Kelley v. Apria Healthcare LLC. (PLR2), 3:13-cv-00096

Decedent died in a camper fire; Plaintiff (son/next of kin) sued multiple manufacturers and Apria, alleging Apria provided oxygen devices and failed to instruct the decedent and that devices leaked oxygen.
Plaintiff settled with all former defendants except Apria; settlement agreements contained confidentiality provisions.
Apria moved to compel production of the settlement agreements and canceled checks evidencing payment from the Plaintiff.
Plaintiff and two former defendants (Precision Medical and Howard Berger) moved for protective orders to prevent disclosure, asserting irrelevance, inadmissibility, confidentiality, and lack of joint liability.
The magistrate judge found settlement agreements are not privileged, evaluated relevance/proportionality under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26, and ordered production subject to a protective order addressing confidentiality.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Standing to seek protective order	Plaintiff has standing; adopted others' positions	Apria: former defendants lack standing because they are no longer parties	Court: Plaintiff had standing; need not decide former defendants' standing because Plaintiff moved for protection
Discoverability of settlement agreements	Confidential and not discoverable or relevant; barred by FRE 408	Apria: terms of final agreements are discoverable and relevant to defenses	Court: Settlement agreements are not privileged; producible if relevant and proportional
Relevance — made-whole and comparative fault	Settlements irrelevant to Apria's liability; Tennessee law limits crediting	Apria: settlements show Plaintiff may already be made whole and inform comparative fault	Court: Apria failed to show made-whole/comparative-fault necessity; denied on that ground
Relevance — bias of witnesses	Plaintiff/adverse settling parties not biased such that agreements are needed	Apria: agreements relevant to show Plaintiff or witnesses have motive/bias favoring settling parties	Court: Agreements are relevant to explore bias and are discoverable on that basis
Confidentiality / Protective order	Agreements are confidential; request protective order if produced	Apria: confidentiality clauses do not bar discovery of terms to Apria	Court: Ordered production but directed parties to submit agreed protective order; production upon entry

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Chiles Power Supply, Inc., 332 F.3d 976 (6th Cir. 2003) (settlement negotiations privileged but terms of final settlement agreement are not automatically excluded from discovery)