Wang, Nina Y., United States Magistrate Judge
Plaintiff brought a motion to compel for defendant's failure to properly respond to discovery and requested sanctions for attorney fees and costs associated with filing the motion. Citing proportionality concerns, the district court granted plaintiff's motion ordering defendant to produce only the material that was relevant to the issues in this case but denied the request for sanctions after finding they were unreasonable at that time.
Plaintiff sought to compel defendant to respond to a specific interrogatory. Defendant objected on proportionality grounds and also argued that the information responsive to the interrogatory was already appropriately responded to. The court found that the requested information was relevant and proportional to the issues at hand and granted plaintiff's motion to compel.
Plaintiff moved the court for attorney fees and costs as a sanction for bringing their motion to compel. The court determined that although defendant's actions were "careless and inadvertent", plaintiff did not show that they were intentional or in bad faith and accordingly declined to award monetary sanctions. However, the court advised defendant that any future failure to engage in proper discovery would result in sanctions and that plaintiff would be allowed to recover reasonable expenses with their motion to compel at a later time.
v.
EXACT STAFF, INC., and ELECTRONIC RECYCLERS, INC., Defendants
Counsel
Beth Ann Doherty Quinn, John Mark Baird, Baird Quinn, LLC, Denver, CO, for Plaintiff.Kathleen June Mowry, Messner & Reeves LLP, Denver, CO, Cortney Shegerian, Anthony Nguyen, Shegerian & Associates, Inc., Santa Monica, CA, for Defendants.
ORDER
Identify, in the manner set forth in Paragraph (f), all employees of Exact Staff assigned to work in production or plant positions (e.g., dismantling, sorting, general labor, tube pullers, orderlies) at Defendant Electronic Recyclers plant in Denver, Colorado, from April 9, 2012 through April 8, 2013, and for each such individual, identify the position into which they were placed, the dates they worked at ERI's Denver location, the reason for their separation, and their gender.
Defendant incorporates its General Objections as if fully stated herein and objects to this request on the basis that it is vague, ambiguous, and overly broad, and as such is oppressive, unduly burdensome, unintelligible, and incapable of eliciting a response. Defendant also objects to this request on the grounds that it calls for the disclosure of information that is neither relevant to the claims or defenses at issue in this lawsuit for retaliation, nor likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence, as the evidence sought is prior to the time period when Plaintiff was employed by Exact Staff or assigned to ERI and has nothing to do with the position held by the Plaintiff. Defendant further objects to this request because it requests names and/or contact information of Exact Staff or ERI current and/or former employees, thus seeking to unreasonably invade the privacy rights of third parties to an extent that is not justified by Plaintiff's legitimate discovery needs. Finally, Defendant objects to the request on the grounds that it seeks information that is outside of its control and/or possession.
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.