Voss v. Tahoe Forest Hospital District

[7] 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA [10] 11 JUSTIN VOSS, Case No. 2:23-cv-01563 TLN-CSK 12 Plaintiff, 13 v. ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO COMPEL 14 TAHOE FOREST HOSPITAL DISTRICT, (ECF Nos. 20, 21) [15] Defendant. [17] 18 Pending before the Court is Plaintiff Justin Voss’s motion to compel Defendant 19 Tahoe Forest Hospital District’s further responses and production to Plaintiff’s Requests 20 for Production of Documents (RFPs), Set One.1 (ECF Nos. 20, 21.) Because the fact 21 discovery deadline of June 27, 2025 is fast approaching, on the Court’s own motion, the 22 matter is submitted on the papers and the June 24, 2025 hearing is vacated. For the 23 reasons that follow, the Court DENIES Plaintiff’s motion to compel. 24 I. DISCUSSION 25 Plaintiff served its RFPs on January 8, 2025. Plaintiff granted Defendant’s request 26 for a 30-day extension, and Defendant responded and produced documents on March 9, [27] 1 This matter proceeds before the undersigned pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636 , Fed. R. 28 Civ. P. 72, and Local Rule 302(c). 1 2025. This initial production was deficient because Defendant only produced 2 approximately 25 pages of communications and did not provide ESI (electronically 3 stored information) as requested. Rather than produce natives of e-mails, Defendant 4 produced PDF images of emails. After Plaintiff raised its objections, providing search 5 terms and custodians, and after Defendant then conducted additional searches, 6 Defendant produced 2,789 e-mails plus attachments on May 13, 2025. Jt Disco Stmt at 7 5; Decl. of Brian Taylor ¶¶ 25-26 (ECF 20-1 at 4). 8 Plaintiff argues that Defendant’s production and responses remain inadequate 9 because ESI was not produced; Defendant did not produce correspondence after 10 January 2022, though post-January 2022 correspondence is relevant; and the 11 responses must include specific statements “[t]hat a diligent search and reasonable 12 inquiry has been made in an effort to locate the item requested,” and if no documents 13 were produced, identification of the reason why. See Jt. Disco Stmt at 3-5 & Att. A (ECF 14 No. 21-1). 15 A. Legal Standards 16 “The district court is given broad discretion in supervising the pretrial phase of 17 litigation.” Johnson v. Mammoth Recreations, Inc., 975 F.2d 604, 607 (9th Cir. 1992) 18 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Rule 16(b) provides that “[a] schedule 19 may be modified only for good cause and with the judge’s consent.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 20 16(b)(4). 21 A party may serve requests to inspect, copy, test, or sample the following in the 22 responding party's possession, custody, or control: “(A) any designated documents or 23 electronically stored information—including writings, drawings, graphs, charts, 24 photographs, sound recordings, images, and other data or data compilations—stored in 25 any medium from which information can be obtained either directly or, if necessary, after 26 translation by the responding party into a reasonably usable form” or “(B) any designated 27 tangible things.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a)(1)(A)-(B). A requesting party is entitled to inspect 28 items within a responding party's possession, custody, or control, regardless of whether 1 the requesting party possesses the same documents. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a). The 2 responding party must respond in writing within thirty (30) days, unless otherwise agreed 3 upon or ordered, after being served. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2). A party must produce 4 relevant, non-privileged documents in its “possession, custody, or control.” Fed. R. Civ. 5 P. 34 (a)(1). If a responding party objects, the objection “must state whether any 6 responsive materials are being withheld on the basis of that objection[, and] an objection 7 to part of a request must specify the part and permit inspection of the rest.” Fed. R. Civ. 8 P. 34 (b)(2)(C). 9 A party may move to compel discovery if the movant has in good faith conferred 10 with the party opposing discovery to obtain the requested discovery without the court's 11 intervention. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(1); E.D. Cal. L.R. 251. This Court’s standing 12 orders2 further require that conferring regarding discovery disputes must be done 13 through communication that occurs in-person, by phone, or by video; written 14 communication alone does not satisfy the requirement to confer where all parties raising 15 the discovery matter are represented by counsel. 16 The moving party bears the burden to “inform the Court which discovery requests 17 are the subject of the motion to compel, and, for each disputed response, why the 18 information sought is relevant and why the responding party's objections are not 19 meritorious.” Adams v. Yates, 2013 WL 5924983 , at *1 (E.D. Cal. Nov. 1, 2013). Local 20 Rule 251 governs motions to compel and requires the parties to confer and attempt to 21 resolve their discovery differences. If there has been “a complete and total failure to 22 respond to a discovery request or order,” the moving party may bring its motion on 23 fourteen (14) days’ notice and the requirement for a Joint Statement re Discovery 24 Disagreement is excused. E.D. Cal. L.R. 251(e). 25 / / / [26] 27 2 Judge Kim’s Civil Standing Orders are available on Judge Kim’s webpage on the district court’s website: https://www.caed.uscourts.gov/caednew/index.cfm/judges/all28 judges/united-states-magistrate-judge-chi-soo-kim-csk/. 1 B. Timeliness 2 The deadline to complete fact discovery is June 27, 2025. (ECF Nos. 18, 19.) The 3 district court has already granted three requests by the parties to extend the deadline to 4 complete fact discovery, resulting in extending the deadline by over 10 months: (1) on 5 May 3, 2024, the Court extended the deadline from August 9, 2024 to February 7, 2025; 6 (2) on February 3, 2025, the Court extended the deadline from February 7, 2025 to May 7 8, 2025; and (3) on April 17, 2025, the Court extended the deadline from May 8, 2025 to 8 June 27, 2025. (ECF Nos. 13, 16, 19.) The Court notes that sufficient information has not 9 been presented to the Court to establish good cause for extending the discovery 10 deadline a fourth time. In addition, the parties have not requested a fourth extension of 11 the discovery deadline. 12 In the Court’s Initial Pretrial Scheduling Order (ECF No. 3), the discovery deadline 13 is for the “completion of discovery.” Id. at 2 . “Completed” is defined as “mean[ing] that all 14 discovery shall have been conducted so that all depositions have been taken and any 15 disputes relative to discovery shall have been resolved by appropriate order if necessary 16 and, where discovery has been ordered, the order has been obeyed.” Id. (emphasis 17 added). The deadline to complete fact discovery determines other case deadlines, 18 including deadlines for expert disclosures, expert discovery, and dispositive motions. 19 See id. As the parties are likely aware, this definition of completion of discovery in case 20 scheduling orders is widely used throughout this district court. 21 Plaintiff filed his notice of motion to compel on June 3, 2025, with a June 24, 2025 22 hearing date, which is three days before the deadline for completing fact discovery. This 23 is not sufficient time for the completion of discovery as defined by the Initial Pretrial 24 Scheduling Order, which requires having taken all depositions, resolving discovery 25 disputes by order if necessary, and obeying discovery orders. (ECF No. 3 at 2.) The 26 Court also notes that the parties requested extending the discovery deadline on April 16, 27 2025, specifically identifying this dispute regarding Defendant’s document production as 28 the basis for its extension request. Accordingly, Plaintiff’s motion is denied as untimely. 1 See Faulkner v. Centurion of Arizona, 2023 WL 4422264 , at *1 (9th Cir. July 10, 2023) 2 (affirming where district court did not abuse its discretion in denying untimely motion to 3 compel discovery). 4 C. Other Grounds 5 The Court also denies Plaintiff’s motion to compel on separate and unrelated 6 grounds to the timeliness of the motion to compel. First, the parties failed to adequately 7 meet and confer where the meet and confer was done by e-mail and where issues are 8 not ripe for the Court’s review. See Jt. Disco Stmt at 3-4 (March 2025 e-mail 9 correspondence); see Pl. Mot. at 7 (4/7/2025 e-mail “meet and confer”) & Taylor Decl., 10 Exh. C (undated e-mail from Defendant’s counsel and 4/6/2025 e-mail from Plaintiff’s 11 counsel) (ECF 20-1 at 30-34). This Court’s standing orders require that conferring 12 regarding discovery disputes must be done through communication that occurs in13 person, by phone, or by video, and expressly provides that written communication alone 14 does not satisfy the requirement to confer where all parties are represented by counsel. 15 Plaintiff’s submissions indicate that defense counsel attempted to meet and confer 16 properly by requesting to discuss rather than communicate only by e-mail. When 17 defense counsel asked on March 18, 2025 when Plaintiff’s discovery concerns could be 18 discussed, Plaintiff’s counsel responded by demanding a written response rather than 19 engaging in the telephone, video, or in-person meet and confer required by this Court. 20 See Jt. Disco Stmt at 4. On April 6, 2025, defense counsel again offered to speak by 21 phone and provided his cell phone number that Plaintiff’s counsel could call “at any 22 time.” Taylor Decl., Exh. C at 5. 23 The parties’ submissions also demonstrate that the parties did not sufficiently 24 meet and confer because the post-January 2022 documents and ESI issues are not ripe 25 for the Court’s review where offers remain unanswered.3 For example, Plaintiff asserts [26] 3 The Court notes that if the parties establish good cause to further extend the 27 discovery deadline, and after adequately meeting and conferring by phone, video, or inperson regarding post-January 2022 documents, Plaintiff may be able to establish 28 Defendant’s failure to produce responsive and relevant documents and succeed on a 1 that it knows post-January 2022 documents exist but were not produced; Defendant has 2 asked Plaintiff to disclose these documents to help Defendant conduct additional 3 searches; but Plaintiff has not responded to Defendant’s request and offer to conduct 4 additional searches. See Jt. Disco Stmt, Att. A at 2. The parties have also failed to 5 adequately meet and confer as to ESI. Defendant offered to produce e-mails in native 6 format, which presumably would satisfy the demand for ESI, but Plaintiff did not respond 7 to this offer. See Taylor Decl., Exh. C (Defendant’s counsel asks “would you accept the 8 native formats for the emails”). The parties’ submission also suggests that while 9 Defendant did not initially provide ESI, it subsequently did produce e-mails in native 10 format, making it unclear whether this issue is still in dispute. As a result, because the 11 parties have not adequately met and conferred regarding post-January 2022 documents 12 and ESI, the issues are not ripe for the Court’s review. 13 Second, Plaintiff’s final argument—that Defendant’s response to each RFP must 14 include specific statements—is incorrect. See Jt. Disco Stmt at 3-5 & Att. A. For each 15 RFP, Plaintiff argues that Defendant’s response is deficient because the response did 16 not include a statement “[t]hat a diligent search and reasonable inquiry was made.” Jt. 17 Disco Stmt, Att. A. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 does not require this, and Plaintiff 18 cites no legal authority for this argument. See Jt. Disco Stmt at 3-4. It appears that 19 Plaintiff is relying on California Code of Civil Procedure § 2031.230, which does not 20 apply here. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure govern discovery in this federal court 21 action. 22 Therefore, the Court separately denies Plaintiff’s motion to compel on the above 23 grounds. 24 / / / 25 / / / [26] motion to compel. That issue, however, is not ripe for the Court’s review given the failure 27 to adequately meet and confer. It’s also unclear whether Defendant has possession, custody, or control of post-January 2022 documents where Plaintiff’s statements lack 28 documentary support. 1 | I. CONCLUSION 2 In conclusion, IT |S HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiff's motion to compel (ECF 3 | Nos. 20, 21) is DENIED. [5] 5 Dated: June 16, 2025 RA S GHI 500 KIM 7 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE