Chery v. Conduent Educ. Servs.
| Decision Date | 18 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 1:18-CV-75 (DNH/CFH),1:18-CV-75 (DNH/CFH) |
| Parties | JEFFREY CHERY, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. CONDUENT EDUCATION SERVICES, LLC, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York |
APPEARANCES:
Moore Kuehn, PLLC
30 Wall Street, 8th Floor
New York, New York 10005
Attorney for Plaintiff
Brager Eagel & Squire, P.C.
Access Group, Inc., and
Access Funding 2015-1, LLC
JUSTIN A. KUEHN, ESQ.
LAWRENCE P. EAGEL, ESQ.
JOHN GRUGEN, ESQ.
DANIEL C. FANASELLE, ESQ.
ELIZABETH SEIDLIN-
BERNSTEIN, ESQ.
Presently pending before the Court is plaintiff Jeffery Chery's ("plaintiff") motion to compel defendants Conduent Education Services, LLC ("Conduent") (f/k/a "ACS"); Access Group, Inc. ("Access Group"); and Access Funding 2015-1, LLC ("Access Funding") (collectively, where appropriate, "defendants") to produce certain documents. See Dkt. No. 55. Defendants oppose plaintiff's motion and move for a protective order prohibiting plaintiff from obtaining the requested documents. See Dkt. No. 56. Plaintiff filed a reply. See Dkt. No. 57. For the reasons that follow, plaintiff's motion to compel is granted in part and denied in part and defendants' cross motion is denied.
For purposes of this motion, the undersigned will assume the parties' familiarity with the facts and provide only a brief summation of the factual and procedural background as relevant to the present motion.1 Plaintiff is a Virginia resident who took out nine student loans through the Federal Family Education Loan Program ("FFELP"), while he lived in Queens, New York. See Dkt. No. 19 ( ) at 4 ¶ 12. In January 2018, plaintiff commenced this diversity action by filing a class action lawsuit against defendants Access Group, a Delaware corporation registered to do business in New York, and Access Funding, a Delaware LLC, which were the owners of seven and two of plaintiff's student loans, respectively; and Conduent, a Delaware LLC registered to do business in New York, which was the servicer of plaintiff's student loan accounts from April 2012, until December 2016. See id. at ¶ 13-15. Plaintiff asserted claims for "violations of New York General Business Law § 349, breach of contract, breach ofimplied covenant of good faith, declaratory judgment, negligence, and, alternatively, unjust enrichment." Amen. Compl. at 1 ¶ 1; see Dkt. No. 1.
Plaintiff alleged that, on February 4, 2016, he submitted a Direct Consolidation Loan Application to non-party FedLoan, a servicer of consolidated loans, in order to consolidate his nine student loans and to attempt to qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness ("PSLF") program. See Amen. Compl. at 7 ¶ 28. Upon receipt of plaintiff's application, FedLoan sent a request for a Loan Verification Certificate ("LVC") to Conduent. See id. at ¶ 29. Plaintiff noted that, pursuant to 34 C.F.R. § 685.220(f)(1)(i), Conduent was required to provide a response within 10 business days of receipt of FedLoan's LVC request. See id. at ¶ 4. However, Conduent did not provide FedLoan with an LVC until December 2016, approximately 10 months after plaintiff filed his application. See id. at 8 ¶ 34. Plaintiff alleged that Conduent's delay caused him to miss out on "up to ten qualifying payments toward PSLF" and to pay "approximately $1,056.66 without any corresponding credit toward PSLF." Id. at ¶ 35. Following the Court's denial of defendants' motion to dismiss, see Dkt. Nos. 20, 38, defendants filed an answer in which they denied the allegations in plaintiff's amended complaint and raised various affirmative defenses. See Dkt. No. 43.
In July 2019, plaintiff submitted his first request for the production of documents to defendants. See Dkt. No. 49-1. As relevant here, plaintiff's requests included:
Id. at 5-8. Defendants objected to each of the foregoing demands. See Dkt. No. 49-2.
In December 2019, plaintiff's counsel submitted a letter motion requesting a pre-motion conference, which stated that "[m]ore than two months ha[d] passed since [the parties met] on August 23, 2019 concerning [d]efendants' [r]esponses and [o]bjections to [p]laintiff's [r]equest for [p]roduction of [d]ocuments." Dkt. No. 49-3 at 2. Plaintiff requested that defendants produce the documents requested and offered several proposals for narrowing certain requests that defendants objected to as overbroad butthat they would consider if more narrowly tailored. See id. at 2-5. The undersigned granted plaintiff's letter motion and scheduled a discovery hearing for December 19, 2019. See Dkt. No. 50.
On December 12, 2019, defendant responded to plaintiff's letter motion. See Dkt. No. 53. Defendants stated that, "from late 2014 to 2016, Conduent engaged in [a] remediation of a population of loans at the direction of the U.S. Department of Education . . . and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the "CFPB")," which resulted in "Conduent's processing of a population of LVCs [being] delayed" and that "[p]laintiff's LVC was among those impacted by the remediation." Id. at 1.2 Defendants further posited that the CFPB "addressed [Conduent's] LVC delay" "[i]n its 2018 Consent Order" as did the New York State Department of Financial Services ("NYSDFS") in "the Consent Orders Conduent entered into with the New York Attorney General's Office." Id. Further, defendants noted that plaintiff received restitution from Conduent as a result of the Consent Order it entered into with the New York State Attorney General, either made no payments pursuant to a forbearance or less than standard payments on his loans pursuant to a plan he requested, and that plaintiff had "since abandoned the opportunity to qualify for loan forgiveness under the [PSLF p]rogram by taking a job as an attorney in a private law firm." Id. at 2. "In light of this background," defendants argue, the following of plaintiff's discovery requests were "inappropriate":
(1) Conduent's policies, procedures, and records concerning LVC requests; (2) borrower requests and complaints received by Conduent related to attempts to pay off orconsolidate their FFELP loans into Direct Loans, along with the associated documents; (3) correspondence with direct loan servicers concerning borrowers' efforts to pay off or convert their FFELP loans; and (4) the CFPB and DFS investigations and consent orders, including allegations of delays in providing...
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