Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Thorman & Wright Corp.

243 F.R.D. 421, 68 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 485, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41199
District Court, D. Kansas·Decided June 5, 2007·No. No. 06-2412-JWL-DJW·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

WAXSE, United States Magistrate Judge.

Pending before the Court is Plaintiff Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (“EEOC”) Motion to Compel (doc. 63). More specifically, Plaintiff EEOC seeks (1) production of documents that Defendants refuse to produce because of a typographical error in the title of Plaintiffs request; and (2) an order requiring Defendants Thorman Enterprises, Inc. and Eldon Thorman Family Limited Partnership No. 4 to produce one or more designees to testify regarding particular topics as required by Fed.R.Civ.P. 30(b)(6). For the reasons stated below, Plaintiffs Motion will be granted.

Discussion

A. Plaintiffs Request for Production of Documents

On January 19, 2007, Plaintiff EEOC served its second request for production of documents to all Defendants.1 On March 28, 2007, Plaintiff EEOC served by hand-delivery a request for production of documents containing the following two requests:

1. All notes or documents showing loans to employees from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2005.
2. All room revenue and deposit analyses for all motel / hotel properties (including Best Western Red Coach Inn in 'Eldorado, KS; Best Western in Newton, KS; Best Western in Emporia, KS, Best Western Medow Acres in Topeka, KS; Cedar Court in Clay Center, KS; J-Hawk Inn in Greens-burg, KS; and Best Western in Abilene, KS) from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2005.

While the title of the March 28, 2007 document request is “Plaintiff EEOC’s Second Request for Production of Documents and Things to Defendant The Eldon Thorman Family Limited Partnership No. 1,” the first line of the pleading states, “Pursuant to Rule 34 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Plaintiff Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hereby request [sic] all Defendants to produce all documents and things described herein.” Later that same day, Plaintiff served the same pleading electronically by sending a Word version of the document to defense counsel via e-mail. The filen-ame of the Word document attached to the email was “doc rq — fourth to all defendants.doc.”

On April 14, 2007, counsel for Plaintiff discovered the title of its March 28, 2007 pleading (1) erroneously designated the discovery as Plaintiffs second request for production; and (2) erroneously limited the discovery request to just one Defendant. Counsel for Plaintiff sent an e-mail message to counsel for Defendants that same day, calling attention to the errors and specifically noting that the text of the document properly identified the proper recipient of the request as all Defendants.

On April 27, 2007, Defendant Eldon Thor-man Family Limited Partnership No. 1 responded to Plaintiffs March 28, 2007 document request, but no response was provided by any other Defendant. On May 1, 2007, counsel for Plaintiff sent an e-mail message to counsel for Defendants asking that the remaining Defendants respond to the March 28, 2007 document request. On May 7, 2007, counsel for Defendants verbally communicated to Plaintiff that the remaining Defendants did not intend to provide the requested documents. As a result, Plaintiff filed this Motion to Compel responses from the remaining Defendants.

In response to Plaintiffs Motion to Compel, Defendants argue that a previously served discovery request cannot be amended by simply sending an e-mail indicating the desire to make a change, particularly when the change is made more than half-way through the allotted time for responding and when the change affects the party who will [424] be responding to the discovery. Defendants next argue that, to the extent Plaintiff could somehow amend its request via e-mail, such a request is untimely since the Court’s Scheduling Order specifically indicates all discovery was to be served in time to meet the April 27, 2007 discovery deadline.

The Court is not persuaded by Defendants’ arguments. Notwithstanding the typographical error in the title of the pleading, the Court finds that the text of the pleading properly identified the recipient of the request as all Defendants at the time the requests were served. Accordingly, the Court finds the original requests were timely, and the remaining Defendants will be ordered to respond these requests.

B. 30(b)(6) Deposition Testimony

On February 28, 2007, Plaintiff issued a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition notice requesting all Defendants to designate and produce one or more persons to give testimony regarding six topics identified in the notice: 1) the purpose of each Defendant entity; 2) the date each Defendant entity was created and, if applicable, disbanded; 3) assets held or controlled by each entity; 4) the number of employees for each entity from January 1, 2002 through July 31, 2004; 5) all business operations in which each entity is involved; and 6) the ownership of each entity. Defendants designated one of their accountants, Gary Edwards, as the witness prepared to give testimony on these topics.

It is undisputed that, during the deposition, Mr. Edwards was unable to answer various questions regarding the identified topics for two defendants, Thorman Enterprises, Inc. and Eldon Thorman Family Limited Partnership No. 4. Specifically, Mr. Edwards testified regarding Eldon Thorman Family Limited Partnership No. 4., “I don’t have any knowledge of that entity.”2 Regarding Thorman Enterprises, Inc., Mr. Edwards testified, “I can tell you I have no knowledge of it whatsoever.”3 As a result, Plaintiff filed this Motion to Compel seeking to reconvene the 30(b)(6) deposition and have Defendants produce a corporate designee able to answer questions regarding the topics at issue.

In response to Plaintiffs Motion, Defendants first argue that Plaintiffs request to compel was made out of time. Defendants maintain that Mr. Edward’s 30(b)(6) deposition was taken on March 22, 2007 and Plaintiffs Motion was not filed until May 10, 2007, which is over the thirty-day limit to file such motions.

D. Kan. Rule 37.1(b) states as follows:

Time for Filing Motions. Any motion to compel discovery in compliance with D. Kan. Rules 7.1 and 37.2 shall be filed and served within 30 days of the default or service of the response, answer or objection which is the subject of the motion, unless the time for filing of such motion is extended for good cause shown. Otherwise the objection to the default, response, answer, or objection shall be waived.

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Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Thorman & Wright Corp., 243 F.R.D. 421, 68 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 485, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41199 (D. Kan. 2007).

243 F.R.D. 421 (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Thorman & Wright Corp.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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