Moore v. Duran

District Court, S.D. California·Decided May 3, 2024·No. 3:23-cv-00194·Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 MERRICK MOORE, Case No.: 23-cv-194-GPC-DDL

12 Plaintiff, ORDER: 13 v. (1) GRANTING IN PART AND 14 J.J. DURAN, et al., DENYING IN PART PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO 15 Defendants. COMPEL; 16 (2) DENYING PLAINTIFF’S 17 MOTION FOR LEAVE TO ISSUE A SUBPOENA; and 18 (3) DENYING PLAINTIFF’S 19 MOTION TO AMEND THE PRETRIAL SCHEDULE 20

21 [Dkt. Nos. 47, 52, and 55] 22 23 Before the Court are a motion to amend the pretrial schedule [Dkt. No. 47], a motion 24 to compel further discovery responses from Defendants [Dkt. No. 52]; and a motion for 25 leave to issue a subpoena to Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (“RJD”) and/or the 26 California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (“CDCR”) [Dkt. No. 55] by pro 27 se Plaintiff Merrick Moore (collectively, the “Motions”). For the reasons stated below, 28 Plaintiff’s motion to compel [Dkt. No. 52] is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN 1 PART; the motion for leave to issue a subpoena [Dkt. No. 55] is DENIED; and the motion 2 to amend the schedule [Dkt. No. 47] is DENIED AS MOOT. 3 I. 4 BACKGROUND 5 Plaintiff filed his complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on February 1, 2023, 6 alleging Defendants violated his rights under the United States Constitution. Dkt. No. 1. 7 Briefly stated, Plaintiff alleges that on March 1, 2018, after an institutional classification 8 committee hearing, Defendants used excessive force against him and Defendant Duran 9 sexually assaulted him. See generally id. Plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment claim survived 10 preliminary screening. Dkt. No. 4. Defendants answered the complaint on July 26, 2023, 11 generally denying Plaintiff’s allegations and asserting affirmative defenses. Dkt. No. 21. 12 On October 4, 2023, the Court held a Case Management Conference. In anticipation 13 of that conference, the parties filed competing discovery plans. Dkt. Nos. 33 (Defendants), 14 35 (Plaintiff). On October 5, 2023, the undersigned issued a Scheduling Order. 15 On January 10, 2024, the Court held a Status Conference with the parties. It emerged 16 during the conference that Plaintiff believed his proposed discovery plan, and in particular 17 the section entitled “Areas of Discovery” (see Dkt. No. 35 at 3), sufficed as service of 18 discovery requests upon Defendants. Defendants agreed to construe Plaintiff’s “Areas of 19 Discovery” as requests for the production of documents served on January 10, 2024, and 20 to respond accordingly. Dkt. No. 42. 21 On March 4, 2024, the Court docketed Plaintiff’s motion to amend the pretrial 22 schedule. Dkt. No. 47. Plaintiff related he had not received responsive documents from 23 Defendants and needed additional time to bring a motion to compel and to “locate [his] 24 legal property.” Id. at 1. 25 On March 11, 2024, the Court held a Mandatory Settlement Conference. The case 26 did not settle, and the Court held a Status Conference on the record to address the discovery 27 issues raised by Plaintiff in his motion to amend the schedule. Dkt. No. 49. Following the 28 Status Conference, the Court ordered Defendants to file a Discovery Status Report and to 1 respond to Plaintiff’s interrogatories by March 25, 2024. Defendants timely complied; 2 however, without awaiting the Discovery Status Report, Plaintiff filed both the motion to 3 compel and the motion for leave to issue a subpoena. Dkt. Nos. 52, 55. Plaintiff also filed 4 an objection to Defendants’ Discovery Status Report. Dkt. No. 59. 5 On April 8, 2024, the Court held a discovery hearing (the “April 8 Hearing”) to 6 address the issues raised in Plaintiff’s various motions, the Discovery Status Report, and 7 Plaintiff’s objection. To ensure a complete record, the Court ordered Defendants to 8 respond to Plaintiff’s Motions, and directed Defendants to lodge certain documents they 9 asserted were privileged for the undersigned’s in camera review. Dkt. No. 61. Defendants 10 timely complied. Dkt. Nos. 62, 63. This Order follows. 11 II. 12 LEGAL STANDARDS 13 A. Scope of Discovery 14 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 provides: 15 parties may obtain discovery regarding any non-privileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the 16 case, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the 17 amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues and 18 whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely 19 benefit. 20 Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 21 Although broad, “the scope of discovery is not without limits.” Compass Bank v. 22 Morris Cerullo World Evangelism, 104 F. Supp. 3d 1040, 1051 (S.D. Cal. 2015).1 The 23 Court “must limit” irrelevant, overly broad, unduly burdensome, cumulative or 24 disproportional discovery. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(C). Whether to permit or deny 25 / / / 26 27 28 1 discovery is left to the Court’s “broad” discretion. See Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 2 751 (9th Cir. 2002). 3 B. Official Information Privilege 4 “Federal common law recognizes a qualified privilege for official information.” 5 Sanchez v. City of Santa Ana, 936 F.2d 1027, 1033 (9th Cir.1990). “In determining what 6 level of protection should be afforded by this privilege, courts conduct a case by case 7 balancing analysis, in which the interests of the party seeking discovery are weighed 8 against the interests of the governmental entity asserting the privilege.” Soto v. City of 9 Concord, 162 F.R.D. 603, 613 (N.D. Cal. 1995). This balancing approach is “moderately 10 pre-weighted in favor of disclosure.” Id. 11 The party asserting the privilege bears the burden of establishing it applies. Shiflett 12 by and through Davenport v. City of San Leandro, No. 21-cv-7802-LB, 2023 WL 4551077, 13 at *2 (N. D. Cal. July 13, 2023). This requires the party to make a “substantial threshold 14 showing” by “submit[ting] a declaration or affidavit from a responsible official with 15 personal knowledge of the matters to be attested to in the affidavit.” Soto, 162 F.R.D. at 16 613. The affidavit must include: 17 (1) an affirmation that the agency generated or collected the material in issue 18 and has maintained its confidentiality; (2) a statement that the official has personally reviewed the material in question; (3) a specific identification of 19 the governmental or privacy interests that would be threatened by disclosure 20 of the material to plaintiff and/or his lawyer; (4) a description of how disclosure subject to a carefully crafted protective order would create a 21 substantial risk of harm to significant governmental or privacy interests, and 22 (5) a projection of how much harm would be done to the threatened interests if disclosure were made. 23 24 Id. “If the nondisclosing party does not meet this initial burden, the court will order 25 disclosure of the documents; if the party meets this burden, the court generally conducts an 26 in camera review of the material and balances each party’s interests.” Rogers v. Giurbino, 27 288 F.R.D. 469, 481 (S.D. Cal. 2012). 28 / / / 1 III. 2 DISCUSSION 3 A. Motion to Compel [Dkt. No.

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Related

Hallett v. Morgan
296 F.3d 732 (Ninth Circuit, 2002)
Compass Bank v. Morris Cerullo World Evangelism
104 F. Supp. 3d 1040 (S.D. California, 2015)
Rogers v. Giurbino
288 F.R.D. 469 (S.D. California, 2012)
Sanchez v. City of Santa Ana
936 F.2d 1027 (Ninth Circuit, 1990)
Soto v. City of Concord
162 F.R.D. 603 (N.D. California, 1995)