Hubbard v. Potter

247 F.R.D. 27, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60, 2008 WL 43867
CourtDistrict Court, District of Columbia
DecidedJanuary 3, 2008
DocketCivil Action No. 03-1062 (RJL/JMF)
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 247 F.R.D. 27 (Hubbard v. Potter) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, District of Columbia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Hubbard v. Potter, 247 F.R.D. 27, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60, 2008 WL 43867 (D.D.C. 2008).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JOHN M. FACCIOLA, United States Magistrate Judge.

This case was referred to me for resolution of all non-dispositive motions. Currently pending and ready for resolution are the following two motions: 1) defendant’s Motion to End Pre-Certification Discovery and Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support Thereof (“Defs. Mot. re Discovery”), and 2) Defendant’s Motion for Leave to Designate a Rebuttal Expert and Serve that Expert’s Report, and Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support Thereof (“Defs. Mot. re Expert”). For the reasons stated below, the first motion will be granted in part and denied in part and the second motion will be denied.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs are five deaf employees of the United States Postal Service (“USPS”) who work in various facilities across the country. The gravamen of their complaint is that they have been denied a qualified sign language interpreter at safety meetings and mandatory work meetings. Accordingly, plaintiffs claim that they have been prevented from performing their duties safely, which they contend is an essential function of their job.

Plaintiffs are currently in the process of seeking class certification pursuant to Rules 23(b)(2) and (3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. To that end, on December 21, 2005, the Court bifurcated discovery into two distinct periods — pre and post-certification discovery. Since then, and with the assistance of the Court, the parties have engaged in pre-certification discovery. Although it should now be time for pre-certification discovery to end and for the case to proceed to resolution of the remaining issues, plaintiffs have raised legitimate concerns regarding the discovery that has been thus far produced by defendant.

DISCUSSION

I. Motion to End Pre-Certification Discovery

A. The Parties’Arguments

Defendant moves to end pre-certification discovery (save for the completion of expert witness depositions) on the grounds that ample time has passed and that plaintiffs should now have the discovery they need:

Plaintiffs either (a) have the evidence they need for class certification and are attempting to collect that which they need for trial on the merits, or (b) have failed in their attempts to meet the class certification requirements following this Court’s dismissal of their first class complaint and are trying to squeeze every last document out of the Postal Service in a vain attempt to piece together a plausible class certification theory for their second amended complaint.

Defs. Mot. re Discovery at 7.

Plaintiffs counter that, thus far, defendant’s discovery responses have been “gross[29]*29ly insufficient and manifestly incomplete.” Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to End Pre-Certification Discovery (“Plains. Opp.”) at 1. Plaintiffs also argue that 1) numerous documents produced by defendant in response to plaintiffs’ discovery requests have been nevertheless characterized by defendant as “non-responsive,” 2) certain facilities failed to provide documents for the full five years identified in the Court’s order, and 3) certain facilities failed to produce any electronic documents. Id. at 6.

Plaintiffs therefore seek another round of discovery, a stage in the litigation that can only be described as “meta-discovery,” i.e., discovery about the discovery. First, plaintiffs want to take the depositions of 1) a subset of the senior officials who responded “regarding the process of preserving, locating, and producing documents responsive to the Court’s February 22, order.” Plains. Opp. at 12. Second, plaintiffs want to take a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition regarding the Postal Service’s “efforts to institute a document hold and preserve documents relevant to this litigation.” Id. According to plaintiffs, the paucity of the documents justifies the taking of additional 30(b)(6) depositions of another, or perhaps the same, subset of senior officials “regarding their facilities’ reasonable accommodation practice and procedures.” Id. In other words, plaintiffs contend that the absence of documents suggests the appropriateness of requiring that the officials who originally submitted the surveys be deposed about how, if at all, their facilities are accommodating deaf employees.

B. Analysis

1. The General Paucity of Documents

Courts supervising discovery are often confronted by the claim that the production made is so paltry that there must be more that has not been produced or that was destroyed. Speculation that there is more will not suffice; if the theoretical possibility that more documents exist sufficed to justify additional discovery, discovery would never end. Instead of chasing the theoretical possibility that additional documents exist, courts have insisted that the documents that have been produced permit a reasonable deduction that other documents may exist or did exist and have been destroyed. See Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC, 217 F.R.D. 309, 313 (S.D.N.Y.2003) (holding that additional discovery was mandated where plaintiff knew that defendant’s production was insufficient because plaintiff herself produced numerous responsive documents). Accord Peskoff v. Faber, 244 F.R.D. 54 (D.D.C.2007) (holding that additional discovery of electronically stored communications was warranted where 1) plaintiff testified of his frequent use of e-mail as a means of communication, 2) there was in existence one such e-mail, and 3) the previous search produced curious results); Ameriwood Indus., Inc., v. Liberman, No. 06-CV-524, 2006 WL 3825291, at *3 (E.D.Mo. Dec. 27, 2006) (holding that plaintiffs production of a responsive e-mail justified the inference that other responsive emails existed).

According to plaintiffs, three inferences may be drawn from the alleged “paucity” of defendant’s document production: “First, facilities may possess additional responsive documents, but those documents have not yet been located or produced to plaintiffs. Second, facilities may have at one time possessed additional responsive documents, but those documents were lost or destroyed, and no longer exist. Third, facilities may never have had additional responsive documents.” Plains. Opp. at 7. But, that there is a fourth and equally likely possibility that the designated officials kept the records they were supposed to and turned them over to plaintiffs when asked to do so. In other words, plaintiffs fail to account for the possibility that they may in fact have already received all responsive documents.

That the volume of documents produced by a particular facility “doesn’t make sense” given the number of deaf employees working at that facility is not persuasive. While plaintiffs may have their own ideas about how many documents a particular facility should have produced, that is simply of no moment. In order for the court to reason, as it must under Zubulake and similar cases, that additional discovery is warranted, the Court must have more to go by than a hunch on plaintiffs’ part.

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247 F.R.D. 27, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60, 2008 WL 43867, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hubbard-v-potter-dcd-2008.