Laufman v. Oakley Building & Loan Co.

72 F.R.D. 116, 23 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 849, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13334
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Ohio
DecidedSeptember 8, 1976
DocketNo. C-1-74-153
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 72 F.R.D. 116 (Laufman v. Oakley Building & Loan Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Laufman v. Oakley Building & Loan Co., 72 F.R.D. 116, 23 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 849, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13334 (S.D. Ohio 1976).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

DAVID S. PORTER, District Judge.

This is a civil rights action which was instituted on April 29, 1974, in. which the plaintiffs, a white married couple, are suing the Oakley Building and Loan Company and its officers, pursuant to Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq., Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, and regulations issued by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, 12 C.F.R. 528 and 531. We held that the complaint stated valid claims for relief under the above provisions, and denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment on February 13, 1976. Laufman v. Oakley Building and Loan Co., 408 F.Supp. 489 (S.D.Ohio 1976).

The plaintiffs have filed a motion pursuant to Rule 37(a), for an order compelling defendants to produce documents pursuant [119]*119to plaintiffs’ request dated March 24, 1976, to answer plaintiffs’ second amended set of interrogatories, propounded March 24,1976, and to provide a computer print-out of residential loan data requested March 30, 1976 (docs. 53 and 57). The parties have been unable to resolve their differences as to the proposed discovery by negotiation or mutual agreement. Defendants have filed a memorandum in opposition to plaintiffs’ motion (doc. 56).

This case deals with the practice of “redlining.” The complaint alleges that the defendants refused to lend the Laufmans money to purchase a house in North Avon-dale, a racially integrated area of Cincinnati, Ohio, because of the racial composition of the neighborhood in which the house is located. Plaintiffs also allege that the defendants are engaged in the practice of refusing to lend money, or requiring stricter terms for such loans, for the purchase of houses in racially integrated neighborhoods. The defendants, in their answer to Question 38 of plaintiffs’ first set of interrogatories, stated that the Laufmans’ application was denied for the following reasons:

In the judgment of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors, the purported loan application disclosed enough information to make the loan unattractive to Oakley, for the following reasons (chronological order of no significance):
Mr. Laufman was an attorney, in private practice, with income prospects somewhat uncertain;
The uncertain marital status of Mr. Laufman and Mrs. Wesselkamper;
The mortgage security would be difficult to appraise accurately because of its age and the size of the building;
Money available for mortgage loans was not plentiful and mortgage rates were changing rapidly.
The foregoing does not include the fact that the loan application itself was not a legal application.

Plaintiffs seek to prove that the above non-racial reasons for their rejection are a pretext. It is plaintiffs’ position that the materials sought are relevant to show pretext; that is, that evidence of defendants’ lending policies and practices may be helpful in a determination of whether defendants’ refusal to lend to the plaintiffs conformed to a general pattern of conduct in violation of the civil rights statutes. See, McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 804-5, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). For the sake of brevity, a list of plaintiffs’ interrogatories and requests for production of documents is attached as Appendix A.

Defendants’ objections to the interrogatories and requests for production of documents may be summarized as follows: (1) the information requested has either already been provided or is not within the scope of discoverable material under Rule 26(b); (2) since this is not a class action, discovery “for class action purposes” should not be allowed; (3) the hardship placed on the defendants, if discovery is permitted, would be disproportionate to the value afforded plaintiffs; (4) the defendants’ are prohibited from disclosing the requested information under the Consumer Credit Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq., and are subject to civil liabilities should they satisfy plaintiffs’ requests and (5) plaintiffs' requests for production are defective in that the items sought are not described with reasonable particularity. We will rule on these objections seriatim.

The defendants contend that the information requested has either already been provided or is not within the scope of discoverable material under Rule 26(b). Defendants do not specify what information has already been provided, except to note that several officers of Oakley Building and Loan have been deposed, plaintiffs’ individual loan file has been produced, and a letter has been written describing the type of data which is fed into the computers and electronic data processing equipment employed by Oakley. We note that plaintiffs’ interrogatory addressed to the matter of computer data states that plaintiffs will be satisfied if the above letter is specifically incorporated by the defendants as their an[120]*120swer. We do not think defendants will be unduly burdened by this request. Due to the defendants’ failure to specify what they have already provided, we can see no merit in defendants’ objection. The more serious ground for objection relates to the scope of discovery.

Rule 33(b) provides that interrogatories may relate to any matters which can be inquired into under Rule 26(b). Rule 34(a) states that a request for the production of documents may be made for any document which constitutes or contains matters within the scope of Rule 26(b). Rule 26(b), the general provision regarding the scope of .discovery, states that the parties may obtain discovery regarding any non-privileged matter relevant to the subject matter of the pending action, and that the information sought need not be admissible at trial if it appears reasonably calculated.to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. The discovery provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are to be liberally construed. Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 507, 67 S.Ct. 385, 91 L.Ed. 451 (1947); Schlagenhauf v. Holder, 379 U.S. 104, 85 S.Ct. 234, 13 L.Ed.2d 152 (1964); Blue Bell Boots, Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 418 F.2d 355 (6th Cir. 1969). This is particularly true in complex civil rights cases. Burns v. Thiokol Chemical Corp., 483 F.2d 300 (5th Cir. 1973); Dillon v. Bay City Construction Co., 512 F.2d 801 (5th Cir. 1975).

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Bluebook (online)
72 F.R.D. 116, 23 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 849, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13334, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/laufman-v-oakley-building-loan-co-ohsd-1976.