Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST—S.D.N.Y.: Court rules on objections in Keurig Antitrust MDL discovery disputes, (Sep 11, 2025)

By Martin A. Steinberg, J.D.

The parties objected to rulings on privilege determinations, spoliation sanctions, requests for admission, and awards of attorney fees and costs in the Keurig multidistrict antitrust litigation.

In a suit alleging that Keurig engaged in anticompetitive and unlawful conduct by redesigning its coffee makers to block competitors’ cups, the federal court in New York City ruled on several pretrial motions. The court addressed Keurig’s objections to an opinion regarding Winn-Dixie’s failure to comply with discovery orders. The court held that the judge in that case was in the best position to exercise discretion over discovery management and had not committed clear error. Accordingly, Keurig’s objections were overruled, and the sanctions were left intact. The court further addressed objections to the Magistrate’s rulings on privilege, spoliation, and requests for admission. Further, the court sustained Keurig’s objections to a privilege ruling in part but overruled them where Keurig sought to shield routine business communications lacking legal advice, affirming that only actual attorney–client or work-product materials are protected. The court sustained in part and overruled in part Keurig’s challenges to spoliation sanctions. Finally, the court fully overruled Winn-Dixie’s objection to the ruling on the request for admissions, affirming that as assignee of C&S’s claims, it must respond to Keurig’s requests for admission, because Rule 36 applies to assignees just as it would to assignors (In Re Keurig Green Mountain Single-Serve Coffee Antitrust Litigation, No. 1:14-mc-02542-VSB (S.D.N.Y. July 31, 2025)).

Background. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters initially acquired an interest in Keurig, a company known for developing single-serve hot beverage brewing systems. After a series of corporate reorganizations, mergers, and acquisitions, the business evolved into Keurig Green Mountain, which is now publicly traded as Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. Beginning in 2014, numerous lawsuits against Keurig and its predecessor entities were centralized into multidistrict litigation, alleging that the company engaged in anticompetitive practices designed to exclude competitors, disseminated false advertising about its products, and violated various state consumer protection statutes. These actions involve a wide array of plaintiffs, including individual consumers, classes of purchasers, and competitor companies, along with non-parties drawn into discovery and related disputes. While some claims have been resolved through settlement agreements, the MDL continues to advance with multiple unresolved allegations spanning both federal and state law.

May 2023 opinion. Keurig objected to Magistrate Judge Cave’s May 2023 Opinion regarding discovery sanctions imposed on Winn-Dixie. The dispute arose from protracted delays and failures by Winn-Dixie to comply with repeated discovery orders governing claims it had acquired from C&S Wholesale Grocers (the “C&S Claims”). In February 2022, the court set a June 17, 2022, deadline to complete fact discovery on these claims. Still, Winn-Dixie repeatedly sought extensions and failed to produce discovery materials as ordered on August 1, August 26, and December 14, 2022. By November 2022, Keurig moved to dismiss the C&S Claims entirely, asserting that Winn-Dixie’s chronic noncompliance caused undue prejudice and forced it to expend significant resources on motion practice.

In her May 8, 2023, Opinion, Judge Cave found that Winn-Dixie had indeed failed to timely comply with multiple orders and engaged in a pattern of delay stretching over five months. Applying the Second Circuit’s sanctions framework, she considered the relevant factors: (1) although Winn-Dixie’s behavior was negligent and prolonged, it was not “sufficiently willful” to justify the ultimate sanction of dismissal; (2) the five-month delay was significant enough to support sanctions; (3) Winn-Dixie had ample notice that continued noncompliance could result in sanctions; and (4) Keurig suffered concrete prejudice, as it had to file motions and bear additional litigation costs to compel compliance. Based on this analysis, Judge Cave denied Keurig’s request for dismissal but imposed lesser sanctions, including monetary penalties, to account for the prejudice and to deter future misconduct.

Keurig objected, arguing that the imposed sanctions were inadequate and that dismissal was warranted. It cited multiple cases where dismissal was upheld for discovery violations. Still, Judge Broderick emphasized that those precedents involved far more egregious or willful misconduct and, importantly, none demonstrated clear error when a magistrate chose to impose sanctions short of dismissal. Judge Broderick also stressed that Judge Cave, who directly oversaw discovery, was in the “best position” to assess the seriousness of the violations, the credibility of the parties, and the proportionality of sanctions. He found her reasoning thorough, her balancing of factors appropriate, and her decision not to impose the “litigation-ending” sanction of dismissal justified under Rule 37. Accordingly, the court held that Keurig failed to show clear error or a ruling contrary to law, overruled Keurig’s objections, and left Judge Cave’s sanction order intact.

March 2019 ruling. Keurig objected to Magistrate Judge Pitman’s March 2019 ruling on whether certain documents were protected by the attorney–client privilege and the work-product doctrine. Judge Pitman had applied a narrow construction of privilege, finding that many communications between Keurig employees and in-house counsel did not reflect legal advice but instead related to business strategy and therefore were not shielded from discovery. Keurig argued that Pitman’s approach was overly restrictive and failed to appreciate the legal context of internal discussions involving counsel.

Judge Broderick, reviewing under the “clearly erroneous or contrary to law” standard, sustained Keurig’s objections in part, agreeing that some communications predominantly reflecting legal advice were improperly denied protection. But he overruled Keurig’s objections, where Pitman found that emails and documents reflected ordinary business strategy or were copied to lawyers without seeking legal advice. The court affirmed that such materials are not covered by the attorney–client privilege or the work-product doctrine.

March 2022 opinion. Keurig also objected to Magistrate Judge Cave’s March 2022 Opinion on spoliation sanctions under Rule 37. Judge Cave had authorized the plaintiffs to present evidence of spoliation at trial, citing Keurig’s failure to preserve electronically stored information (ESI) and hard copy notes from key custodians, including former executives involved in the launch of the Keurig 2.0 brewer. She found that the loss of this evidence created an evidentiary imbalance that prejudiced the plaintiffs, though she declined to impose the harsher sanctions or adverse-inference instructions. Keurig objected, arguing that Judge Cave overstated the prejudice and failed to account for the thousands of documents it did produce fully.

Judge Broderick sustained Keurig’s objections to Judge Cave’s March 2022 spoliation ruling in part and overruled them in part. Specifically, he upheld Judge Cave’s finding that spoliation occurred and that plaintiffs could present evidence of it at trial, but he narrowed the scope of certain sanctions. For example, he rejected Keurig’s argument that all prejudice findings were erroneous. Still, he agreed in part that some of Judge Cave’s fee awards were premature because she had not yet calculated specific amounts. Broderick emphasized that objections to investigatory costs tied to discovery deficiencies could be raised later, once the plaintiffs submitted detailed fee applications, rather than invalidating the sanctions altogether. The sustained portion concerned limiting or deferring the scope of monetary sanctions pending a fuller record, but Judge Broderick sustained the ruling in part by agreeing that sanctions were appropriate but narrowed specific findings to ensure proportionality.

February 2023 opinion. Winn-Dixie objected to Magistrate Judge Cave’s February 2023 Opinion concerning its obligation to respond to Keurig’s Requests for Admission (RFAs). Winn-Dixie, as assignee of claims from C&S Wholesale Grocers, argued that Rule 36 did not obligate it to answer RFAs relating to the assigned claims because RFAs are not a traditional “discovery device.” Judge Cave rejected this position, holding that RFAs fall within the discovery framework and that an assignee must provide discovery, including admissions, that the assignor would have been compelled to provide. Judge Broderick agreed, explaining that Rule 36 is designed to establish uncontested facts and is not limited in the way Winn-Dixie suggested. He noted that numerous courts have held assignees responsible for producing the same information as assignors.

The Case is No. 1:14-mc-02542-VSB.

Judge: Broderick, V.

Attorneys: Aldo A. Badini (Winston & Strawn LLP) for Treehouse Foods, Inc. Carrie Amezcua (Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney P.C.) for Keurig Green Mountain, Inc.

Companies: Treehouse Foods, Inc.; Keurig Green Mountain, Inc.

Cases: Antitrust NewYorkNews