Tedrow v. Boeing Employees Credit Union

315 F.R.D. 358, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78912, 2016 WL 3190000
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Washington
DecidedMay 20, 2016
DocketCASE NO. C15-1138-JCC
StatusPublished

This text of 315 F.R.D. 358 (Tedrow v. Boeing Employees Credit Union) 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.

Bluebook
Tedrow v. Boeing Employees Credit Union, 315 F.R.D. 358, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78912, 2016 WL 3190000 (W.D. Wash. 2016).

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION TO COMPEL IN PART

John C. Coughenour, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiffs Motion to Compel numerous discovery responses (Dkt. No. 39), Defendants’ Opposition (Dkt. No. 42), and Plaintiffs Reply (Dkt. No. 49). Having thoroughly consid[359]*359ered the parties’ briefing and the relevant record, the Court finds oral argument unnecessary and hereby GRANTS the motion in part for the reasons explained herein.

1. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs bring this ease under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), Plaintiffs claim that they took out a car loan in July 2009 from Defendant Boeing Employees’ Credit Union (“BECU”) and, at the same time, refinanced another loan. (Dkt. No. 1 at 3-4.) Plaintiffs assert that, despite following Defendant BECU’s recommended practice of making car payments via an automatic withdrawal, Defendant BECU claimed that Plaintiffs were late on their loan payments. (Id. at 4.) The allegedly inaccurate reporting, shared with credit agencies, negatively impacted Plaintiffs’ credit scores and credit worthiness. (Id. at 5.) Despite the disputed nature of the late payments, Defendants Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax (“credit reporting bureau defendants”) did not mark the information as disputed. (Id. at 7.) As a result, Plaintiffs allege that they received derogatory marks on their credit scores and sue for damages. (Dkt. No. 1.)

The present discovery dispute relates only to Defendant BECU. (Dkt. No. 39.) Plaintiffs claim that BECU has not appropriately responded to several discovery requests and move to compel “full, verified responses” to their interrogatories 6, 7, 9, 11-21, and 24; requests for production 4, 6, 7, 9-11, 17-21, 23, and 26-29; and requests for admission 1, 2, 65, 56, 59, 61, and 66. (Dkt. No. 39 at 1-2.) Plaintiffs indicate that BECU has failed to meaningfully respond to discovery requests related to its affirmative defenses, failed to specifically identify documents, made boilerplate responses and objections, and refused to provide documents either by claiming to “search” for them or promising to provide them and failing to follow through. (Id. at 6.) BECU opposes the motion and indicates that it has responded to discovery and Plaintiffs “disliking an answer does not justify a motion to compel.” (Dkt. No. 42 at 2.) On April 1, 2016, BECU supplemented its discovery responses and Plaintiffs acknowledge that several disputes were resolved. (Dkt. No. 49 at 5.) Specifically, the Requests for Admission were all answered, Request for Production No. 21 was answered, and it appears that Interrogatories 11 and 14 were answered to Plaintiffs’ satisfaction. (Id.)

II. DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure favor broad pre-trial discovery. Shoen v. Shoen, 5 F.3d 1289, 1292 (9th Cir.1993). Courts have broad discretion to control discovery. See Avila v. Willits Envtl. Remediation Trust, 633 F.3d 828, 833 (9th Cir.2011). If no claim of privilege applies, parties may obtain discovery of any information that is “relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case[.]” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). “Relevant information for purposes of discovery is information ‘reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.’ ” Surfvivor Media, Inc. v. Survivor Productions, 406 F.3d 625, 635 (9th Cir.2005) (quoting Brown Bag Software v. Symantec Corp., 960 F.2d 1465, 1470 (9th Cir.1992)).

Discovery should be limited, however, where its “unreasonably cumulative or dupli-cative, or can be obtained from some other source that is more convenient, less burdensome, or less expensive, the party seeking discovery has had ample opportunity to obtain the information,” or the materials sought are outside the scope of permissible discovery.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(C). However, it is the objecting party’s burden to establish when limiting discovery is appropriate. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(B),(C). The Federal Rules strongly encourage parties to resolve discovery disputes privately and discourage them from seeking needless court intervention.

B. Disputed Discovery Requests

Upon review, the Court finds that most— though not all — of BECU’s objections are meritless. BECU makes vague objections to Plaintiffs’ requests for relevant discovery. BECU responded to several interrogatories in an unhelpful manner including by making statements such as, “BECU responds that [360]*360this information, to the extent it exists, can be found in the documents produced in response to these discovery requests” without further specificity or direction. (Dkt. No. 50 at 6). And BECU then shifts the burden by criticizing Plaintiffs for their method of summarizing in their motion. (Dkt. No. 42 at 4-5.) Finally, it does not appear that BECU has made good faith efforts to participate in Rule 37 conferences with opposing counsel. (Dkt. No. 40 at 5-17.)

1. Interrogatories

Of the interrogatories raised by Plaintiffs’ original motion, they indicate that Interrogatories 4, 5, 6, 7, 9,12, 13,15-19, 21, and 24 remain in dispute. (Dkt. No. 49 at 5-6.) Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 33, BECU must respond to Plaintiffs’ interrogatories, object with specificity, or establish that the burden of producing records would be the same as making them available to Plaintiffs for examination. Where a responding party offers to make records available for examination, the party must identify and locate those records. Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(d).

Upon review of BECU’s initial and supplemental discovery responses, the Court finds as follows:

• Interrogatory 4, seeking documents that provide BECU’s policies and procedures for listing debts as disputed, pertains to relevant and discoverable material. Plaintiffs bring this motion despite BECU’s promise that “it will produce” this information, leading the Court to believe that BECU has failed to live up to its assurances. (Dkt, No. 40 at 21.) BECU is ordered to respond fully to this Interrogatory.
• Interrogatory 5, seeking information about codes used in reporting information about the Plaintiffs “in detail,” has not been satisfactorily answered. BECU is ordered to supplement its response to include “the code you used and in which field it was used and the meaning of it.” (Dkt. No. 40 at 21.)

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315 F.R.D. 358, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78912, 2016 WL 3190000, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tedrow-v-boeing-employees-credit-union-wawd-2016.