Discovery Hashed Out in Court Cases Between Diamond and some Publishers
One of the major outstanding issues with Diamond‘s bankruptcy is the status of consignment inventory. Diamond currently has stock that was provided to it by publishers on a consignment basis. That stock is currently physically held by Sparkle Pop which purchased some of Diamond’s assets, including taking over the warehouse where these are stored, though they don’t have a right to sell it (which they did and there was drama around that). Earlier today, we reported that a group of publishers filed a motion to dismiss their cases and thus take control of their goods. But, there’s still a few more publishers that are outstanding and since that motion hasn’t been decided, things are still in motion.
Today, a report was filed concerning the cases of Goodman Games, BOOM! Entertainment, Fantagraphics, and Avatar Press, laying out the plans for “discovery.”
The various parties and Diamond met on February 26 and March 3-4 to attempt to find a resolution, the nature of the claims and defenses, to arrange disclosures, and propose a discovery plan.
Discovery is a process where documents are handed over to the lawyers for them to go through. This could be contracts, emails, text messages, and more and is a gathering of evidence to be used during the trial. It can be a costly process and involve millions of documents that need to be sorted through. With that, rules and dates are laid out for the case concerning the discover process including on the production protocol.
There are key dates now as per the initial agreement.
(a) Discovery Requests. The Parties shall serve all initial document requests, interrogatories, and requests for admissions on or before May 11, 2026.
(b) Agree on ESI Search Terms. The Parties will make reasonable efforts to agree on ESI Search Terms on or before May 25, 2026.
(c) Substantial Document Production Completion Date. The Parties expect to have document production substantially completed by July 6, 2026.
(d) Fact Discovery Cut Off. The Parties have agreed that, except for Rule 26(a)(1) disclosures, all fact discovery in this case shall be initiated so that it will be completed on or before August 31, 2026. The Parties have agreed that they may take fact depositions at any time prior to the expiration of the fact discovery deadline.
(e) Privilege Logs. Privilege logs shall be produced in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure so as to be completed within five (5) business days of the related document production. Privileged communications occurring after April 29, 2025, need not be included on a privilege log.
(f) Expert Initial Disclosures. The identify of expert witness and subject matter of expected testimony, per Rule 26(a)(2)(A) and 26(a)(2)(C)(i), shall be disclosed on September 8, 2026. Any rebuttal experts, and subject matter of expected testimony, shall be disclosed on September 18, 2026.
(g) Expert Reports and Expert Discovery Cut Off. Expert reports and all other information required by Rule 26(a)(2)(B), along with any documents or information considered by the expert, shall be exchanged on October 8, 2026. Rebuttal expert reports and all other information required by Rule 26(a)(2)(B), along with any documents or information considered by the expert, shall be exchanged on October 29, 2026. All expert discovery shall be completed by November 20, 2026.
With that final date, that would mean the earliest a trial would happen would be late November but with Thanksgiving, early December is more likely and this agreement estimates it’d last 3 to 4 days.
