(PC) Evans v. Lassiter ( 2022 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 GENE E. EVANS, Case No. 2:16-cv-01997-DAD-JDP (PC) 12 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO COMPEL 13 v. ECF No. 62 14 K. LASSITER, et al., 15 Defendants. 16 17 Plaintiff brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that defendants Lassiter, 18 Montemayor, Bjorson, and Wong violated his Eighth Amendment rights by either threatening to 19 kill plaintiff or urging him to kill himself. ECF No. 26 at 3-4. Defendants have filed a motion to 20 compel arguing that plaintiff failed to adequately respond to their first set of interrogatories and 21 requests for production. ECF No. 62. They argue that plaintiff should be sanctioned and this 22 case be dismissed or, in the alternative, he be directed to adequately answer their requests for 23 production under penalty of sanction. ECF No. 75 at 4. After a lengthy delay, plaintiff has filed 24 an opposition, ECF No. 72, and defendants have filed a reply, ECF No. 75. For the reasons stated 25 below, defendants’ motion is granted. I will direct plaintiff to adequately respond to defendants’ 26 requests. If he fails to do so, I will recommend that this action be dismissed. 27 28 1 Legal Standards 2 Parties are obligated to respond to interrogatories to the fullest extent possible under oath, 3 Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(3), and any objections must be stated with specificity, Fed. R. Civ. P. 4 33(b)(4); Davis v. Fendler, 650 F.2d 1154, 1160 (9th Cir. 1981) (“objections should be plain 5 enough and specific enough so that the court can understand in what way the interrogatories are 6 alleged to be objectionable”). A responding party is typically not required to conduct extensive 7 research in order to answer an interrogatory, but reasonable efforts to respond must be 8 undertaken. L.H. v. Schwarzenegger, No. S-06-2042 LKK GGH, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73752, 9 2007 WL 2781132, *2 (E.D. Cal. 2007). Further, the responding party has a duty to supplement 10 any responses if the information sought is later obtained or the response provided needs 11 correction. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(e)(1)(A). 12 Analysis 13 Defendants served their discovery requests on October 20, 2021, five days after I lifted the 14 stay on litigation. ECF No. 62-2 at 2. Plaintiff objected to defendants’ interrogatories on 15 November 2, 2021, and argued, incorrectly, that the action was still stayed. See, e.g., id. at 31. 16 After defendants filed their motion to compel, plaintiff submitted a short opposition which failed 17 to offer any legitimate justification for failing to answer defendants’ requests for production. 18 ECF No. 72. Therein, plaintiff argued that he suffers from an unspecified mental impairment and 19 that, during the time his responses were due, prison officials failed to protect him from harm and 20 retaliated against him for protected activity. Id. at 2-3. These allegations of official wrongdoing 21 are not accompanied by any specifics. Separately, plaintiff attached cursory, inadequate answers 22 to defendants’ requests for production. For instance, in response to defendants’ request asking 23 him to identify any writings and recordings supporting his contention that he exhausted 24 administrative remedies, plaintiff simply responded that “[a]s to the orinial (sic) complaint the 25 administrative remedies were exhausted.” Id. at 6. This is not a sufficient answer. If plaintiff has 26 no documents supporting his claim that he exhausted administrative remedies, he must state as 27 much. 28 Rather than recommending an immediate, drastic sanction like dismissal of this action, I 1 | will direct plaintiff to re-submit answers to defendants’ discovery requests. His answers must be 2 | delivered in good faith and comply with the federal rules of civil procedure. If he fails to 3 | adequately answer defendants’ discovery requests, I may recommend that this action be 4 | dismissed. 5 It is ORDERED that: 6 1. Defendants’ motion to compel, ECF No. 62, is GRANTED. Plaintiff must submit 7 || answers to defendants’ requests for discovery within thirty days of this order’s entry. Failure to 8 | do so will result in a recommendation that this action be dismissed. 9 2. The discovery deadline is extended to December 7, 2022. Any motion to compel 10 | must be filed by that date. The dispositive motions deadline is extended to February 7, 2023. 11 IT IS SO ORDERED. 13 ( 1 Ow — Dated: _ October 7, 2022 Q_——_. 14 JEREMY D. PETERSON 15 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28