Jinks-Umstead v. England

227 F.R.D. 143, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5813, 2005 WL 775780
CourtDistrict Court, District of Columbia
DecidedApril 7, 2005
DocketNo. CIV.A.99-2691 GK/JMF
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 227 F.R.D. 143 (Jinks-Umstead v. England) 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.

Bluebook
Jinks-Umstead v. England, 227 F.R.D. 143, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5813, 2005 WL 775780 (D.D.C. 2005).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

FACCIOLA, United States Magistrate Judge.

This ease is before me to resolve all discovery disputes. Ripe and ready for resolution are four discovery motions. For the reasons given herein, Plaintiff’s Motion to Require the Navy to Comply with the Court’s Order of June 30, 2004 Requiring the Navy to Supplement Its Answers to Plaintiffs Interrogatory # 4 and Memorandum in Support Thereof (“Pl.’s Mot. to Supp.”) is denied; Plaintiff’s Motion to Conduct Additional Depositions, to Extend the Time for Completing Discovery, and to Require the Navy to Pay Reasonable Attorney’s Fees and Costs Incurred as a Result of the Navy’s Destruction of Documents and Obstruction of Plaintiff’s Discovery and Memorandum, in Support Thereof (“Pl.’s Mot. for Addl. Disc.”) is denied; Plaintiff s Motion for Protective Order (“Pl.’s Mot. P.O.”) is denied; and Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel the Navy to Supplement Its Initial Disclosures and Responses to Plaintiffs Request for Production of Documents ## 1, 2, 39, 55, 56, 76, and 77 (“Pl.’s Mot. Compel”) is granted in part and denied in part.

I. BACKGROUND

In 1991, Lavonne Jinks-Umstead (“JinksUmstead” or “plaintiff’) began working for the Department of the Navy (“Navy” or “defendant”). In February 1997, she was assigned to work at Carderock as a Head Contracting Officer. At some point after her assignment to Carderock, the Navy decided to reduce the number of staff at that office. Defendant also removed plaintiffs supervisory status. Plaintiff claims that these restructuring decisions were discriminatory and retaliatory, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Defendant, however, maintains that the decisions were based on legitimate business reasons.

During discovery before the first trial, plaintiff requested work in place (“WIP”) reports from defendant. Plaintiff believes that the WIP reports are critical to her ease because they show whether defendant was justified in restructuring her office and taking away her support staff. Defendant, however, did not turn over any WIP reports before trial, claiming that it no longer had them. Indeed, one of plaintiffs supervisors, Patricia Holleran (“Holleran”), signed a declaration (“Holleran Declaration”) that stated: “EFACHES does not retain or have a depository for historical work in place (“WIP’) reports.” Holleran Dec. at 1-2.

In the middle of the first trial, after plaintiff had rested her case-in-chief, defendant produced approximately 1,400 pages of WIP reports for the first time. Thereafter, Judge Kessler granted a new trial to allow plaintiff to present her case with the benefit of evidence she was entitled to receive before her first trial.1 Judge Kessler also granted plaintiffs motion to conduct additional, limited discovery.

On June 30, 2004, I resolved several discovery disputes that arose during post-trial discovery. I also clarified the scope of the limited discovery that would be allowed, stating that plaintiff was entitled to seek: “1) information that was not produced, but should have been produced, to plaintiff during discovery prior to the first trial, and 2) [146]*146information bearing on why such information could not be located or was not produced.” Memorandum Opinion, June 30, 2004, at 4. Since I issued that Opinion, several additional discovery disputes have arisen. This Opinion and the accompanying Order resolve these issues.

II. POST-TRIAL DEPOSITION DISCOVERY

A. The Holleran Deposition

After the first trial, plaintiff deposed Holleran, plaintiffs supervisor who signed the Holleran Declaration stating that EFACHES did not retain historical work in progress reports.

In her post-trial deposition, Holleran testified that she based her staffing recommendations on: (1) the workload for facility support contracts, which she ascertained by requesting data from the Facilities Information System (“FIS”) database on the number of contract actions at each facility and the dollar value of the work in place for those contracts; and (2) conversations with senior contract specialists (known as 1102s), who could inform her as to whether the workload numbers in FIS were accurate.2 Id. at 57, 65, 67, 91-93, 96-98, 149, 289. If the senior 1102s indicated that there were contract actions that had not been reported in FIS, Holleran would record the dollar value of those actions so that she could convert it to a staffing number and incorporate that information into her staffing recommendations. Id. at 99-100.

When Holleran needed information regarding the number of contract actions at each field office and the dollar value of those contracts, she contacted Diane Carney (“Carney”) and asked her to “pull ... a report” from the FIS database. Id. at 28. Once Holleran received the information, she disposed of the reports as she used them or at the end of the year because “[t]he only thing that was important was the staffing number, which was then transferred to an approval or nonapproval for hiring a replacement for that position.” Id. at 30-31. See also id. at 80. In other words, once she made her final recommendations, she “pitched” the documents she had used. Id. at 103, 176.

Holleran also clarified that there was no “formal report” and that, most of the time, she received the information from the FIS database on yellow “stickies.” Id. at 32,117-18. Holleran further testified: “[T]here was no document. [Rather, the numbers that supported her conclusions were the] numbers out of FIS and through the discussions with the senior 1102s.” Id. at 63-64. She also testified that, when she recorded workload information gleaned from conversations with the supervisory 1102s, she recorded the information on little stickies, which “didn’t last very long.” Id. at 79-80.

Thus, Holleran discarded the documents, reports, and stickies on which she relied. The court understands that the data recorded on these papers was the same data that appeared in WIP reports. Accordingly, Holleran’s deposition testimony confirms that Holleran herself did not retain WIP reports, even though at least one other Navy employee possessed them (in hard copy) and the Navy did maintain the underlying data on the FIS system. In addition, Holleran’s deposition testimony confirms that her ultimate staffing recommendations were recorded and incorporated into other documents, such as budget and planning documents given to Bob Silver, Dave Ward, and Norma Jean Schnakenberg. Holleran Dep. at 100, 110, 139, 142-43, 155, 168-71, 193, 198, 200, 205.

B. The Carney Deposition

Plaintiff also deposed Carney, the Navy employee who helped develop the FIS system from 1984 until 1994 and led or assisted many of the training sessions when FIS was first widely introduced to Navy employees. Carney Dep. at 37, 87. She explained that FIS contains two sources of information: (1) pre-written “canned reports,” and (2) customized data queries. Id. at 91-92.

As indicated above, Holleran contacted Carney when she needed information on which to base her staffing recommendations. [147]*147When asked for figures relating to contract actions and work in place,3

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Bluebook (online)
227 F.R.D. 143, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5813, 2005 WL 775780, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jinks-umstead-v-england-dcd-2005.