John Armstrong v. Gavin Newsom ( 2023 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 2 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JOHN ARMSTRONG; et al., No. 21-15614
Plaintiffs-Appellees, D.C. No. 4:94-cv-02307-CW
v.
MEMORANDUM*
GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor;
CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF
CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION,
Defendants-Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Claudia Wilken, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted September 21, 2022
San Francisco, California
Before: GRABER, FRIEDLAND, and MILLER, Circuit Judges.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the
Governor (collectively, “Defendants”) appeal from an order in which the district
court required Defendants to take certain steps to correct ongoing violations of
disabled inmates’ rights in five California prisons. We address the merits of
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Defendants’ claims in a published opinion filed concurrently with this
memorandum disposition. Here, we address Defendants’ challenges to the district
court’s discovery and evidentiary rulings.
1. Defendants’ due process rights were not violated by the limitations that
the district court placed on their ability to depose inmates. “Broad discretion is
vested in the trial court to permit or deny discovery, and its decision to deny
discovery will not be disturbed except upon the clearest showing that denial of
discovery results in actual and substantial prejudice to the complaining litigant.”
Kobold v. Good Samaritan Reg’l Med. Ctr., 832 F.3d 1024, 1047 n.16 (9th Cir.
2016) (quoting Sablan v. Dep’t of Fin., 856 F.2d 1317, 1321 (9th Cir. 1988))
(internal quotation marks omitted).
The district court permitted Defendants to conduct ten inmate depositions—
the default maximum number provided in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and
thus a presumptively reasonable quantity. Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(a)(2)(A)(i). The
additional limitation that the district court placed on those depositions—that
Defendants proffer “some reason” for taking an inmate’s deposition—was not
unreasonable, particularly considering the fact that the discovery took place during
the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. See also Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(a)(2)(B)
(requiring a party to “obtain leave of court” before conducting a deposition “if the
deponent is confined in prison”). In any event, Defendants have not shown that
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they were prejudiced by the district court’s limitations, given that they did not take
advantage of all the depositions they were allowed.
2. Defendants next contend that the district court improperly considered
evidence that Plaintiffs submitted with their sur-rebuttal. But “we will not reverse”
a district court’s evidentiary decision “unless the ruling is manifestly erroneous.”
Tan Lam v. City of Los Banos, 976 F.3d 986, 1004–05 (9th Cir. 2020) (quoting
Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 142 (1997)). That is not the case here,
where the only challenged evidence on which the district court relied was data that
Defendants had produced to Plaintiffs in the first instance. Moreover, Defendants
take issue only with Plaintiffs’ interpretation of the data—not the admission of the
data.
3. Finally, Defendants argue that the district court improperly considered
inmates’ declarations that were not signed by the inmates. We decline to consider
that argument because it was not raised before the district court and, if it had been,
the lack of signatures could have been remedied. See Marbled Murrelet v. Babbitt,
83 F.3d 1060, 1063 (9th Cir. 1996) (“As a general rule, we will not consider an
issue raised for the first time on appeal.”).
AFFIRMED.
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