American Civil Liberties Union v. Gonzales

237 F.R.D. 120, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47481, 2006 WL 1983191
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 12, 2006
DocketCivil Action No. 98-5591
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 237 F.R.D. 120 (American Civil Liberties Union v. Gonzales) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American Civil Liberties Union v. Gonzales, 237 F.R.D. 120, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47481, 2006 WL 1983191 (E.D. Pa. 2006).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

LOWELL A. REED, JR., Senior District Judge.

This court considers in this adjudication, the motion to compel responses to contention interrogatories filed by plaintiffs, and the response and reply thereto (Doc. Nos. 278, 279, 281) and the unopposed motion to stay justification of privileges filed by defendant (Doc. No. 280). In their motion, plaintiffs seek the court’s intervention to compel defendant to respond to twenty-two contention interrogatories which were served on April 17, 2006 pursuant to this court’s March 23, 2006 order. See (Doc. No. 264). In defendant’s unopposed motion, he seeks to delay his duty to justify any claim of privilege until after the court rules on plaintiffs’ motion to compel. I note that the motion does not address defendant’s duty to properly assert any privileges. For the reasons set forth below, plaintiffs’ motion will be granted in part and denied in part and defendant’s motion will be granted with conditions.

I. RELEVANT PROCEDURAL AND SUBSTANTIVE HISTORY

The plaintiffs in this action include the four institutional plaintiffs, the American Civil Liberties Union (“ACLU”), the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (“ABFFE”), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”), and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (“EPIC”), and ten individual, non-institutional plaintiffs. Plaintiffs brought this action to challenge the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 231 (“COPA”). On February 2, 1999, I granted a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of COPA. (Doc. No. 121). After an interim trip to the Supreme Court, the preliminary injunction was finally affirmed by the Supreme Court on June 29, 2004, and remanded to this court for a trial on the merits. Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. 656, 124 S.Ct. 2783, 159 L.Ed.2d 690 (2004). For a more detailed description of the history and background of this case, see the Supreme Court’s opinion at 542 U.S. 656, 124 S.Ct. 2783. The parties are now in the midst of discovery and certain disagreements have arisen.

On January 10, 2006, plaintiffs served defendant with a deposition notice pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6) requesting defendant to designate one or more persons to testify on his behalf who are knowledgeable as to:

The Department of Justice’s definition(s) of “obscene” and “harmful to minors” as established in federal criminal statutes 18 U.S.C. § 1460 and 47 U.S.C. § 231, including, but not limited to, information concerning content determined to be obscene or not to be obscene under such laws and rationale for that conclusion; content determined to be harmful to minors or not to be harmful to minors under such laws and rationale for that conclusion; enforcement of such laws, including territorial enforcement, with regards to obscene and harmful to minors material; number of investigations and/or prosecutions for obscenity or harmful to minors; and criteria that distinguish “obscene” from “harmful to minors” and “harmful to minors” from non-criminal material. In each instance, plaintiffs seek relevant information only for the last five (5) years.

(Doc. No. 255, Ex. 3). On February 27, 2006, defendant moved to quash plaintiffs deposition notice. (Doc. No. 255). On March 23, 2006, after a March 22, 2006 hearing on the matter, this court granted defendant’s motion to quash and found that “[pjlaintiffs ha[d] not adequately proven to me that oral deposition testimony on the topics listed in their notice of deposition [was] the least intrusive or burdensome means by which to garner discoverable information from defendant” and that the requested information could instead be gained through contention interrogatories. (Doc. No. 264). I also found that “[i]t [was] not currently possible for defendant to establish the requisite level of specificity needed to invoke [the executive] privileges because the topics listed in plaintiffs’ notice of deposition [were] broad and without necessary underlying detail” and that “defendant will only be able to properly raise the privileges once the questions asked and information requested [123]*123by plaintiffs becomes concrete and specific.” (Id.). As a result, I ordered that: “[t]o the extent that inquiry by plaintiffs is to be pursued regarding the topics raised in plaintiffs’ January 10, 2006, notice of deposition, such inquiry shall be limited at this time to contention interrogatories and an inquiry into whether such rationales, practices, policies or internal rules exist or existed at an appropriate time in the past” and “[i]f necessary, defendant may object to individual interrogatories and raise, with the requisite specificity, any applicable executive privilege.” (Id.).

On March 31, 2006, the fact discovery deadline passed. (Doc. No. 258). On April 17, 2006, plaintiffs served defendant 42 contention interrogatories pursuant to this court’s March 23, 2006 order. On May 22, 2006, defendant served his objections and response to the contention interrogatories.1 On June 9, 2006, plaintiffs submitted the instant letter brief, which was subsequently filed with the Clerk by this court, requesting that I compel defendant to respond to the following twenty contention interrogatories: 1 through 5, 7 through 20, and 34 through 36. (Doc. No. 278). On June 20, 2006, defendant filed his motion to stay justification of privilege simultaneously with his response to plaintiffs’ motion to compel. (Doe. Nos. 279 & 280). After receiving consent from this court and after meeting no opposition from defendant, plaintiffs’ filed their reply brief on June 28, 2006.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel Responses to Contention Interrogatories

1. A Discussion of General Issues

In his response to plaintiffs’ motion to compel, defendant raises three general objections to plaintiffs’ contention interrogatories. Each of these three objections will be discussed below. However, upon review, I find that none of the three arguments are meritorious.

a. First, defendant argues that the majority of the contention interrogatories at issue fall outside the scope of the plaintiffs’ initial deposition notice and the court’s March 23, 2006 order because they ask defendant to make determinations which he has not yet made. Specifically, defendant argues that because the January 10, 2006 notice of deposition asks for information concerning content determined to be obscene and harmful to minors and the court’s order limited the relevant inquiry “to contention interrogatories and an inquiry into whether such rationales, practices, policies or internal rules exist or existed at an appropriate time in the past” plaintiffs may not now inquire into content about which defendant has not yet made any prior determination. (Doc. Nos. 255, Ex. 3 & 264) (emphasis added).

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237 F.R.D. 120, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47481, 2006 WL 1983191, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-civil-liberties-union-v-gonzales-paed-2006.