Lewis v. Ryan

261 F.R.D. 513, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98812, 2009 WL 3486702
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. California
DecidedOctober 23, 2009
DocketNo. 04-CV-2468-JLS (NLS)
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 261 F.R.D. 513 (Lewis v. Ryan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lewis v. Ryan, 261 F.R.D. 513, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98812, 2009 WL 3486702 (S.D. Cal. 2009).

Opinion

ORDER: (1) ADOPTING R & R, (2) OVERRULING OBJECTIONS, AND (3) GRANTING MOTION TO COMPEL

JANIS L. SAMMARTINO, District Judge.

Presently before the Court are Plaintiffs motion to compel discovery, Magistrate [516]*516Judge Stormes’s Report and Recommendation, and Plaintiffs objections. (Doc. Nos. 152, 159 & 162.) Plaintiff filed the instant motion to compel in order to discover documents related to his allegation that pork was served to inmates with religious objections. Magistrate Judge Stormes concluded that Defendants’ destruction of the relevant documents was wrongful, and that Defendants’ should be subject to sanctions for spoliation. Judge Stormes considered whether the proper sanction would be an adverse inference, the exclusion of evidence, or dismissal and concluded that an adverse inference was warranted. (R & R at 9-12.) Although Defendants did not file objections to the R & R, Plaintiff objects that the R & R should have imposed a “default sanction.”

Plaintiff claims that this is an extraordinary circumstance and that imposing any sanction less than default “is equivalent to rewarding [Defendants] for destroying Plaintiffs evidence.” As Magistrate Judge Stormes recognized, “[dismissal is only warranted under Rule 37 when less drastic sanctions cannot correct the prejudice from the disobedient conduct.” She also properly recognized that “there are no extraordinary circumstances” here and that “default sanctions are not necessary to counteract the prejudice from the destruction of the documents.” Further, it is clear that an adverse inference does not reward Defendants for destroying evidence. It, in fact, does exactly the opposite. At summary judgment and at trial, Plaintiff will be entitled to the inference that the destroyed documents show that pork was served. As such, the Court finds that Plaintiffs objection is meritless.

Therefore, the Court ADOPTS the R & R and OVERRULES Plaintiffs objection. Plaintiffs motion to compel discovery and for sanctions is GRANTED. Plaintiff shall be given the benefit of an adverse inference that the documents destroyed by Defendants would have shown sufficient incidents of serving pork to rise to the level of a Constitutional violation and evidence that unfairly prejudices Plaintiff in light of Defendants’ spoliation shall be excluded.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION TO GRANT MOTION TO COMPEL DISCOVERY AND FOR EVIDENTIARY SANCTIONS

NITA L. STORMES, United States Magistrate Judge.

Background

Plaintiff has filed a civil rights complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-2000cc-4, in which he alleges that various defendants violated his First and Eighth Amendment rights by surreptitiously feeding him pork in the prison cafeteria, an infringement of his religious beliefs as a follower of Islam, causing him subsequently to suffer severe emotional distress. The Complaint was filed on December 10, 2004 and defense counsel executed a waiver of service on April 15,2005. (Docket No. 8.)

On August 17, 2006, Plaintiff propounded Requests for Production of Documents on Defendant Vorise (Docket No. 58-2 Ex. C, the “RFPs”.) On December 20, 2006, Plaintiff filed a Motion to Compel Discovery based in part on the RFPs. (Docket No. 58.) Plaintiff sought documents relating to the serving of a pork product in October of 2003 and documents relating to ordering, invoices, and inventory of meat products. (Id.) On January 18, 2007, Defendants asserted in Opposition to the Motion to compel that they “will also conduct a further search of their records and, without waiving any previously asserted objections, supplement Defendant Vorise’s Responses to Plaintiffs Requests for Production of documents with any and all non-privileged documents responsive to those requests.” (Docket No. 67.)1 On February 1, 2007, this court issued an Order Granting Plaintiffs Motion to Compel Discovery. (Docket. No. 69 “The Discovery Order”). The Discovery Order specifically required Defendant Vorise, [517]*517no later than February 15, 2007, to “supplement his previous production with any and all non-privileged documents that are responsive to Plaintiffs requests.” (Id. at pp. 5-6.)

On July 7, 2007, Defendants filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. (Docket No. 84.) On March 6, 2008, this court issued a Report and Recommendation (“R & R”) on Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment, recommending that the motion be granted in part and denied in part. (Docket No. 103). On May 1, 2008, Judge Sammartino adopted the R & R in the belief that Plaintiff had filed no objections. (Docket No. 106). On May 29, 2008, Plaintiff filed a Motion for Reconsideration of the Order adopting the R & R, stating that he had timely provided prison officials with his objections with instructions to mail the objections. On November 17, 2008, Judge Sammartino granted Plaintiffs Motion for Reconsideration, finding that, in light of his pro se status, Plaintiff had met the requirements of Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(f) in designating evidence sought that would preclude summary judgment. (Docket No. 136). The order directed the undersigned Judge to hold a discovery conference and extend discovery to “ensure that Defendants receive and respond appropriately to Plaintiffs discovery requests before refiling their motion for summary judgment.” (Id.) Pursuant to that Order, a telephonic discovery conference was held on January 21, 2009. Mr. Sheehy appeared on behalf of Defendants and Mr. Lewis appeared on his own behalf.

On January 21, 2009, the court Ordered Defendants to comply with the Discovery Order granting Plaintiffs motion to compel, to properly respond to Plaintiffs outstanding discovery requests, and to file a declaration of compliance setting forth the documents produced and the efforts made to locate responsive documents. (Docket No. 138 the “Discovery Conference Order”.) The Court specifically found that Defendants had failed to “comply with the spirit” of the earlier Discovery Order in responding to the Requests for Production of Documents. (Id. at p. 4.) While Defendants did provide a timely response, the response was so woefully inadequate as to constitute no response at all. (Docket No. 98, Opposition to Summary Judgment, Exh. K.) In response to Request for Production of Document Number 3, seeking order invoices for meat products, Defendants responded: “a diligent search of Calipatria’s records is being conducted and documents responsive to this request for the appropriate time period will be produced if available.” (Id.) The response to Request numbers 5-10, 12 and 15 is substantially the same-that a search “is being conducted.” In short, instead of complying with the Discovery Order’s requirement to supplement the production, Defendants merely stated that “a search is being conducted.” Defendants have pointed to no evidence that any search was, in fact, conducted at that time and have pointed to no documents that were produced.

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

Related

Arline v. Cornejo
S.D. California, 2023
Bobby Charlton v. F. Yepez
Ninth Circuit, 2022
Al Otro Lado, Inc. v. McAleenan
S.D. California, 2021
Cat3, LLC v. Black Lineage, Inc.
164 F. Supp. 3d 488 (S.D. New York, 2016)
Petro-Hunt, L.L.C. v. United States
113 Fed. Cl. 80 (Federal Claims, 2013)
Reinsdorf v. Skechers U.S.A., Inc.
296 F.R.D. 604 (C.D. California, 2013)
Rimkus Consulting Group, Inc. v. Cammarata
688 F. Supp. 2d 598 (S.D. Texas, 2010)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
261 F.R.D. 513, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98812, 2009 WL 3486702, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lewis-v-ryan-casd-2009.