Fredrics v. Scottsdale, City of

• Court: District Court, D. Arizona
• Decided: January 6, 2022
• Docket: 2:21-cv-00001
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 WO 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

9 Marc Fredrics, No. CV-21-00001-PHX-MTL

10 Plaintiff, ORDER

11 v.

12 City of Scottsdale, et al.,

13 Defendant. 14 15 The Court has reviewed Defendant City of Scottsdale’s Motion for Discovery 16 Dispute Resolution Regarding Plaintiff’s Insufficient Discovery Responses. (Doc. 60.) 17 Defendant generally complains of Plaintiff’s insufficient responses to its non-uniform 18 interrogatories. Defendant argues that the responses fail to identify facts, as opposed to 19 simply reciting the elements of the claims asserted, and incorporates by reference 20 documents and other disclosures. Defendant further argues that Plaintiff has failed to 21 produce relevant text messages and notes. Plaintiff’s response incorporates a chart 22 identifying the text of all 25 non-uniform interrogatories, his objections, and responses. 23 Plaintiff’s principal objection is that Defendant employs impermissible “contention 24 interrogatories” that call for narrative answers. Plaintiff objects to the form of these 25 interrogatories as unduly burdensome. 26 The following legal principles apply: 27 1. A party answering interrogatories has “an obligation to review appropriate 28 materials and respond to the fullest extent possible. [The answering party is] not required 1 to conduct extensive research in order to answer an interrogatory, but a reasonable effort 2 to respond must be made.” Milke v. City of Phoenix, 497 F. Supp. 3d 442, 466 (D. Ariz. 3 2020) (cleaned up). 4 2. Contention interrogatories are generally considered overbroad and unduly 5 burdensome because they call for an answering party “to provide a narrative account of its 6 case.” Gov’t Benefits Analysts, Inc. v. Gradient Ins. Brokerage, Inc., 2012 WL 3238082, 7 at *9 (D. Kan. Aug 7, 2012) (quoting Moses v. Halstead, 236 F.R.D. 667, 674 (D. Kan. 8 2006)). Courts often resolve objections to contention interrogatories by requiring the 9 answering party to identify “the principal or material facts” that are responsive to the 10 discovery request. Id. 11 3. Rule 33(d), Fed. R. Civ. P., generally allows a party to produce business 12 records as a form of answering an interrogatory. 13 4. “[A]n answer to an interrogatory must be responsive to the question. It should 14 be complete in itself and should not refer to the pleadings, or to depositions or other 15 documents, or to other interrogatories, at least where such references make it impossible to 16 determine whether an adequate answer has been given without an elaborate comparison of 17 answers.” Lawman v. City & County of San Francisco, 159 F. Supp. 3d 1130, 1140 (N.D. 18 Cal. 2016) (quoting Scaife v. Boenne, 191 F.R.D. 590, 594 (N.D. Inc. 2000). Put more 19 directly, “Incorporation by reference is not a responsive answer.” Id. 20 5. In resolving a dispute concerning written discovery responses, the Court will 21 not sift through the record and make guesses about the problems in the answering party’s 22 responses. See Nehad v. Browder, 2016 WL 1428069, at *7 n.2 (S. D. Cal. April 11, 2016). 23 It appears that Plaintiff has not satisfied his duty to provide appropriate discovery 24 answer. The Court agrees with Plaintiff that several interrogatories are overbroad and 25 unduly burdensome because they are formulated as contention interrogatories. But that 26 does not excuse Plaintiff from providing an answer. He must identify the principal or 27 material facts that are responsive to the discovery request. Plaintiff shall supplement his 28 answers accordingly. 1 To the extent that Plaintiff has responded to interrogatories by incorporating other 2 discovery responses, such methodology requires Defendant to sort through the record and 3 guess as to Plaintiff’s response. That is impermissible. Many of Plaintiff’s responses 4 reference business records, however, which may be an adequate method under Rule 33(d). 5 Whether a response satisfies Plaintiff’s discovery obligation needs to be determined on an 6 individualized basis. Ultimately, Plaintiff will need to supplement some, or all, of his 7 answers that suffer from this defect. 8 For the most part, Defendant’s discovery dispute motion does not engage in an 9 individualized analysis of Plaintiff’s objections and answers. The Court acknowledges that 10 Defendant discusses some of its non-uniform interrogatories and, in its view, Plaintiff’s 11 insufficient responses. But Defendant largely makes generalized arguments and asks that 12 the Court “order Plaintiff to provide full and complete responses to its discovery requests, 13 including the disclosure of all relevant and responsive documents, within the next five 14 days.” (Doc 60 at 3.) 15 The way this discovery dispute is presented to the Court requires it to sort through 16 pages of interrogatories, objections, and responses. Instead of doing this, the Court will 17 resolve the discovery dispute in Defendant’s favor and order that counsel meet and confer 18 using this Order as a guide for Plaintiff’s supplemental responses. The parties are advised 19 that, in the event a follow-on discovery dispute on these matters is filed, the Court may 20 consider fee shifting in favor of the prevailing party. 21 Accordingly, 22 IT IS ORDERED that Defendant City of Scottsdale’s Motion for Discovery 23 Dispute Resolution Regarding Plaintiff’s Insufficient Discovery Responses (Doc. 60) is 24 resolved in Defendant’s favor. No later than Wednesday, January 12, 2022, counsel shall 25 meet and confer as specified herein. 26 To the extent that the parties are unable to reach an agreement, IT IS FURTHER 27 ORDERED that a notice of discovery dispute shall be filed no later than Friday, January 28 14, 2022. The notice shall describe with particularity any contested discovery items. As an 1 || accommodation for the number of contested discovery items, and for this filing only, the 2|| page limitation on discovery notices shall be excused. 3 IT IS FINALLY ORDERED that Plaintiff shall produce to Defendant the documents described in the Motion in the final paragraph of page 2 and leading onto the 5]|| beginning of page 3, to wit: copies of the text messages and the notes provided to the 6 || EEOC. This production must be completed no later than Wednesday, January 12, 2022. 7 Dated this 6th day of January, 2022. 8 Michal T. Michael T. Liburdi 11 United States District Judge 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

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