
Chat soon.
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