A federal judge in Texas has scheduled a hearing next week to decide whether to grant a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary’s request to sanction Beasley Allen’s Andy Birchfield for skipping out on his deposition on Monday.

The sanctions motion comes as both sides are in the thick of discovery after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez, of the Southern District of Texas, scheduled a trial in late January and early February on whether voting irregularities impacted J&J’s claim that it got 83% of the talc claimants to support its nearly $10 billion prepackaged bankruptcy plan.