Quarrie v. Wells
| Decision Date | 04 May 2020 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 17-350 MV/GBW |
| Parties | LINDSAY O'BRIEN QUARRIE, Plaintiff, v. STEPHEN WELLS, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico |
THIS MATTER comes before the Court on Plaintiff's Motion to Compel Discovery (doc. 278) and Plaintiff's Motion to Compel (doc. 286). Having considered both motions, the parties' briefing (docs. 284, 302, 287, 301, 304), and the relevant law, the Court will GRANT IN PART Plaintiff's first motion (doc. 278) and GRANT IN PART Plaintiff's second motion (doc. 286).
On January 13, 2020, Plaintiff served his Fifth Set of Interrogatories on Defendant Board of Regents of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology ("NMT"). Doc. 278 at 1. Defendant NMT served its Objections and Answers on February 10, 2020, accompanied by a privilege log. See id. at 2; doc. 278-2. Following an email communication from Plaintiff, Defendant NMT supplemented the date of the memorandum listed on its privilege log, but made no other, substantive amendments.1 See doc. 278-4. Despite several further communications between the parties, they were unable to reach an agreement. However, in light of Plaintiff's good faith efforts to confer and the recent withdrawal of his attorney, the Court granted an extension until March 16, 2020, for Plaintiff to file a motion to compel based on Defendant NMT's responses. Doc. 274. Plaintiff timely filed his motion. Doc. 278.
Meanwhile, on February 1, 2020, Plaintiff served his Sixth Set of Interrogatories on Defendant NMT. Doc. 286-1. Defendant NMT served its Objections and Answers on March 9, 2020. Doc. 286-2. This set of interrogatories (consisting of a single discovery request, Interrogatory No. 18) is the subject of Plaintiff's second motion to compel (doc. 286).
Some additional background information is necessary in order to understand the parties' current disputes. All four of the discovery requests in Plaintiff's Fifth Set of Interrogatories (doc. 278-1), as well as Interrogatory No. 18 from Plaintiff's Sixth Set of Interrogatories (doc. 286-1), relate to Plaintiff's academic records at NMT and Defendant NMT's actions with respect to those records. On October 8, 2015, prior to the filing of the current suit, Plaintiff and Defendant NMT entered into a Settlement Agreement inwhich Plaintiff agreed, inter alia, that he would not re-apply for enrollment at NMT "now or in the future." Doc. 278-6 at 3. The instant suit for racial discrimination is, of course, premised on Defendants' denial of Plaintiff's several reapplications for enrollment in 2016. See doc. 150 at 20. However, Plaintiff asserts that the Settlement Agreement is "void, invalid, and unenforceable" due to Defendants' own non-compliance. Id. at 14. Specifically, Plaintiff believes that Defendants violated the following provision of the Settlement Agreement:
The parties agree that [NMT] will permanently remove the words "TERMINATED FROM GRADUATE PROGRAM" (or any similar language) from Plaintiff's NMIMT transcript, as well as from any other related documents in Plaintiff's academic and/or administrative files at NMIMT[.]
Doc. 278-6 at 3; see doc. 150 at ¶ 55. Defendants deny this. Doc. 151 at ¶ 55. Obviously, the enforceability or non-enforceability of the Settlement Agreement may be critical to the success of Plaintiff's suit, though the Court expresses no opinion on that question here.
Plaintiff has pursued the issue of the Settlement Agreement's enforceability throughout the discovery period. Of particular relevance to the instant dispute, Defendant NMT provided the following response to Plaintiff's Request for Production No. 20:
While certain documents were transferred to a legal file pursuant to the terms of the Settlement Agreement (e.g., the termination letter and associated communications), no documents were destroyed. Subject to said objection and without waiving the same, to the extent this Requestseeks the termination letter, this has already been produced. No other responsive documents.2
Doc. 278-1 at 3. Plaintiff's Fifth and Sixth Sets of Interrogatories are focused mainly on this prior response and the details of the referenced transfer of documents to Plaintiff's "legal file." Defendant NMT alleges that the information requested by Plaintiff is either privileged or unduly burdensome. Both motions are now before the Court.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide the following general standard of discoverability:
Parties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties' relative access to relevant information, the parties' resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). Evidence is relevant if it has any tendency to make a material fact more or less probable. Fed. R. Evid. 401. Information "need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable," Fed R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1), and discovery rules "are to be accorded a broad and liberal treatment," Herbert v. Lando, 441 U.S. 153, 177 (1979). However, "Rule 26 vests the trial judge with broad discretion to tailor discoverynarrowly." Murphy v. Deloitte & Touche Group Ins. Plan, 619 F.3d 1151, 1163 (10th Cir. 2010) (quoting Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 598 (1998)).
In addition, the court "must limit the frequency or extent" of otherwise permissible discovery where:
Where one party improperly fails to respond to another party's discovery requests, the requesting party may move to compel disclosure and for appropriate sanctions. Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(3)(A).
As stated in Rule 26, privileged information is protected from discovery. The attorney-client privilege "protects confidential communications by a client to an attorney made in order to obtain legal assistance from the attorney in his capacity as a legal advisor." In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 616 F.3d 1172, 1182 (10th Cir. 2010) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Operating in the other direction, the privilege "protect[s] at least those attorney to client communications which would have a tendency to reveal the confidences of the client." Id. (quoting Kenneth S. Brown,McCormick on Evidence § 89 (6th ed. 2006)). Courts have also protected attorney-to-client communications that "constitute legal advice." Id. (quoting United States v. Defazio, 899 F.2d 626, 635 (7th Cir. 1990)); see also Lluberes v. Uncommon Prods., LLC, 663 F.3d 6, 24 (1st Cir. 2011) (). The attorney-client privilege must be "strictly construed," Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40, 50 (1980), and the burden of establishing its applicability "rests on the party seeking to assert it," In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 616 F.3d at 1183 (quoting In re Grand Jury Subpoena Subpoena Duces Tecum Issued on June 9, 1982, 697 F.2d 277, 279 (10th Cir. 1983)).
Attorney work product is similarly protected. The work-product doctrine "only prevents disclosure of information that was prepared by the attorney in anticipation of litigation or for trial." Id. at 1184 (citing Grand Jury Proceedings v. United States, 156 F.3d 1038, 1042 (10th Cir. 1998)). See also Grace United Methodist Church v. City of Cheyenne, 451 F.3d 643, 668 (10th Cir. 2006) (). As with attorney-client privilege, "[t]he party asserting a work product privilege as a bar to discovery must prove the doctrine is applicable." Resolution Trust Corp. v. Dabney, 73 F.3d 262, 266 (10th Cir. 1995).
Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a party withholding otherwise discoverable information by asserting either attorney-client privilege or the work-product doctrine must:
Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(5)(A). The privilege or protection must be established as to "specific questions or documents, not by making a blanket claim." Forest v. Hill (In re Foster), 188 F.3d 1259, 1264 (10th Cir. 1999) (citation omitted).
Interrogatory No. 14 asks Defendant NMT to:
Describe in detail each of the "certain documents" referenced [in Defendant NMT's response to Request for Production No. 20] that "were transferred to a legal file pursuant to the terms of the Settlement Agreement," when exactly they were transferred (day, month, and year), what files they were transferred from, who transferred them, and who authorized their transfer.
Doc. 278-2 at 2-3. Defendant NMT responded as follows:
Objection, this Interrogatory seeks materials protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege and/or work product doctrine. Subject to said objection and without waiving the same, see attached privileged log. These documents have previously been produced to include the termination letter and...
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