## Facts

- In a diversity personal-injury action, the defense retained an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Robert D. Keehn, to conduct a physical examination of the plaintiff under Fed. R. Civ. P. 35.
- The plaintiff sought discovery to impeach Dr. Keehn’s credibility by showing bias based on long-term financial ties to insurers and defense counsel.
- The plaintiff served a Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 request on the defendant seeking five years of documents about Dr. Keehn’s forensic work and related income, including tax returns, income from IMEs and testimony, time spent on forensic activities, and lists of cases, insurers, and attorneys.
- The defendant refused to produce the requested information, and the plaintiff then served a Fed. R. Civ. P. 45 subpoena on Dr. Keehn seeking substantially the same materials.
- The defendant moved to quash and otherwise block the discovery; the court treated the motion as seeking a protective order under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c).

## Issues

1. Whether, and to what extent, discovery may be taken into a testifying medical expert’s income and forensic-activity history to show potential bias.
2. How to limit expert-bias discovery under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2), 26(c), and 45 to avoid undue burden, harassment, and unnecessary intrusion into private financial matters.

## Decision

- The court denied the defendant’s request to bar discovery into Dr. Keehn’s forensic income and activities as a subject matter.
- The court limited the breadth, form, and sequencing of production, rejecting wholesale production of highly intrusive materials (such as complete tax returns) where less intrusive alternatives could provide the needed bias information.
- The court required production of bias-related financial and workload information in a modified format, and ordered that production occur under a protective order.

## Legal Principles

- Discovery aimed at showing a testifying expert’s bias or financial interest is generally relevant under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), even if sought primarily for impeachment.
- Courts must limit discovery when the burden or expense outweighs the likely benefit, or when requests are disproportionate, cumulative, or obtainable in a less burdensome way. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2).
- Requests for complete tax returns and broad, detailed financial records are disfavored when tailored disclosures (including aggregated or summary information) can provide adequate material to probe bias while reducing privacy intrusion.
- Protective orders under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c) are an appropriate mechanism to permit relevant expert-bias discovery while controlling format, scope, confidentiality, and burden; similar protections apply when discovery is pursued by subpoena under Fed. R. Civ. P. 45.

## Conclusion

The court permitted discovery into a defense medical expert’s forensic income and history to support bias impeachment, but required the information to be provided in limited, summary form and subject to confidentiality protections rather than by compelled production of broad private financial documents.


Behler v. Hanlon, 199 F.R.D. 553 (D. Md. 2001)