Jackson v. Brinker

147 F.R.D. 189, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3525, 1993 WL 77617
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Indiana
DecidedMarch 19, 1993
DocketCause No. IP 91-471-C
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 147 F.R.D. 189 (Jackson v. Brinker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jackson v. Brinker, 147 F.R.D. 189, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3525, 1993 WL 77617 (S.D. Ind. 1993).

Opinion

ENTRY AND ORDER ON THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION’S MOTIONS TO QUASH OR MODIFY THE PLAINTIFF’S SUBPOENAE

FOSTER, United States Magistrate Judge.

This matter comes before the Court on the non-party Indiana Department of Correction’s motion to quash or modify two subpoe-nae duces tecum duly served on it by the United States Marshals Service on behalf of [193]*193the plaintiff.1 In this section 1983 suit, the plaintiff complains that certain employees of the Department of Correction assigned to the Wishard Hospital Detention Ward (“Ward”) violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights during two treatment visits to the Ward in October of 1990. He makes several claims: (1) defendant Brinker acted with deliberate indifference to his medical needs when she confiscated his heart medication before placing him in the Ward’s holding cell, causing him injury when he suffered a mild heart attack about an hour later while in the cell; (2) defendant Brinker acted with deliberate indifference to his medical needs when, with knowledge of his serious heart condition, she ordered him locked in his Ward room taking the only key with her when she left the Ward, causing injury when medical personnel could not administer prompt care when the plaintiff suffered another heart attack in the room; (3) defendant Prestel acted with deliberate indifference to the plaintiffs medical needs when he placed a leg shackle on the plaintiffs right leg and delayed moving it to the left leg despite the plaintiffs repeated complaints of pain and discomfort and his informing defendant Pres-tel of surgery on that leg scheduled for the next day; (4) defendant Griffith acted with deliberate indifference to the plaintiff’s medical needs by unnecessarily cancelling the plaintiffs hospital appointments, thus causing needless suffering and pain when his treatment was delayed for two months; and (5) defendants Brinker, Greene, and Wiseman violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights in the Ward by denying him visitation with his family and children, not permitting him to make collect phone calls, not permitting him to consult privately with his physicians, and by retaliating against him and his family for filing this suit. (Plaintiffs Complaint, Supplemental Complaint, and August 21, 1991 List of Contentions). The Indiana Department of Correction (“Department”), originally named as a defendant, was granted judgment on the pleadings on the ground of Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity. (Entry and Order of October 20, 1992). There are no pending dispositive motions.

The plaintiffs subpoenae seek the following documents: (1) “A complete copy of his prison packet;” (2) “A complete copy of his prison medical records;” (3) “A complete copy of investigations of the incidents at Wishard Hospital,” (Plaintiff’s subpoena served December 29,1992); and (4) “A complete copy of the nursing summary reports” (Plaintiff’s subpoena served on or about January 27, 1993).2 The Department moves to quash or modify the subpoena on several grounds: (1) it objects to producing the confidential portion of the plaintiffs prison packet on grounds of relevancy and confidentiality related to investigative and security concerns (these documents were submitted to the Court for in camera review); (2) state law and policy and Department rules prohibit the release of the medical records to the plaintiff absent a court order; (3) it does not know to which Wishard Hospital incidents one of the subpoenae refers in its request for investigative records; (4) it wants the plaintiff to pay fifteen cents per page for copies; and (5) regarding the request for nursing summary reports, the Department asserts that it maintains no records so designated, it does not have any nursing notes from Wishard Hospital, and, if the plaintiff seeks records of medical care he received at Department institutions, state law and policy and Department rules prevent release without a court order.

For the reasons given below, the Department’s motions are granted in part, denied in part, and taken under advisement in part.

Discussion.

The scope of material obtainable by a Rule 45 subpoena is as broad as permitted [194]*194under the discovery rules. Fed.R.Civ.P. 45 advisory committee note to the 1991 amendment, 28 U.S.C.A. Rules 38 to 50, p. 402 (1992) (“The non-party witness is subject to the same scope of discovery under this rule as that person would be as a party to whom a request is addressed pursuant to Rule 34.”); 9 Charles A. Wright and Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2457, at 431-32 (1971); David D. Siegel, Practice Commentaries, in 28 U.S.C.A.Fed. Rules Civ.Proc. Rules 38 to 50, at 347, 390-91 (1992). Consequently, if material is relevant, not privileged, and is, or is likely to lead to, admissible evidence, it is obtainable by way of subpoena. See id.; Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b). Likewise, a person may raise the same objections to a subpoena as he could to discovery. Id.

The Department bears the burden of establishing its objections to the subpoenae. Holifield v. United States, 909 F.2d 201, 204 (7th Cir.1990); 9 Wright and Miller § 2457, at 435.

A Rule 45 subpoena may be resisted pursuant to subparagraph (c)(2)(B) (objecting to the requesting party who may then move to compel compliance), paragraph (c)(3) (moving to quash or modify), or subdivision (e) (in certain circumstances, simply ignoring the subpoena). The Court presumes that the Department moves under clause (iv) of sub-paragraph 45(c)(3)(A) to modify the subpoe-nae to include the plaintiffs responsibility for compliance costs and clause (iii) to quash them completely or conditionally in all other respects.

A. Medical records.

Although the Department concedes the relevancy of some of the plaintiffs medical records to his claims and raises no substantive objection to producing them, it nevertheless refuses to do so because it claims that state statutes and Department rules forbid such release without a court order.

Rule 501, Federal Rule of Evidence, provides that issues of privilege relating to claims for which federal law provides the rule of decision are governed by federal common law rather than state law.3 It is well-settled that state privilege rules do not apply of their own force in federal § 1983 actions. See 12 Federal Procedure, Lawyers Edition § 33:264, at 295 (1988); Kerr v. United States District Court, 511 F.2d 192, 197 (9th Cir.1975), aff'd, 426 U.S. 394, 96 S.Ct. 2119, 48 L.Ed.2d 725 (1976). When applying the federal common law to an assertion of privilege derived from state law, however, federal courts should look to state law and policy to inform, though not determine, their decisions. See Kelly v. City of San Jose, 114 F.R.D. 653, 656 (N.D.Cal.1987)4;

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Bluebook (online)
147 F.R.D. 189, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3525, 1993 WL 77617, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jackson-v-brinker-insd-1993.