Hoyt v. Valdovinos

CourtDistrict Court, S.D. California
DecidedJune 22, 2021
Docket3:19-cv-01553
StatusUnknown

This text of Hoyt v. Valdovinos (Hoyt v. Valdovinos) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hoyt v. Valdovinos, (S.D. Cal. 2021).

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 JOHNAE HOYT, Case No.: 3:19-cv-01553-L-AHG

12 Plaintiff, ORDER: 13 v. (1) RESOLVING JOINT MOTION 14 GEORGE VALDOVINOS, et al., FOR DETERMINATION OF 15 Defendant. DISCOVERY DISPUTE AND GRANTING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION 16 TO COMPEL, and 17 (2) GRANTING JOINT MOTION TO 18 CONTINUE THE DISCOVERY 19 CUT-OFF

20 [ECF Nos. 66, 71] 21 Before the Court is the Plaintiff Johnae Hoyt (“Plaintiff”) and Third-Party California 22 Office of the Inspector General’s (“OIG”) Joint Motion for Determination of Discovery 23 Dispute. ECF No. 66. Plaintiff served a subpoena on OIG, to which OIG objects. Id. For 24 the reasons set forth below, Plaintiff’s motion to compel is GRANTED. 25 I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND 26 Plaintiff, a state prisoner proceeding in forma pauperis and represented by counsel, 27 filed a civil rights complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming various prison officials 28 1 at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (“RJD”) violated his First and Eighth 2 Amendment rights in April 2017 while he was incarcerated there. ECF No. 12. Plaintiff 3 alleges that Defendants Cruz, Valdovinos, and Ramos handcuffed him, pepper sprayed 4 him, and broke four of his teeth. ECF No. 54 at 2. Defendants contend that Plaintiff had 5 lost his privileges to go to the prison yard due to prior disciplinary citations, but tried to 6 force his way into the yard by threatening prison staff. Id. Defendants contend Plaintiff 7 attacked officers and attempted to strike them with his open hand, and the officers used 8 pepper spray to stop his advance. Id. While approaching Plaintiff, Defendants contend that 9 Defendant Valdovinos slipped in the pepper spray and landed on Plaintiff. Id. Plaintiff 10 alleges that Defendants Ramos and McGee threatened him, causing him to submit to a 11 video interview in which he stated that his injuries were caused by accident. Id. Plaintiff 12 also alleges that Defendant Cortez improperly found him guilty of a rules violation and 13 Defendant Godinez threatened Plaintiff into dropping his excessive force claim. Id. 14 Defendants deny that Plaintiff’s testimony was coerced, or that they retaliated against him 15 in any way. Id. 16 II. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 17 On October 7, 2019, Plaintiff filed his third amended civil rights complaint pursuant 18 to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. ECF No. 12. On January 23, 2020, 18 of the 21 named Defendants 19 filed their amended answer to Plaintiff’s complaint. ECF No. 41. The same day, these 20 Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that Plaintiff failed to exhaust 21 his administrative remedies before filing suit, which Plaintiff opposed. ECF Nos. 42, 49, 22 50. On September 3, 2020, the Court granted in part and denied in part Defendants’ motion. 23 ECF No. 52. The Court denied summary judgment as to Defendants Valdovinos, McGee, 24 Ramos, Bracamonte, Godinez, and Cortez, and granted summary judgment as to all 25 remaining Defendants. Id. at 18–23. 26 The Court held a telephonic Case Management Conference on October 5, 2020, and 27 issued its Scheduling Order on October 6, 2020. ECF Nos. 55, 56. After granting certain 28 extensions, fact discovery in this case closes on June 23, 2021. ECF No. 65. 1 On April 7, 2021, pursuant to the Court’s Chambers Rules, Plaintiff and OIG notified 2 the Court that they disagreed about a subpoena Plaintiff served on OIG. Email to Chambers 3 (Apr. 7, 2021 at 7:10 p.m.); see Chmb.R. at 2. The Court found it appropriate to issue a 4 briefing schedule in this matter, requiring that the joint motion be filed by April 22, 2021 5 at 5:00 p.m. ECF No. 63 at 2. The parties untimely filed their joint motion on 6 April 23, 2021.1 ECF No. 66. This order follows. 7 III. DISCOVERY REQUEST AT ISSUE 8 Plaintiff seeks to compel responses to its third-party subpoena for the production of 9 documents. ECF No. 66-1 at 3. In the subpoena, Plaintiff requests “[a]ll documents and 10 other materials related to any incident involving Johnae Hoyt, K-67211 from 11 April 23, 2017 to the present.” Id. On February 12, 2021, OIG served its objections to the 12 subpoena. Id. at 5–13. OIG objects to the subpoena on the grounds2 that responsive 13 documents are protected from disclosure by various privileges prescribed by the California 14 Penal Code. ECF No. 66 at 7 (citing CAL. PEN. CODE §§ 6126.3(c)(3), 6126.3(c)(5), 15 6126.6). OIG listed the documents withheld in supplemental privilege logs. ECF No. 66-1 16 at 21–33, 37–39. OIG represents that there are three categories of documents that remain 17 in dispute: (1) “various communications, analyses, and notes OIG staff compiled while 18 19 1 Though the instant motion is subject to being stricken from the record (see CivLR 7.1(e)(7)), in the interest of resolving this dispute expeditiously, the Court consents 20 to the late filing. 21 2 OIG also objected on the grounds that the request is vague, ambiguous, overly broad, 22 unduly burdensome, compound, and is not relevant. ECF No. 66-1 at 7. However, these 23 objections were not reasserted in the instant motion, and are therefore deemed waived. See, e.g., SolarCity Corp. v. Doria, No. 16cv3085-JAH-RBB, 2018 WL 467898, at *3 (S.D. 24 Cal. Jan. 18, 2018) (courts in this district “generally consider[ ] only those objections that 25 have been timely asserted in the initial response to the discovery request and that are subsequently reasserted and relied upon in response to the motion to compel.”); Sherwin- 26 Williams Co. v. Earl Scheib of Cal., Inc., No. 12cv2646-JAH-JMA, 2013 WL 12073836, 27 at *2 n.1 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 4, 2013) (deeming all objections raised in response to the discovery requests but not addressed in the discovery motion to be moot or waived, limiting 28 1 assessing several letters Plaintiff sent to OIG;” (2) “various internal notes and analyses 2 OIG staff compiled while monitoring CDCR’s review of force that [RJD] staff applied on 3 Plaintiff on April 23, 2017;” and (3) “a confidential report compiled by OIG staff between 4 February and June 2020 for the Inspector General’s vetting of [a candidate for warden].” 5 ECF No. 66 at 6–7. 6 IV. LEGAL STANDARD 7 Under Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “[p]arties may obtain 8 discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or 9 defense[.]” FED. R. CIV. P. 26(b)(1). Here, the issue is whether the discovery sought is 10 nonprivileged. In a civil rights lawsuit brought against state actors under federal law, 11 privilege issues are resolved using federal law. See Kelly v. City of San Jose, 114 F.R.D. 12 653, 660 (N.D. Cal. 1987) (citing Kerr v. U.S. Dist. Ct. for N. Dist. of Cal., 511 F.2d 192, 13 197 (9th Cir. 1975)). For this reason, the Court will apply federal law to OIG’s privilege 14 claims.3 15 “Federal common law recognizes a qualified privilege for official information.” 16 Sanchez v. City of Santa Ana, 936 F.2d 1027, 1033 (9th Cir. 1990) (citing Kerr, 511 F.2d 17 at 198). The official information privilege is subject to the competing interests of the 18 requesting party and is “subject to disclosure especially where protective measures are 19 taken.” Sanchez, 936 F.2d at 1033. Courts embrace “a balancing approach that is 20

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Hoyt v. Valdovinos, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hoyt-v-valdovinos-casd-2021.