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A Texas federal judge granted NFL Network analyst Michael Irvin’s request for expedited discovery on Wednesday and gave Marriott until Tuesday to hand over footage of the alleged incident days before Super Bowl LVII in a Phoenix hotel.
It’s the second time a judge has approved Irvin’s request to obtain footage after Irvin was accused of misconduct by a Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel employee on Feb. 5. That request, part of his original $100 million lawsuit against Marriott, was granted by a Texas state court judge. Still, the order became moot when the case was moved into federal court.
NFL Network suspended the former Dallas Cowboys star receiver after the alleged incident, and he also did not appear on air as scheduled on ESPN in the days leading up to the Super Bowl.
“The discovery that [Irvin] seeks is narrow and unlikely to be particularly burdensome on Marriott,” U.S. District Court Judge Amos L. Mazzant wrote in his order. “Indeed, [Irvin’s] request is limited to surveillance footage and written reports, all of which likely exist in a readily accessible format.”
Marriott filed a motion earlier this week to dismiss the case and pushed back in another filing on Irvin’s expedited discovery request.
“Simply put, Marriott’s limited participation in court-ordered discovery does not demonstrate its intent to litigate the underlying merits of the case in this court,” Mazzant wrote.
Mazzant heeded Marriott’s privacy issues raised in its response to expedited discovery.
“The Court does … find that Marriott’s concern for the privacy of the hotel employee who allegedly reported [Irvin’s] misconduct is well founded,” Mazzant wrote. “Thus, the Court will allow Marriott to redact the employee’s name from any written reports and to take reasonable measures to protect the employee’s identity as necessary at this early stage of the case.”
