(PC) Blackwell v. Jenkins ( 2022 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 RODNEY KARL BLACKWELL, No. 2:19-cv-00442 TLN DB P 12 Plaintiff, 13 v. ORDER 14 A. JENKINS, et al., 15 Defendants. 16 17 Plaintiff is a state prisoner proceeding in forma pauperis with a civil rights action pursuant 18 to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff alleges defendant violated his Eighth and First Amendment rights. 19 Presently before the court is plaintiff’s motion to compel. (ECF No. 72.) Defendant filed an 20 opposition to the motion to compel. (ECF No. 74.) For the reasons set forth below, the court will 21 deny the motion to compel without prejudice. 22 PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO COMPEL 23 I. Legal Standard for Motions to Compel 24 Under Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “[p]arties may obtain discovery 25 regarding any non-privileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and 26 proportional to the needs of the case, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the 27 action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ 28 resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or 1 expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit. Information within this scope of 2 discovery need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 3 “Relevance for purposes of discovery is defined very broadly.” Garneau v. City of 4 Seattle, 147 F.3d 802, 812 (9th Cir. 1998). In response to a request for production of documents 5 under Rule 34, a party is to produce all relevant documents in its “possession, custody, or 6 control.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a)(1). The purpose of discovery is to “remove surprise from trial 7 preparation so the parties can obtain evidence necessary to evaluate and resolve their dispute.” 8 United States v. Chapman Univ., 245 F.R.D. 646, 648 (C.D. Cal. 2007) (quotation and citation 9 omitted). 10 Under Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “a party seeking discovery may 11 move for an order compelling an answer, designation, production, or inspection.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12 37(a)(3)(B). The court may order a party to provide further responses to an “evasive or 13 incomplete disclosure, answer, or response.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(4). “District courts have ‘broad 14 discretion to manage discovery and to control the course of litigation under Federal Rule of Civil 15 Procedure 16.’” Hunt v. County of Orange, 672 F.3d 606, 616 (9th Cir. 2012) (quoting Avila v. 16 Willits Envtl. Remediation Trust, 633 F.3d 828, 833 (9th Cir. 2011)). 17 “The party seeking to compel discovery has the burden of establishing that its request 18 satisfies the relevancy requirements of Rule 26(b)(1). Thereafter, the party opposing discovery 19 has the burden of showing that the discovery should be prohibited, and the burden of clarifying, 20 explaining or supporting its objections.” Bryant v. Ochoa, No. 07cv200 JM (PCL), 2009 WL 21 1390794, at *1 (S.D. Cal. May 14, 2009) (citations omitted). Specifically, the party moving to 22 compel bears the burden of informing the court (1) which discovery requests are the subject of the 23 motion to compel, (2) which of the responses are disputed, (3) why the party believes the 24 response is deficient, (4) why any objections are not justified, and (5) why the information sought 25 through discovery is relevant to the prosecution of this action. McCoy v. Ramirez, No. 1:13-cv- 26 1808-MJS (PC), 2016 WL 3196738, at *1 (E.D. Cal. June 9, 2016); Ellis v. Cambra, No. 1:02-cv- 27 5646-AWI-SMS PC, 2008 WL 860523, at *4 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 27, 2008). 28 //// 1 II. Plaintiff’s Motion 2 Plaintiff requests that the court issue an order compelling defendant to produce in full 3 documents requested by plaintiff in “Request for Production of Documents (Set Two).” (ECF 4 No. 72 at 2.) Plaintiff’s motion appears to be made on the grounds that, at the end of his request, 5 plaintiff included the following statement: “If for any reason defendant elects to deny Plaintiff 6 any of these requests or some, due to current status, they should be ready for inspection at the 7 date of pre-trial with due time to inspect.” (Id. at 7.) It appears that plaintiff intended for 8 defendant to provide the court with all documents that they objected to providing to plaintiff. (Id. 9 at 1.) There would then be a “pre-trial inspection” of these documents. (Id.) Whether plaintiff 10 intended to inspect the documents himself or to have the court conduct an inspection is unclear 11 from the motion. 12 Plaintiff states that “no indication whatsoever had been made…that defendant intends to 13 comply” with plaintiff’s directive to have the documents “ready for inspection.” (Id. at 2.) 14 Plaintiff claims that the court should order defendant to produce all requested documents to 15 plaintiff due to defendant’s the failure to file these documents with the court for “pre-trial 16 inspection.” (Id.) 17 In response, defendant contends that plaintiff has not met his burden to show that 18 additional discovery must be compelled and that plaintiff failed to meet and confer regarding 19 these requests. (ECF No. 74 at 3-4.) Defendant argues that the court should deny plaintiff’s 20 motion as a result. (Id. at 5.) 21 III. Plaintiff’s Motion is Insufficient 22 Plaintiff’s motion to compel is made solely on the grounds that defendant did not file the 23 requested documents with the court for pre-trial inspection after defendant objected to producing 24 them. 25 Plaintiff’s request appears to direct defendant to file these documents with the court for 26 pre-trial inspection. This order was improper when it was included in plaintiff’s initial request 27 and defendant was under no obligation to comply with this request. As stated in the court’s 28 October 5, 2021, Discovery and Scheduling Order, discovery requests and responses are “not to 1 be filed with the court.” (ECF No. 67 at 5.) This comports with the Local Rule 250.3(c) for the 2 United States District Court, Eastern District of California which states: 3 Requests for production, responses and proofs of service thereof shall not be filed unless and until there is a proceeding in which the 4 request, response, or proof of service is at issue. When required in a proceeding, only that part of the request for production, response 5 or proof of service that is in issue shall be filed. 6 Even when a request or response is at issue, only the requests, responses must be filed. 7 The rules do not permit the filing of the underlying document in question. Thus, plaintiff’s 8 inclusion of a sentence in his request for documents ordering defendant to provide documents for 9 pre-trial inspection is plainly improper. In fact, defendant’s compliance with this request would 10 have violated the court’s prior order and could have “result[ed] in an order of sanctions, 11 including, but not limited to, a recommendation that the action be dismissed, or the answer 12 stricken.” (ECF No. 67 at 5.) Additionally, plaintiff provides no argument as to why “pre-trial 13 inspection” of these documents is required or even permissible. 1 As such, the court will not 14 compel production of the requested documents based on defendant’s failure to comply with 15 plaintiff’s directive that defendant file these documents with the court. 16 Further, plaintiff’s motion does not provide any legitimate grounds for the court to compel 17 discovery. To succeed on a motion to compel, a party must explain why they believe each 18 response, including all objections therein, are deficient and why the information they seek is 19 relevant to their case. McCoy, 2016 WL 3196738, at *1; Ellis, 2008 WL 860523, at *4. Plaintiff 20 has not included any such arguments in his motion. Plaintiff fails to identify which specific 21 responses to his requests for production were deficient. (See ECF No. 72 at 1-2.) He also does 22 not provide any explanation as to why defendant’s objections are invalid or provide a legal basis 23 24 1 It is not entirely clear what source of law plaintiff has drawn his “inspection at the date of pre- trial” from as he does not cite any. (ECF No. 72 at 2.) It may stem from a misunderstanding of 25 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(3)(A)(iv) which states that a motion to compel may be 26 made if “a party fails to produce documents or fails to respond that inspection will be permitted— or fails to permit inspection—as requested under Rule 34.” This references another form of 27 discovery where a party requests to inspect a tangible item in the possession of another party. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34. It does not give plaintiff the ability to require that a defendant must allow an 28 inspection of documents they object to producing. 1 | for this court to compel defendant to respond to the discovery request. (See Id.) Thus, □□□□□□□□□□□ 2 || motion to compel does satisfy the burden for a successful motion. 3 Accordingly, plaintiff's motion to compel discovery will be denied. Given that plaintiff 4 | may not have fully understood what is necessary for a successful motion to compel, the court will 5 || deny plaintiff's motion without prejudice and permit him to file a new motion to compel 6 || discovery of the documents requested in Plaintiff's “Request for Production of Documents (Set 7 | Two).” However, any such motion must be filed by the deadline set below and is limited solely 8 || to the documents in the specified request for production. 9 CONCLUSION 10 Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that: 11 1. Plaintiff's motion to compel (ECF No. 72) is denied without prejudice; 12 2. Plaintiff may file a motion to compel related to his “Request for Production of 13 Documents (Set Two)” within twenty-one days from when this order is served; and 14 3. All other dates and deadlines previously set by the court, including the deadline for 15 pretrial motions, are unchanged. 16 || Dated: April 25, 2022 17 18 19 -BORAH BARNES UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 DB:14 27 || DB/DB Prisoner Inbox/Civil Rights/S/blac0442.mte 28