The District Court of Massachusetts recently granted a Motion to Dismiss a Petition to enforce an arbitration panel’s subpoena duces tecum. Liberty Mutual filed a petition to enforce a subpoena issued by an arbitral panel in an arbitration being conducted in Boston, Massachusetts. The subpoena was served on White Mountains, who was not a party to that arbitration, in New Hampshire. The subpoena required White Mountains to produce certain documents to an attorney in New Hampshire. When White Mountain produced some documents, but not everything that Liberty expected, Liberty filed a petition to enforce the subpoena.
The Plaintiff argued that the district court had subject matter jurisdiction and power to grant the relief requested based on the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. §7. The Court concluded that Liberty’s petition failed to satisfy key requirements of §7. Specifically, the court held that to be judicially enforceable, an arbitral subpoena must be for the attendance of a witness before the arbitration panel to testify rather than for pre-hearing discovery, and must be served within the territorial limitations applicable to trial subpoenas. The Court also concluded that White Mountain did not waive objections to judicial enforcement of the subpoena by volunteering to produce certain non-privileged responsive documents. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. White Mountains Ins. Group, Case No. 06-11901-GAO (D. Mass., Feb. 26, 2007).
Further detail regarding the facts of this matter are available in a Memorandum filed by Liberty Mutual in support of its Petition, a Memorandum filed by White Mountains in support of its Motion to Dismiss, and Liberty Mutual's Memorandum in Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss.