General Electric Capital Corp. v. Lear Corp.

215 F.R.D. 637, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8936, 2003 WL 21239272
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedMay 20, 2003
DocketNo. 01-2172-GTV
StatusPublished
Cited by80 cases

This text of 215 F.R.D. 637 (General Electric Capital Corp. v. Lear Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
General Electric Capital Corp. v. Lear Corp., 215 F.R.D. 637, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8936, 2003 WL 21239272 (D. Kan. 2003).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

WAXSE, United States Magistrate Judge.

Pending before the Court is a Motion to Compel (doe. 98) filed by third party defendants and counterclaimants Excel Laminates and David Seitter (collectively “Excel”) seeking production of documents and answers to interrogatories from defendant and third party Plaintiff Lear Corporation (“Lear”). Excel also moves the Court to hear oral argument on its Motion (doc. 108). The Court does not believe that oral argument is necessary and therefore will deny the request.1

Upon consideration of the arguments presented, and for the reasons stated below, Excel’s Motion to Compel will be granted.

Brief Factual Background

Among other issues, this case involves counterclaims - for breach of contract and fraud arising out of a business relationship between Excel and Lear. Excel maintains it contracted with Lear to supply Lear laminated body cloth. Lear disputes the existence of any enforceable contract with Excel in this regard.

Excel served its first set of Interrogatories and Requests for Production of Documents to Lear on January 17, 2003. Lear’s re[640]*640sponses to the discovery originally were due on February 17, 2003. Lear obtained an extension of time to respond to the discovery requests until March 10, 2003 and subsequently served its responses on that date. Excel is dissatisfied with the responses submitted, asserting Lear lodged invalid objections to much of the discovery and, in many cases, failed to produce many documents or provide complete answers. As a result, Excel filed this motion in order to compel Lear to appropriately respond to the discovery requests at issue.2

Discussion

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) provides that “[pjarties may obtain discovery regarding any matter ... that is relevant to the claim or defense of any party.” “Relevant information need not be admissible at the trial if the discovery appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.”3

When the discovery sought appears relevant, the party resisting the discovery has the burden to establish the lack of relevance by demonstrating that the requested discovery (1) does not come within the scope of relevance as defined under Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1), or (2) is of such marginal relevance that the potential harm occasioned by discovery would outweigh the ordinary presumption in favor of broad disclosure.4 Similarly, a party resisting discovery on the basis that a request is overly broad has the burden to support its objection, unless the request is overly broad on its face.5

Conversely, when the request is overly broad on its face or when relevancy is not readily apparent, the party seeking the discovery has the burden to show the relevancy of the request.6 Relevancy is broadly construed, and a request for discovery should be considered relevant if there is “any possibility” that the information sought may be relevant to the claim or defense of any party-7

With these standards in mind, the Court now will address each of the individual issues presented by Excel in its Motion.

I. Requests for Production of Documents

A. Exhaustive Search — Request for Documents 1-6, 8-11, 17, 23, 25 and 26

With regard to the referenced requests, Excel maintains Lear arbitrarily limited its search to files and documents within the custody and control of only three employees. Excel alleges Lear failed to search for documents created or received by all of the other Lear employees who had a business relationship with Excel or who were otherwise involved in the business relationship between Excel and Lear.

Lear denies it arbitrarily limited its search to three employees and argues Excel’s allegations are speculative and incorrect. Notwithstanding this argument, Lear goes on to state that it is contacting appropriate personnel at Lear to determine if additional responsive documents exist and is in the process of reviewing files and documents located at the Lear facility Mexico. Lear maintains these searches are ongoing and require a reasonable period of time to complete.

Given Lear’s response here, the Court will treat this aspect of Excel’s motion as uncontested and order Lear to search for responsive documents created or received by all Lear employees who had a business relationship with Excel or who were otherwise involved in the business relationship between Excel and Lear.

[641]*641Lear will be ordered to produce responsive documents by May 30, 2003. Lear does not dispute that it first received these formal requests for production of documents in mid-January 2003. A May 30, 2003 deadline to complete the search and produce responsive documents provides Lear with a four and one-half month window for the task, a window of time the Court believes is reasonable.

B. Overbroad Objections — Request for Documents 1-6, 8-11, 15-20, 22-23

Excel maintains Lear’s objections based on the overly broad nature of these requests is without merit. More specifically, Excel states this case involves a claim that Excel gave Lear a “rock bottom price” to purchase laminate based on an agreement that Lear would purchase all laminate it needed from Excel. Excel alleges Lear then shopped competitors using Excel’s rock bottom price. Based on these facts, Excel argues the referenced requests are not overly broad, but are appropriately limited to Lear’s internal and external communications regarding Lear’s solicitation and/or purchase of laminates from Excel and other companies during the relevant time period.

In response to Excel’s argument, Lear states as follows:

Although Lear raised an overbroad objection to several document requests, Lear provided available documents. However, the objection is required because of the wording used by Excel. Lear has over approximately 160,000 employees located in several regions of the United States, as well as in Mexico. Accordingly, ... when Excel requests “all documents,” ... [i]t would be impossible to ensure that all documents evidencing any communication over a three-year period will be located. Notwithstanding the objection, Lear attempted in good faith to supply the requested documents and agreed in good faith to contact appropriate Lear personnel a second time.8

The federal discovery rules provide that “requests] shall set forth, either by individual item or by category, the items to be inspected, and describe each with reasonable particularity.”9 Moreover, “[r]equests should be reasonably specific, allowing the respondent to readily identify what is wanted.”10 Courts may find requests overly broad when they are “couched in such broad language as to make arduous the task of deciding which of numerous documents may conceivably fall within [their] scope.”11

Lear does not argue in its brief that it is not able to readily identify the documents requested.

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Bluebook (online)
215 F.R.D. 637, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8936, 2003 WL 21239272, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/general-electric-capital-corp-v-lear-corp-ksd-2003.