Smith 197527 v. Ryan ( 2019 )

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 8 9 Albert Vaughn Smith, No. CV-18-02657-PHX-SPL (ESW) 10 Plaintiff, ORDER 11 v. 12 Charles L Ryan, et al., 13 Defendants. 14 15 16 Pending before the Court is Plaintiff’s “Request for Discovery Conference” (Doc. 17 99). Plaintiff requests a discovery conference to address Defendants’ objections to an 18 number of his Requests for Production of Documents. Defendants have filed a Response 19 (Doc. 108), to which Plaintiff has replied (Doc. 114). 20 A party may request that the opposing party produce records “in the responding 21 party’s possession, custody, or control,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a)(1), by “describ[ing] with 22 reasonable particularity each item or category of items to be inspected.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 34(b)(1)(A). Requests for production are limited to “nonprivileged matter that is relevant 24 to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 25 26(b)(1). To determine what discovery is “proportional,” the Court considers “the 26 importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ 27 relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the 28 discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed || discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” Jd. The Court has broad discretion in deciding || whether to permit or deny discovery. Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 751 (9th Cir. 2002). 3 Based on the parties’ briefing, the Court finds it unnecessary to hold a discovery conference. The Court sustains Defendants’ objections to Plaintiffs discovery requests 5 || that are set forth in Defendants’ Response (Doc. 108). Accordingly, 6 IT IS ORDERED denying Plaintiff’s “Request for a Discovery Conference” (Doc. 7\| 99). 8 Dated this 13th day of December, 2019. 9 Cay) doh Honorable Eileen S. Willett 2 United States Magistrate Judge 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 _2-