Apple’s homework is due Monday no matter what, says judge

Apple, the most valuable company in the world, will have to work this weekend to meet a legal deadline on Monday. That's after Magistrate Judge Thomas S. Hixson on Friday denied the company's request for more time to produce 1.3 million documents related to App Store changes it made in January to comply with a 2021 court order.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who presided over the Epic lawsuit that resulted in those changes, told Apple's legal team on May 31st it would need to produce all documents related to how it decided the new App Store rules after Epic challenged them. Document discovery was then referred to Hixson, who quoted part of a transcript from the hearing when he set Monday's deadline back in August:

"THE COURT: - so let me make it clear then if you obviously didn't understand. I want all of Apple's documents relative to its decision-making process with respect to the issues in front of the Court. All of them. All. If there is a concern, then be overly broad.MR. PERRY: Your Honor, may I ask time parameter for the Court's request.THE COURT: All.MR. PERRY: Thank you, Your Honor.THE COURT: So let's say from the day that my decision came out until the present."

Hixson required Apple to use search strings that Epic had proposed for gathering the documents. He also required both companies to produce status reports every two weeks until the documents were submitted. It wasn't until Thursday's report that Apple asked for more time to review the documents because it originally estimated it would only need to produce 650,000 of them.

Judge Hixson, calling the last-minute request "bad behavior," goes on to explain his denial in the text below from his decision yesterday.

"Before yesterday's report Apple never previewed to Epic Games or to the Court that the number of documents it would need to review exceeded its prior estimate by a substantial amount. This information would have been apparent to Apple weeks ago. It is simply not believable that Apple learned of this information only in the two weeks following the last status report. This gives rise to several related concerns. First, Apple's status reports weren't any good."

He later supposes that with Apple's resources, "it could probably review that many documents in a weekend" if it wanted to. But, he writes, producing the documents quickly "is all downside for Apple," given how they relate to Epic's allegations that the company hadn't actually complied with Judge Gonzalez Rogers' injunction.

"It's up to Apple to figure out how to meet that deadline, but Monday is indeed the deadline," Hixson concluded.