Though he formally denied the plaintiffs’ emergency motion, federal magistrate Charles F. Eick nonetheless granted most of what CBS and Paramount wanted from Axanar, with discovery still due to end a few days hence.

The order, issued October 31, 2016 without oral hearings, required:

• Axanar producer Alec Peters to submit to a second deposition.
• Making Axanar’s financial information available for non-lawyers in the case to see and comment upon.
• The defense to turn over a log of Peters’ communication with other lawyers prior to being served with the copyright infringement suit in December 2015.

Even so, Peters still considered the order a victory for the defense, tweeting:

Axanar’s Twitter account did not go on to specify what Peters won in the order.

While the order affirmed much of what the plaintiffs stated in the motion, the judge was unwilling to alter the case’s schedule, with the cut-off date for discovery looming on November 2.

Meanwhile, on the same day Eick issued his order, he led settlement talks between the studios, Peters and their attorneys.

The emergency motion, submitted to the court on October 27, was prompted by the revelation of a trove of Peters’ emails that had not previously been disclosed to the plaintiffs, even after Peters’ October 19 deposition.

The emails came to light during the deposition of Prelude to Axanar director Christian Gossett, who resigned in May 2015, concerned about Peters’ spending and mismanagement of the Axanar feature.

In view of the undisclosed emails, the court granted the plaintiffs’ request to depose Peters a second time, something defense attorney Erin Ranahan initially opposed but then offered Peters for a two-hour deposition, with questions restricted to only the new materials.

The judge, however, ordered Peters to be deposed before the discovery cut-off for a maximum five-hour deposition. He also placed no limits on the topics beyond the usual limits in the federal rules for civil procedure.