Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Federal Savings Bank

162 F.R.D. 338, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9309, 1995 WL 409019
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedJune 29, 1995
DocketNo. 94 C 4094
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 162 F.R.D. 338 (Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Federal Savings Bank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Federal Savings Bank, 162 F.R.D. 338, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9309, 1995 WL 409019 (N.D. Ill. 1995).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

CASTILLO, Judge.

Plaintiffs have filed several motions to compel the production of documents and answers to interrogatories during the last few months. The Court pauses here to note that this case has already had an early history of significant discovery disputes.1 The Court is hopeful that its separate opinion, which was released today on the issue of class certification, will help the parties determine the proper scope of discovery and obviate these types of disputes in the future. Further discovery disputes from this point forward will cause this Court to consider whether this case is an appropriate matter to mandate automatic disclosure under Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(a)(1).

The Court will now directly address the merits of the Plaintiffs’ Third and Fourth Motions to Compel, which are currently pending before this Court. We will also address Plaintiffs’ Motion for Sanctions related to Citibank’s alleged failure to comply with Fed.R.Cxv.P. 30(b)(6).

A. Motions to Compel

The Court previously requested Citibank to address two specific questions in its response to the Third Motion to Compel Discovery: (1) whether Citibank was “drawing a line in the sand” and refusing to provide any additional discovery or was proposing some more measured alternatives to Plaintiffs’ sweeping discovery demands; and (2) what Citibank’s response is to Plaintiffs’ arguments that the discovery to date (seventy-three loan files with certain redactions) has uncovered a pattern of discrimination in Citibank’s mortgage lending. These questions apply equally to the Fourth Motion to Compel.

In response to the second question, Citibank flatly denies that the seventy-three files [341]*341produced thus far establish the alleged pattern of discriminatory lending. Instead, Citibank steadfastly maintains that the underwriting criteria were racially neutral on their face and as applied. Citibank also maintains that the evidence will establish that each of the named defendants was denied the home loans he or she requested due to his or her lack of financial qualifications. Because the focus of litigation will be whether Citibank applied its allegedly neutral criteria in a racially discriminatory fashion, Citibank contends that the issue of individual financial qualifications will require discovery relevant to each plaintiffs personal claims.

Thus far Citibank has sought to limit discovery to the named plaintiffs’ claims. Citibank asserts that it “is prepared to produce some additional loan files, provided that the scope of that production is reasonably related to the issues raised by the individual claims.” Citibank’s Response to the Third Motion to Compel at 2. However, “individual claims” are not the sole basis for this litigation, given this Court’s decision to certify a class for purposes of injunctive or declaratory relief with respect to Plaintiffs’ redlining claims. The Court’s ruling necessitates a broader scope of discovery to enable Plaintiffs to prove their case, and this “broader scope” does not permit the kind of “sampling approach” suggested by Citibank.

Citibank’s suggested “sampling approach” goes to the heart of the Court’s first question. While Citibank is not “drawing a line in the sand” by refusing to provide any additional discovery (it will provide an additional twenty files totalling ninety-three files produced), it is not proposing a graduated approach to discovery either. Rather, Citibank apparently believes that it can provide a “sample” of ninety-three redacted2 loan files from the Oakbrook and Broadview areas of Chicago to serve as accurate examples of its policies and practices regarding its “debt-to-income” criteria (used to reject Buycks-Ro-berson’s application); its “collateral criteria” (used to reject Brooks’ application); and its “subordinate financing criteria” (used to reject Roberson’s application) as applied to Caucasian and African-American applicants between 1992 and 1994.

Plaintiffs object to the sampling approach and assert that they need files from the entire Chicago metropolitan area, since they seek to prove a claim of discrimination on behalf of all financially qualified African-Americans denied mortgage loans who lived in predominately African-American communities between 1992 and 1994 — not simply those who lived in Broadview. Although Citibank makes various proposals to expand the document production to include other minority areas, at most its proposals amount to a “self-selected” sampling for the sole purpose of sparing Citibank the “time-consuming, expensive process to locate and redact” thousands of loan files.

The Court has carefully reviewed each of Plaintiffs’ Motions to Compel and Citibank’s responses to the Motions. Many of the arguments contained in these Motions relate to the merits of the case and the statistical evidence that ultimately will need to be analyzed on summary judgment and/or at trial. For purposes of ruling on the present Motions, the Court will not address all of the arguments raised.3 To the extent that these arguments are relevant at this stage of the proceedings, the Court has attempted to incorporate them into its ruling on class certification.

Suffice it to say that Citibank’s sampling approach is not the kind of graduated or principle oriented limitation of discovery that this Court might be willing to allow. Having certified a class on the issue [342]*342of redlining for purposes of injunctive or declaratory relief, we find that Plaintiffs’ discovery requests identified in its Motions to Compel are reasonable. We therefore grant these Motions in their entirety with only two conditions. First, Plaintiffs’ request for loan files without redacted addresses is denied. Specific street addresses are not necessary to the claims of the plaintiff class. Second, the previously redacted names of towns, zip codes and narrative appraisal information are relevant information for the redlining claims and should be produced by Citibank on all documents — including those which have already been given to Plaintiffs as part of Citibank’s self-selected sample.

B. Sanctions

Plaintiffs have also filed a Motion for Sanctions against Citibank pursuant to Federal Rule op Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 37(d). Rule 37(d) provides in relevant part:

Rule 37. Failure to Make Disclosure or Cooperate in Discovery: Sanctions (d) Failure of Party to Attend at Own Deposition or Serve Answers to Interrogatories or Respond to Request for Inspection. [Effective December 1, 1993.] If a party or an officer, director, or managing agent of a party or a person designated under Rule 30(b)(6) ... to testify on behalf of a party fails (1) to appear before the officer who is to take the deposition, after being served with the proper notice, ... the court in which the action is pending on motion may make such orders in regard to the failure as are just, and among others it may take any action authorized under subparagraphs (A), (B), and (C) of subdivision (b)(2) of this rule. Any motion specifying a failure under clause (2) or (3) of this subdivision shall include a certification that the movant has in good faith attempted to confer with the party failing to answer or respond in an effort to obtain such answer or response without court action.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
162 F.R.D. 338, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9309, 1995 WL 409019, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/buycks-roberson-v-citibank-federal-savings-bank-ilnd-1995.