L. Tarango Trucking v. County of Contra Costa

202 F.R.D. 614, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13404, 2001 WL 1006127
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedAugust 27, 2001
DocketNo. C-98-2955 WHO
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 202 F.R.D. 614 (L. Tarango Trucking v. County of Contra Costa) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
L. Tarango Trucking v. County of Contra Costa, 202 F.R.D. 614, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13404, 2001 WL 1006127 (N.D. Cal. 2001).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

ORRICK, District Judge.

In this class action race discrimination lawsuit against the County of Contra Costa (“County”) and its Board of Supervisors, defendants produced 141 pages of relevant documents during the last two days of trial. The day after trial, defendants produced an additional sixty-one pages of documents. On July 3, defendants produced thirty-three additional pages of documents. Plaintiffs now move for a default judgment as a sanction for defendants’ failure to produce these documents earlier in the litigation or, alternatively, to strike certain trial testimony presented by defendants. For the reasons set forth below, the Court denies plaintiffs’ motion for a default judgment or other evidentiary sanctions, and instead orders that the trial be reopened at defendants’ expense so that plaintiffs can present whatever testimony they wish about the newly disclosed documents.

I.

This class action lawsuit is brought by L. Tarango Trucking; Lidia Tarango; Harrison’s Consulting; Lisa Harrison; F.E. Jordan Associates; Frederick Jordan; Laid Rite Floor Coverings; Glenn Fox; Hercules/Pi-nole/Rodeo, El Cerrito, Pittsburg and Richmond Branches of the NAACP; Northern California Latin Business Association; The Coalition for Economic Equity; the class of all minority-owned business enterprises (“MBEs”) who are ready, willing and otherwise qualified to enter into contracts to perform work for the County now and who will be ready, willing and otherwise qualified to do so in the future and their minority owners; and the class of all women-owned business enterprises (“WBEs”) who are ready, willing and otherwise qualified to enter into contracts to perform work for the County now and who will be ready, willing and otherwise qualified to do so in the future and their women owners. Defendants are the County of Contra Costa and the following members of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, in their official capacity: John Gioia, Gayle Uilkema, Donna Gerber, Joe Canciam-illa, and Mark Desaulnier.

The sole issue remaining for trial was whether defendants should be enjoined from violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution by intentionally discriminating against MBEs and WBEs in awarding County contracts. A twelve-day bench trial was held on June 4-7, 11-14, and 18-21, 2001.

On the morning of June 20, 2001, prior to the start of the second to last day of trial, defendants produced for the first time ten pages of Health Services Outreach Reports referred to by County employee Ginger Mar-ieiro in her testimony the previous day. The reports were entered into evidence as Exhibit U-2. Exhibit U-2 consists of charts summarizing MBE and WBE participation in purchasing transactions and professional/personal services contracts entered into by the County Health Services Department for the last two quarters of 2000. Plaintiffs’ counsel moved to strike prior testimony based on this unexpected production of documents, but the [617]*617Court deferred ruling until the parties could brief the issue.

Late that evening, defendants faxed plaintiffs an additional 130 pages of previously unproduced outreach reports for the last two quarters of 2000 from the following departments: Health Services, Agriculture, Animal Services, Assessor, Auditor-Controller, Be-thel Island Fire District, Building Inspection, Clerk-Recorder, Community Services, Cooperative Extension, CrocketinCarquinez Fire District, County Counsel, Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, Human Resources, Information Technology, Library, O’Brien-Kreitzberg, Probation, Public Defender, Public Works, Risk Management, Office of the Sheriff, Treasurer-Tax Collector, and Veterans Service Office. The following morning, on the last day of trial, plaintiffs introduced these additional reports as Exhibit 589. The only remaining witness was Patti McNamee of the County Public Works Department, but she testified that she had never seen the reports from her department that were included in Exhibit 589 and had no information about the data in those reports.

The day after trial ended, on June 22, 2001, defendants produced an additional sixty-one pages of previously unproduced documents containing outreach reports for the last two quarters of 2000 for the following departments: Assessor’s Office, Building Inspection, Clerk-Recorder, Community Development, County Counsel, Employment & Human Services, Health Services, and Library.

In defendants’ opposition papers, they attest that they produced thirty-three more pages of outreach reports and draft outreach reports on July 3, 2001. (Roach Decl. 1121 and Ex. P.) Defendants’ counsel Darren Roach (“Roach”) attests that plaintiffs and the Court now have all known quarterly outreach reports, including drafts of reports not sent to the Affirmative Action Office. (Id. 1122.) Defendants have submitted letters from various County departments stating that all existing quarterly outreach reports have now been provided to defendants’ counsel. (Id. H 22 and Ex. Q.)

II.

Plaintiffs contend that defendants’ untimely production of these documents made a fair trial impossible because plaintiffs were prevented from using the documents in cross-examination. Plaintiffs request that the Court enter default judgment against defendants as a sanction pursuant to Rule 37(e)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Court’s inherent powers.

Alternatively, plaintiffs move to strike certain testimony by Scott Tandy, Gerald Bender, Jennifer Fowler, Ginger Marieiro, Patti McNamee, and Frank Puglisi and associated exhibits, all of which are itemized in detail in Appendix A to plaintiffs’ motion. Plaintiffs further seek that the following facts be deemed to be established:

1. Defendants decided not to release the data contained in Exhibits U-2 and 589, and DEF 190142-202 publicly or to the County’s Advisory Council on Equal Opportunity, because they believed that the data would show that the County is substantially underutiliz-ing MBEs and WBEs in comparison to their availability.

2. The undisclosed information regarding utilization of MBEs and WBEs indicates that the County is substantially underutilizing MBEs and WBEs in comparison to their availability.

3. Following receipt of the data contained in Exhibits U-2 and 589, and DEF 190142-202, defendants decided to discontinue tracking data on the award of County contracts to MBEs and WBEs, because they believed that this data would continue to show that the County is substantially underutilizing MBEs and WBEs compared to their availability.

A.

The documents defendants finally produced at the end of trial contained information that plaintiffs repeatedly sought to obtain in discovery. On February 12, 1999, plaintiffs served their first request for documents on defendants, which included the following specific requests:

REQUEST NO. U:

All documents relating to any studies or reports concerning the utilization or under-[618]*618utilization of WBEs and MBEs in County contracts.

REQUEST NO. 23:

All documents relating to or discussing the amount of County contracts awarded to WBEs and MBEs each year since 1990.

REQUEST NO. 29:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
202 F.R.D. 614, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13404, 2001 WL 1006127, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/l-tarango-trucking-v-county-of-contra-costa-cand-2001.