The Court denied a Motion for Expedited Discovery in a shareholder class action seeking injunctive relief against the merger of two national banks, finding that the facts necessary to decide the motion were already publicly known.
The Court considered several different tests for when expedited discovery should be allowed, including:
Crown Crafts, Inc. v. Aldrich, 148 F.R.D. 151, 152 (E.D.N.C. 1993), in which the court held that the plaintiff should be required “to demonstrate (1) irreparable injury, (2) some probability of success on the merits, (3) some connection between the expedited discovery and the avoidance of the irreparable injury, and (4) some evidence that the injury that will result without expedited discovery looms greater than the injury that the defendant will suffer if the expedited relief is granted.”
Dimension Data N. America, Inc. v. NetStar-1, Inc., 226 F.R.D. 528, 531 (E.D.N.C. 2005), requiring a showing of reasonableness and good cause for the expedited discovery, "taking into account the totality of the circumstances."
Marie Raymond Revocable Trust v. MAT Five LLC, 2008 Del. Ch. LEXIS 77, at * 6 (June 26, 2008), requiring a plaintiff to “articulate a sufficiently colorable claim and shoe a sufficient possibility of a threatened irreparable injury to justify imposing on the defendants and the public the extra (and sometimes substantial) costs of an expedited . . . proceeding.”
The Court did not endorse any particular test.
Plaintiff’s Brief In Support of Expedited Discovery
Defendant’s Brief in Opposition to Expedited Discovery
Plaintiff’s Reply Brief in Support of Expedited Discovery