Dine v. Metropolitan Life Insurance

255 F.R.D. 534, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15995, 2009 WL 401850
CourtDistrict Court, C.D. California
DecidedFebruary 18, 2009
DocketNo. CV 05-3773-RSWL (PLAx)
StatusPublished

This text of 255 F.R.D. 534 (Dine v. Metropolitan Life Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, C.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dine v. Metropolitan Life Insurance, 255 F.R.D. 534, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15995, 2009 WL 401850 (C.D. Cal. 2009).

Opinion

ORDER RE: PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR CONTEMPT

PAUL L. ABRAMS, United States Magistrate Judge.

On December 1, 2008, the Court granted in part and denied in part plaintiffs Motion to Compel Discovery. Defendant was ordered to produce all documents and responses by December 10, 2008, and to make available defendant’s Rule 30(b)(6) representative for a deposition no later than December 19, 2008. Plaintiff has now moved for an order of contempt against defendant (the “Motion”), asserting that defendant failed to produce certain documents ordered by the Court, which in turn prevented it from fully deposing defendant’s Rule 30(b)(6) representative. The Court has considered all of the documents filed in connection with plaintiffs Motion, and has concluded that oral argument will not be of material assistance in determining the Motion. Accordingly, the hearing scheduled for February 24, 2009, is ordered off calendar (see Local Rule 7-15).

Among other things, and at issue in the Motion, the Court’s December 1, 2008, Order required that defendant produce documents in response to plaintiffs Requests No. 8 and No. 12, which sought claims handling manuals, guidelines and policies employed by defendant in evaluating plaintiffs claim for disability benefits (Request No. 8), and materials used to train those employees who were involved in the evaluation of plaintiffs claim (Request No. 12). As for Request No. 8, plaintiff for the first time in the Joint Stipulation concerning the underlying Motion to Compel Discovery indicated that the time period for that request “should state” February 1999 through July 2001, not January 1, 2007, to the present. The Court [535]*535found that the documents for the amended time frame were relevant to the conflict issue, and must be produced. Request for Production No. 12 sought materials used to train those employees who were involved in the evaluation of plaintiffs claim. The Court determined that plaintiff is entitled to documents to show that the administrator did not comply with the terms of the plan or did not interpret the plan consistently, or that defendant has a claims system that “fosters an anti-claim bias and reflects an institutional bias” by defendant, and ordered production of the requested materials.

Following the Court’s Order, instead of producing these documents by December 10, 2008, defendant submitted to plaintiff objections to both Requests, and argued that the documents were protected based on confidentiality and their proprietary nature. Defendant contends that it then offered to produce these documents immediately if plaintiff entered into a stipulated order of confidentiality, but that plaintiffs counsel refused to do so. Plaintiff asserts that it offered, if produced, to maintain the produced documents in a confidential manner while defendant pursued a protective order with the Court. Defendant rejected this proposal. Defendant further contends that its attempts to meet and confer concerning this issue “continued through the next several weeks,” and that it then began preparing a joint submission for the Court to resolve this matter. Plaintiff thus claims that defendant has stalled this litigation by raising new objections to production after the Court entered its Order, and then by never raising its objection or seeking a protective order with the Court. Plaintiff now seeks an order that defendant be found in contempt for violating the Court’s December 1, 2008, Order, that defendant produce all responsive documents, and that it then be permitted to take another deposition of defendant’s corporate representative with defendant to incur all costs associated with the deposition.1 Defendant asserts it would have turned over the documents required by the Order, in the time frame set out in the Order, if plaintiff had simply agreed to an appropriate protective order.

There is no dispute that the ordered documents were not produced, and have still not been produced. Instead of immediately approaching the Court when it first determined that the ordered documents were confidential, however, defendant unilaterally decided to ignore the Order to produce by December 10, relying solely on its own conclusion concerning the nature of the documents. Nor, as of more than two months after the Order was entered, has defendant presented the Court with a motion for a protective order, or a joint stipulation seeking to resolve the issue.2 While defendant represented to plaintiff that it intended to “immediately move the Court for entry of [a protective order] in the event plaintiff fail[ed] to ... stipulate” to such an order (Amended Response to Request No. 8, Declaration of Elizabeth K. Green, Ex. B), it has not done so.

As to Request No. 8, defendant contends that plaintiff never sought the documents that the Court ordered it produce, ie., the documents from 1999-2001. Thus, it could not have objected to those specific documents based on confidentiality, or sought a protective order, at an earlier time. But defendant offers no explanation why the same documents — claims handling manuals— from a later time frame (which were requested and to which defendant submitted objections, but did not object based on confidentiality) would not be confidential, but the earlier ones would. Neither does defendant explain, as to Request No. 12, how it was able to offer some objections to producing training documents that it claims it had not yet even located (see Response to Request [536]*536No. 12, Declaration of Elizabeth K. Green, Ex. C; Declaration of Laura Sullivan, f 7), but did not also object based on confidentiality, knowing the nature of the sought-after documents. Indeed, defendant asserts that “[i]f [defendant’s] training methods, and the substance of its training, were to become available to competitors at no cost to the competitor, it would harm [defendant].” Declaration of Laura Sullivan, at 118. Defendant thus appears to claim that all of its training materials are confidential, not just those specific documents it has now discovered that may be responsive to this Request. It appears to the Court that plaintiff’s argument that defendant’s confidentiality objections have been waived is well taken. See, e.g., Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(b)(4) (“Any ground not stated in a timely objection is waived unless the court, for good cause, excuses the failure.”); Safeco Ins. Co. of America v. Raws-trom, 183 F.R.D. 668, 671-72 (C.D.Cal.1998); Fed.R.Civ.P. 34(b)(2)(B) (“the response must either state that inspection ... will be permitted as requested or state an objection to the request, including the reasons.”).

Well over two months have passed since the Court’s Order was entered, and defendant has not presented a protective order for the Court’s review. It is the obligation of the party seeking to limit discovery to seek such an order. See, e.g., Fed. R.Civ.P. 26(c) (“[a] party ... from whom discovery is sought may move for a protective order ... ”); Blankenship v. Hearst Corp., 519 F.2d 418, 429 (9th Cir.1975) (“[u]nder the liberal discovery principles of the Federal Rules defendants were required to carry a heavy burden of showing why discovery was denied.”).

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Bluebook (online)
255 F.R.D. 534, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15995, 2009 WL 401850, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dine-v-metropolitan-life-insurance-cacd-2009.