Mees v. Buiter, No. 14-1866 (2d Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseApplicant appealed the district court's denial of her application to compel discovery from respondent under 28 U.S.C. 1782. Applicant sought discovery from respondent to plead and to prove a contemplated defamation suit against him in her home country of the Netherlands. The district court denied the application on the ground that the materials sought were not “for use” in the Dutch proceeding, as required by section 1782, because they were not necessary for applicant to draft an adequate complaint. The court concluded that the district court's conclusion was erroneous because an applicant may satisfy the statute’s “for use” requirement even if the discovery she seeks is not necessary for her to succeed in the foreign proceeding and because the discovery need not be sought for the purpose of commencing a foreign proceeding in order to be “for use” in that proceeding. That is so even where a section 1782 applicant is a private litigant who has yet to commence the foreign proceeding for which discovery is sought, so long as the proceeding is within reasonable contemplation. A section 1782 applicant, such as the case here, satisfies the statute’s “for use” requirement by showing that the materials she seeks are to be used at some stage of a foreign proceeding. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded.
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