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A restaurant customer sued a national restaurant chain in federal court after slipping on a wet floor. She seeks damages for a fractured ankle, continuing inability to work, anxiety attacks triggered by the fall, and future therapy costs. She produced treatment records from her orthopedist and therapist, but refused to attend an examination by the chain's chosen orthopedic doctor and psychiatrist. The chain filed a motion asking the court to order both examinations at specified offices, by named physicians, on dates certain, and limited to the ankle injury and claimed anxiety.
The chain also served subpoenas on the customer's therapist and on a nonparty fitness app company. The subpoenas requested therapy notes, appointment records, daily step counts, and location data for the six months before and after the fall. The subpoenas commanded production at the chain's lawyer's office 300 miles from the therapist's office and 800 miles from the app company's headquarters. The customer and the nonparties objected that the requests were private, privileged, burdensome, and geographically improper.
How should the court rule on the requested examinations and the nonparty subpoenas? Discuss Rule 35, Rule 45, privilege, undue burden, and possible limits on production.