Saevik v. Swedish Medical Center
This text of Saevik v. Swedish Medical Center (Saevik v. Swedish Medical Center) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
THE HONORABLE JOHN C. COUGHENOUR 1 2 3 4 5 6 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 8 AT SEATTLE 9 SHANNON ANDERSON SAEVIK, CASE NO. C19-1992-JCC 10 Plaintiff, ORDER 11 v. 12 SWEDISH MEDICAL CENTER and REBECCA DAY, individually and as Clinic 13 Operations Manager of its Organ Transplant and Live Center, 14 15 Defendants. 16 This matter comes before the Court on Defendants’ motion for a protective order (Dkt. 17 No. 41). Having considered the parties’ briefing and the relevant record, the Court hereby 18 GRANTS in part and DENIES in part Defendants’ motion for the reasons described below. 19 Plaintiff is a former Swedish Medical Center (“Swedish”) employee. (Dkt. No. 1-3 at 2.) 20 She contends that, after Swedish performed a corrective medical procedure on her, Plaintiff’s 21 superiors at Swedish harassed her, violated her medical privacy, and unlawfully discharged her. 22 (Dkt. No. 43 at 1–2.) Plaintiff filed a complaint naming Swedish and one of Plaintiff’s superiors. 23 (Dkt. No 1-2.) Plaintiff alleges violations of Washington’s Law Against Discrimination 24 (“WLAD”) and the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), a hostile work environment, 25 retaliation, and a violation of public policy. (Id. at 5.) The parties have been unable to come to 26 1 terms on the scope of Plaintiff’s Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of a Swedish representative and, as a 2 result, Defendants move for a protective order limiting the topics to be covered in the deposition. 3 (Dkt. No. 41.) At issue are the following topics: #3 (hospital restructuring plans), #6 (hiring 4 practices in the unit where Plaintiff worked), #9 (policies and practices regarding adherence to 5 collective bargaining agreements), #12 (compliance investigations), and #19 (facts concerning 6 the investigation of Plaintiff’s medical treatment performed by Swedish caregivers). (Dkt. Nos. 7 41, 46; see Dkt. No. 48-1 at 3–4.) 8 If a party believes that a Rule 30(b)(6) subpoena or notice is improper, it may move for a 9 protective order. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(1). Swedish does so, seeking a protective order limiting 10 the scope of topic 12 and barring questions regarding topics 3, 6, 9, and 19. (Dkt. No. 41 at 10.) 11 A Rule 30(b)(6) deposition notice must “describe with reasonable particularity the matters for 12 examination.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6). In addition, the topics described must be “relevant” and 13 “proportional.” Buie v. District of Columbia, 327 F.R.D. 1, 9 n.3 (D.D.C. 2018) (distinguishing 14 between Rule 30(b)(6)’s reasonable particularity requirement and Rule 26’s requirements). 15 Relevant information is “any matter that bears on, or that reasonably could lead to other matter 16 that could bear on, any issue that is or may be in the case.” Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 17 437 U.S. 340, 351 (1978). Proportionality is a matter of “the importance of the issues at stake in 18 the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the 19 parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the 20 burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 21 26(b)(1). The party seeking a protective order bears the burden of showing that there is good 22 cause for the court to issue the order. In re Roman Catholic Archbishop of Portland, 661 F.3d 23 417, 424 (9th Cir. 2011). 24 Defendants first argue that topics 3, 6, and 9 seek irrelevant information. (Dkt. No. 41 at 25 7–8.) However, as Plaintiff points out, topics 3 and 6, addressing Swedish’s restructuring plans 26 and its hiring practices, are relevant because, at the time of Swedish’s allegedly unlawful 1 treatment of Plaintiff, it “was entering a period in which restructuring and operational changes 2 were proposed” and “[i]t is a question for the jury whether new plan implementations motivated 3 [Plaintiff’s superiors] to disallow [her accommodation requests] during her period of [] recovery 4 . . . .” (Dkt. No. 46 at 5.) To the extent that Swedish’s restructuring plans and hiring practices 5 impacted Plaintiff’s working conditions, the Court agrees that this information is relevant. 6 Nevertheless, the topic as noticed is overbroad. The temporal scope of topics 3 and 6 should be 7 limited to plans and practices developed and/or implemented between March 1, 2017 and 8 September 5, 2019, as these are the dates relevant to Plaintiff’s allegations. (See Dkt. No. 1-3 at 9 2–4.) 10 The Court does agree, though, with Defendants that topic 9, adherence to collective 11 bargaining agreements, is irrelevant. There is no need for Swedish’s Rule 30(b)(6) deponent to 12 address questions regarding the issue because Plaintiff’s state law claims, if predicated on 13 violations of Swedish’s collective bargaining agreement, are preempted by the Labor 14 Management Relations Act. See Allis-Chalmers Corp. v. Lueck, 471 U.S. 202, 212 (1985). 15 Defendants next argue that topic 12 is overly broad, unduly burdensome, and not stated 16 with reasonable particularity. (Dkt. No. 41 at 8–9.) By not providing a temporal limitation or 17 specificity regarding which compliance policies or underlying facts Plaintiff seeks information 18 on, Defendants argue that, as noticed, they would be forced to prepare the Rule 30(b)(6) 19 deponent to speak to investigations into (a) any policy violation (b) at more than 100 clinics (c) 20 over an indefinite period of time, which is an unnecessary burden. (Dkt. No. 41 at 9.) The Court 21 agrees that the topic as noticed is temporally and substantively overbroad and unduly 22 burdensome. 23 Rather than attempt to narrow topic 12 on its own, the Court DIRECTS the parties to 24 meet and confer and, if unable to come to terms on the issue, submit proposed versions to the 25 Court of topic 12, narrowed in time and subject matter, no later than June 21, 2021. The Court 26 will then provide an expedited ruling on the matter. Respective proposals shall take the form of a 1 letter brief1 not to exceed one page.2 The letter briefs must contain, besides the parties’ proposed 2 temporal and substantive limitations, a certification that each party has met and conferred in a 3 good-faith attempt to resolve the issue. Argument may also be included in the letter brief, but 4 only to the extent it can be accommodated within the one-page limit. 5 Finally, Defendants argue that topic 19 is not stated with reasonable particularity and 6 seeks irrelevant information. (Dkt. No. 41 at 9–10.) Specifically, Defendants suggest that internal 7 investigations regarding the accuracy and validity of the medical treatment performed on 8 Plaintiff at Swedish would be irrelevant because Plaintiff does not bring a medical malpractice 9 claim against Swedish and, in fact, there was no investigation by Swedish employees into 10 Plaintiff’s medical treatment. (Id. at 10.) But whether an investigation occurred and the nature of 11 such an investigation is a disputed fact. Plaintiff alleges that her superiors at Swedish sought out 12 details regarding her medical procedures. (Dkt. No. 46 at 6–7.) Topic 19 speaks to what 13 investigations took place, the propriety of those investigations, and the propriety of Swedish’s 14 response to those investigations. Therefore, topic 19 is relevant to Plaintiff’s claims, regardless 15 of whether they include a claim for medical malpractice. Nor does the Court view the topic, as 16 noticed, to be overbroad. (See Dkt. No.
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Saevik v. Swedish Medical Center, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/saevik-v-swedish-medical-center-wawd-2021.