Tieman et al v. American Risk Services, LLC et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
WESTERN DIVISION
HOWARD TIEMAN, et al., 	)
)
Plaintiffs, 	)
)
vs. 	) 	Case No. 	4:25-00246-CV-DGK
)
AMERICAN RISK SERVICES, LLC, et al., 	)
)
Defendants. 	)
ORDER REGARDING DISCOVERY DISPUTE
Plaintiffs are the developers and/or owners of a novel and lucrative insurance product,
namely a loan-to-value risk management program for automobile loans. 	Plaintiffs call their
product the LEP/DGP Program.1 	To commercialize this product, Plaintiffs sought a partner to
assist with sales solicitation, administration, and marketing, as well as an insurance underwriter to
underwrite and issue policies. 	Plaintiffs began consulting with Glen Ballew (“Ballew”), a
recently retired Executive Vice President of Arch Insurance Company (“Arch”), to bring the
LEP/DGP Program to market. 	Plaintiffs were then introduced to defendant American Risk
Services, LLC (“ARS”), which had a relationship with Arch Insurance Company 	through other
insurance programs. 	Plaintiffs allege Defendants fraudulently induced them to enter into an
agreement to market the insurance product by misrepresenting their intent and ability to perform
their obligations. 	Defendants deny the allegations.
On August 22, 2025, the Court granted Arch’s motion to dismiss, finding Plaintiffs had no
legitimate claims against Arch, and they had fraudulently joined Arch to preclude removal.
1 The acronym is derived from the program’s former name, the Partial Recourse Protection Program, which was later
known as Lenders Equity Protection (“LEP”) when it was made available to retail automotive lenders and known as
Dealer Guarantee Protection (“DGP”) when made available to automobile dealers.
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Now before the Court is a discovery dispute related to a third-party subpoena Plaintiffs
served on Arch. 	The subpoena contains fifty-seven document requests spanning as much as seven
years of time. 	It appears Arch has not produced any documents in response to the subpoena.
After reviewing the memos, the Court holds a teleconference is not necessary and rules on
the existing record.
The arguments can be summarized as follows. 	Plaintiffs argue Arch is an integral player
in the events in this case, and that Arch’s objections are impermissible “boilerplate” objections
which should be ignored because they violate the Court’s Initial Standing Order, ECF No. 8.
In response, Arch argues that as a non-party to this lawsuit, it is entitled to heightened
protection under Rules 26 and 45, and that the requests are overly broad, unduly burdensome,
unreasonably 	duplicative 	of 	discovery 	sought 	from 	the 	remaining 	Defendants, 	and 	seek
confidential and competitively sensitive information. 	Arch contends that any non-party discovery
concerning it should be (1) sequenced to take place after party discovery; (2) narrowed to eliminate
duplication of discovery served on the remaining Defendants because many of the documents
Plaintiffs seek are also in the possession of the remaining Defendants; and (3) limited in scope by
custodian, subject, and timeframe, subject to “appropriate confidentiality protections;” and (4)
Plaintiff should be required to reimburse Arch for the reasonable costs of compliance, including
vendors costs, attorneys’ fees, and the production of a privilege log.
As a threshold matter, the Court is disappointed by the parties’ inability, or unwillingness,
to narrow the scope of their dispute before seeking the Court’s intervention. 	That said, the Court
agrees with both parties. 	With respect to Plaintiffs’ complaints, the Court agrees that almost all
of Arch’s responses consist of boilerplate objections. 	Here is a typical response:
Objection. 	This 	Request 	is 	overly 	broad, 	unduly
burdensome, and disproportionate to the claims, defenses and issues
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in the case, and seeks documents that are not relevant to the claims
or defenses of any party and not reasonably calculated to lead to the
discovery of admissible evidence. This Request is also premature
and unduly burdensome because Plaintiffs just recently served their
first and only discovery requests directed upon any defendant in the
Underlying Action, which seek the same or substantially the same
documents as requested here, and have not yet received Defendant’s
responses or documents. Plaintiffs have not sought discovery from
ARS or any other Defendant likely in direct possession of the
requested documents. This Request calls for the disclosure of
documents that are in the possession, custody, or control of
Defendants in this action. To the extent they exist, Plaintiffs can
obtain such documents directly from Defendants; it is improper to
impose such a burden on a third party. This Request is also vague
and ambiguous; it is unclear what documents are actually being
requested 	by 	Plaintiffs. 	To 	the 	extent 	this 	Request 	can 	be
understood, it appears to seek confidential, proprietary and/or
commercially sensitive business information belonging to non-party
Arch. This Request is also overly broad and unduly burdensome
because it contains no temporal limitations and would require Arch
to 	search 	through 	an 	unreasonable 	amount 	of 	documents.
Responding to this unreasonable Request would likely require the
hiring of an outside vendor at a significant hourly rate to locate,
review, and produce the requested information and overall would
require Arch to incur significant expense. Finally, this Request seeks
sensitive and confidential business information belonging to Arch.
Arch’s Objections and Responses to Plaintiff’s Third-Party Subpoena, ECF No. 44-4. 	This
answer is essentially repeated throughout Arch’s responses, albeit worded slightly differently, or
with a different sentence added or subtracted. 	Compare, e.g., Arch’s responses to requests #1 and
#2 (identical to the above) with #4 (including the sentence, “It further improperly assumes facts
because Arch is not a party to the Agreement attached as Schedule Exhibit A1 and, thus, did not
negotiate, execute, implement, perform, or interpret it.”), #5 (including the sentence, “It further
improperly assumes facts because Arch is not a party to the Letter Agreement attached as Schedule
Exhibit A2 and, thus, did not negotiate, execute, implement, perform, or interpret it.”), and #23
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(adding “Among other things, this Request is not limited [sic] the LEP or DGP,” and slightly
modifying other sentences.) 	The constant in almost all of Arch’s responses is that they fail to
specify exactly how the request is deficient. 	Consequently, these responses are textbook
boilerplate objections as described in the Court’s Initial Standing Order.
Ordinarily the Court would summarily rule almost all of Arch’s objections to be waived.
But the Court cannot do so in this case, because so many of Plaintiffs’ requests are sufficiently
premature, overly broad, unduly burdensome, and/or disproportionate given Arch’s third-party
status that it would be inequitable to do so.
Turning to Arch’s complaints, while Plaintiffs are correct that Rule 26(d)(3) does not
require Plaintiffs to obtain discovery from the existing Defendants before seeking discovery from
a third-party such as Arch, sequencing discovery on Arch to take place after party discovery is
substantially complete makes practical sense in this case. 	There is merit to Arch’s other
arguments as well: since there is substantial overlap between the documents in the Defendants’
possession and the documents Plaintiffs seek from Arch (for example, request #5 seeks “All
communications and documents sent to or received from any current Defendant to this case about
the Agreement”), discovery against Arch should be reasonably designed to eliminate this
duplication. 	Further, the Court agrees Plaintiffs should limit the scope of their subpoena by
custodian, subject, and timeframe. 	Any documents produced should be subject to “appropriate
confidentiality protections,” and some amount of cost-sharing is appropriate here.
The devil, of course, is in the details. 	Given the lack of good-faith effort put forth by the
parties to resolve their dispute without the Court’s intervention, the Court declines to rule on the
specifics of each of the fifty-seven requests (which is an excessive number of requests to seek from
a third-party). 	Instead, the Court directs Plaintiffs and Arch to re-start this process from the
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beginning with the Court’s above observations in mind. 	That is, the Court strikes the pending
subpoena in its entirety. 	Plaintiffs may prepare and serve a substantially revised subpoena, to
which Arch will respond with non-boilerplate responses.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Date: 	February 24, 2026 	/s/ Greg Kays
GREG KAYS, JUDGE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
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