*1 On August 31, 2021, plaintiff Dr. Daniel Lieberman filed a motion to compel supplemental responses to many of his discovery requests. Docket No. 35.[1] The parties' positions are set forth in a joint stipulation (“JS”). Plaintiff stated his arguments were supported by the declaration of his counsel Stacy M. Tucker, but he failed to file the declaration. See id. Defendants' arguments are supported by the declaration of their information technology executive Daniela LaCelle (“LaCelle Decl.”). Docket No. 36. The parties filed supplemental memoranda on September 21, 2021. Docket Nos. 39, 43.

The court previously found a hearing on the motion would not be of assistance and so vacated the hearing scheduled for October 5, 2021. The court now grants in large part plaintiff's motion to compel, as set forth below.

Plaintiff filed this action on September 1, 2020, and filed his First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) on September 23, 2020. Plaintiff is a retired dentist who purchased a Unum long-term care insurance policy through his membership in the California Dental Association. Under the policy, plaintiff was entitled to a fixed monthly benefit in the event he became unable to safely perform certain activities of daily living (“ADLs”) without assistance or stand-by assistance.

In or about 2008, plaintiff was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He alleges that from 2010 through 2017, his health and functioning declined so much that he could no longer perform certain ADLs without assistance or stand-by assistance from a full-time caregiver. As a result, he retained several caregivers to provide him with near-constant care at his home.

In 2019, plaintiff made a claim to defendants for long-term care benefits effective January 1, 2018. Defendants denied the claim on February 19, 2020 and denied plaintiff's appeal on April 20, 2020. On August 12, 2020, plaintiff's counsel retained Joyce Hyam, a registered nurse, to assess plaintiff and opine on his need for caregiving. Plaintiff provided Hyam's report to defendants on August 17, 2020. On August 24, 2020, defendants once again denied plaintiff's claim.

As a result of these events, plaintiff raises three causes of action in his FAC: (1) breach of contract, (2) breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and (3) financial elder abuse. Plaintiff seeks more than $2,500,000 in denied benefits, damages for mental and emotional distress and other incidental damages of $2,500,000, more than $10,000,000 in punitive and exemplary damages, trebling of punitive damages pursuant to California law, attorney's fees, and costs. The case is set for trial on April 26, 2022. The deadline to complete discovery is December 6, 2021.

*2 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b) permits “discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). To be relevant, the information sought “need not be admissible in evidence”; however, it must be “proportional to the needs of the case.” Id. In determining the needs of the case, the court “consider[s] 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.” Id. A “relevant matter” under Rule 26(b)(1) is any matter that “bears on, or that reasonably could lead to other matters that could bear on, any issue that is or may be in the case.” Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351, 98 S. Ct. 2380, 57 L. Ed. 2d 253 (1978). Relevancy should be “construed ‘liberally and with common sense' and discovery should be allowed unless the information sought has no conceivable bearing on the case.” Soto v. City of Concord, 162 F.R.D. 603, 610 (N.D. Cal. 1995) (quoting Miller v. Pancucci, 141 F.R.D. 292, 296 (C.D. Cal. 1992)).

Plaintiff moves to compel supplemental responses to multiple discovery requests, namely: interrogatory numbers 19-20; and request for production (“RFP”) numbers 1, 14-15, 19-22, 25, 27-29, and 31. He also seeks monetary sanctions from defendants under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37.

A. California Law Governs This Case

As an initial matter, the court is puzzled by the parties' reliance on the laws of multiple states, including California, Maine, and Massachusetts. See generally FAC (raising California law claims); Answer (raising California law defenses); JS at 8-9, 34 (arguing over whether Maine privilege and privacy laws apply); JS at 9, 35 (arguing over whether Massachusetts privacy law applies). The court will not apply the substantive laws of different states to resolve the parties' dispute.

“[I]n a civil case, state law governs privilege regarding a claim or defense for which state law supplies the rule of decision.” Fed. R. Evid. 501. Here, the parties' intent to apply California law to resolve their dispute is clear. See generally FAC (raising three causes of action under California law); Answer ¶¶ 81-86 (raising six California law defenses). In fact, there is no indication the policy even has a choice-of-law provision or that defendants ever previously argued that a different state's law should apply to this case. See Nagrampa v. MailCoups, Inc., 469 F.3d 1257, 1267 (9th Cir. 2006) (parties waived choice-of-law provision by proceeding on the assumption that California law governed their dispute). Accordingly, the court finds California law supplies the rules of decision to address the parties' disputes, and thus only California privilege and privacy laws apply to this case. See DeFrees v. Kirkland, 2012 WL 1356495, at *15 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 11, 2012) (applying California privilege law in case where California's substantive law provided rule of decision).

B. Updated Claim File (RFP Numbers 1, 19, and 20)

The parties' first dispute is over the production of defendant's entire file or files for plaintiff's claim for benefits. Plaintiff cannot tell whether he has the entire file because the copy provided by defendants is missing claim notes for a period of time in which plaintiff submitted records for review. See JS at 12; P. Supp. Mem. at 1-2. Defendants counter that they have already produced the “updated claim file.” See JS at 13.

There is no reason why straightforward disputes like this, which appears to be largely a matter of poor communication, should be before the court. Part of the confusion stems from defendants' unkept promise to produce the file for claim number 18124300. See JS at 10; P. Supp. Mem. at 1-2. Defendants do not even mention that specific claim file in their opposition. The court cannot fault plaintiff for second-guessing whether defendants have provided a complete production.

*3 Accordingly, the court orders defendants to produce the file for claim number 18124300 and provide a verified, supplemental response confirming that there are no other parts of the claim files to produce.

C. Documents Related to Defendants' Reserves and Financial Information for the Long-Term Care Closed Block of Business

RFP numbers 21, 22, 28, 29, and 31 relate to plaintiff's contention that Unum denied his claim as a consequence of Unum's own financial problems. Unum is chartered in Maine and subject to regulation by the Maine Bureau of Insurance (“MBOI”).[2] See JS at 24. The MBOI recently ordered an examination of the sufficiency of Unum's reserves.[3] See id. The MBOI publicized its report on Unum's examination on June 30, 2020. JS at 17. The MBOI found Unum's gross long-term care reserves to be deficient by over $2 billion as of December 31, 2018. See JS at 18. But on May 1, 2020, the MBOI allowed Unum to delay full recognition of that statutory reserve deficiency. See id.

1. References to Plaintiff in GAAP Reserves (RFP Number 21)

With RFP number 21, plaintiff requests documents referencing his name or claim file number in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”) reserves during 2018 and 2019. JS at 13-14.

Defendants first object that the request is vague and ambiguous with respect to the phrase “in GAAP reserves.” JS at 22. They claim that plaintiff's name or claim number would not show up in GAAP reserves or financial statements because they refer only to the aggregate amount of reserves. See id. Plaintiff argues defendants' objection is untimely. P. Supp. Mem. at 3-4. He also claims the request clearly seeks all documents related to any reserves set for his claim. See id. at 4.

Generally, the party resisting discovery has the opportunity to explain and support any objections raised in a timely manner. See Proofpoint, Inc. v. Vade Secure, Inc., 2020 WL 6591210, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 11, 2020). In this case, defendants clearly objected to the request as vague and ambiguous with regard to the phrase “all documents,” but the application of such objection to “in GAAP reserves” is not as apparent from defendants' phrasing. See JS at 14. Thus, the court is inclined to find that defendants waived their objection to the phrase “in GAAP reserves.” Even if the court considers defendants' objection, however, plaintiff's reading of the request is reasonable, while defendants' is too narrow. See Thomas v. Cate, 715 F. Supp. 2d 1012, 1030 (E.D. Cal. 2010) (“The party objecting to discovery as vague or ambiguous has the burden to show such vagueness or ambiguity by demonstrating that more tools beyond mere reason and common sense are necessary to attribute ordinary definitions to terms and phrases.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Accordingly, the court overrules defendants' vagueness and ambiguity objection.

*4 Next, the court overrules defendants' relevance objection. In Abatie v. Alta Health & Life Insurance Co., the Ninth Circuit discussed the structural conflicts of interest that arise when an insurer acts as both the plan administrator and the funding source for benefits. 458 F.3d 955, 965-66 (9th Cir. 2006).

Id. (citations omitted). Citing to Supreme Court caselaw, the court concluded that such inherent conflicts of interest, “even if merely formal and unaccompanied by indicia of bad faith or self-dealing, ought to have some effect on judicial review.” Id. at 966 (referencing Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, 489 U.S. 101, 109 S. Ct. 948, 103 L. Ed. 2d 80 (1989)).

Here, plaintiff's theory of the case is based on defendants' structural conflict of interest. In fact, he claims defendants' incentive to self-deal is greater in this case because they face a multi-billion dollar reserves shortfall. Further, courts have found that even if the amount of a reserve is determined, at least in part, by outside factors such as state law, reserves are relevant to the administrator's decision to deny benefits if it operates under a structural conflict of interest. See McCurdy v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 2007 WL 915177, at *4 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 23, 2007) (citing Abatie, 458 F.3d at 965); see also Gray v. Unum Life Ins. Co. of Am., 2018 WL 4566850, at *4 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 21, 2018) (plaintiff entitled to evidence that may reveal improper financial incentives to deny benefits); Siefe v. Unum Grp., 2018 WL 6340751, at *2-3 (C.D. Cal. June 11, 2018) (ordering production of reserve data). The caselaw that defendants cite in support of their arguments is distinguishable because it consists of mostly out-of-circuit cases or cases that predate the Ninth Circuit's Abatie opinion. See JS at 23.

Finally, defendants' other objections – privilege, proportionality, overbreadth, and undue burden – are unsupported and thus overruled as boilerplate. See DIRECTV, Inc. v. Trone, 209 F.R.D. 455, 458 (C.D. Cal. 2002) (“The party who resists discovery has the burden to show that discovery should not be allowed, and has the burden of clarifying, explaining, and supporting its objections.” (citations omitted)). To the extent defendants raise legitimate confidentiality concerns, they are mitigated by the protective order in this case.

For these reasons, the court orders defendants to produce all documents related to reserves set for plaintiff's claim.

2. Phase In, Guardrails and Monitoring Plan for UNUM Group LTC Statutory Reserve Strengthening (the “Plan”) (RFP Number 22)

RFP number 22 seeks production of the Plan, which plaintiff claims summarizes defendants' strategy to fund its $2 billion shortfall. See JS at 13. Defendants argue that Maine insurance law makes the Plan confidential and not subject to disclosure or use in civil actions. See JS at 24-25. Defendants also contend plaintiff's theory of improper financial motive is too speculative to entitle him to discovery into their private records. See JS at 25-26.

*5 Plaintiff has provided sufficient information for the court to overrule defendants' relevance objection. He wants to review the Plan for evidence regarding his theory that defendants manipulate the claims process in their favor to meet financial goals. As previously discussed, courts have allowed discovery to test similar claims. See Abatie, 458 F.3d at 965-66; McCurdy, 2007 WL 915177, at *4.

Defendants' argument that Maine law protects the Plan from disclosure also fails. First, the court already determined that California privilege law governs this case. Defendants do not argue that any California privilege protects the Plan from disclosure. Second, even under Maine law, defendants' argument is misplaced. The insurance code forbids the MBOI superintendent, not defendants, from disclosing protected valuation information. See Me. St. T. 24-A § 962(2) (applying the confidentiality rules to the superintendent and his or her agents). Indeed, confidentiality may be waived by the insurer either by written consent or by release of protected information to the public. See id. at § 962(2)(D)(2) to (D)(3). Third, “only privilege, not confidentiality, is a valid objection under Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b).” Walt Disney Co. v. DeFabiis, 168 F.R.D. 281, 283 (C.D. Cal. 1996); Nguyen v. Kissinger, 528 F.2d 1194, 1205 (9th Cir. 1975). Defendants' concerns about the Plan's confidentiality are mitigated by the protective order in place.

Accordingly, the court orders defendants to produce the Plan to plaintiff.

3. Board Minutes and Committee Reports (RFP Numbers 28, 29, and 31)

RFP number 28 seeks each human capital committee report for the years ending on December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018. See JS at 15. RFP number 29 requests each regulatory compliance report for the years ending on December 31, 2015, December 31, 2016, and December 31, 2017. See JS at 16. RFP number 31 seeks board minutes for the years 2018 through 2020, limited to those minutes that discuss the closed block to which plaintiff's policy belongs. See JS at 17.

First, defendants object that RFP number 29 is vague and ambiguous in its use of the phrase “Regulatory Compliance report.” JS at 16. Indeed, it appears plaintiff intended to request regulatory compliance committee reports. See JS at 21. Defendants do not further explain or support their objection in their part of the JS. Accordingly, the court infers the parties are now in agreement as to what the request seeks, and thus, overrules defendants' objection.

Second, the court overrules defendants' relevance objections. Plaintiff sufficiently explains that board minutes and committee reports are relevant to his theory that defendants have a practice of denying meritorious claims to meet financial goals. The court finds the decision in Hepp v. Paul Revere Life Insurance Co., 2015 WL 1611757 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 12, 2015), instructive. The Hepp court allowed discovery into several topics, including the insurance company's strategies, plans, policies, and practices for resolving claims; goals or quotas for resolution of claims; compensation schemes, incentive offerings, and performance bonuses for attaining goals of claim closures and appeal upholds; measures to track employee performance; and financial awards or benefits paid to individuals involved in resolution of claims. See id. at *3.

*6 Defendants note that another Florida federal court reached the opposite conclusion. See Allen v. First Unum Life Ins. Co., 2020 WL 6882169 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 30, 2020). In that case, the court concluded that plaintiff's arguments were facially speculative, and that he failed to show that the documents were relevant to the alleged breach of fiduciary duty as to him specifically. See id. at *16. Here, the court is persuaded that, based on the liberal standard for relevance, the requested documents are conceivably relevant to plaintiff's theory of improper financial motive. See Soto, 162 F.R.D. at 610. Again, courts in this circuit have allowed discovery to test similar theories. See Abatie, 458 F.3d at 965-66; McCurdy, 2007 WL 915177, at *4.

Third, plaintiff's request is proportional to the needs of the case. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). Although breaches of private contracts generally do not affect the public interest, such breaches can still impact the public interest if there is a likelihood that other plaintiffs will be similarly injured. See Hambleton Bros. Lumber Co. v. Balkin Enters., Inc., 397 F.3d 1217, 1234 (9th Cir. 2005) (citation omitted). If plaintiff is right that defendants have a practice of denying otherwise meritorious claims to protect their reserves, then the public interest factor would weigh in favor of disclosure. But that remains to be proven. Accordingly, this factor is neutral. The high amount in controversy (more than $15,000,000), plaintiff's complete lack of access to the requested records, and the importance of the discovery to plaintiff's theory of bad faith weigh in favor of allowing discovery. Defendants do not argue that they lack the resources to comply with the requests, so this factor weighs in favor of discovery too. Finally, the burden and expense of this particular discovery is not high. Unlike the plaintiff in Allen who requested more than ten years of records (see 2020 WL 6882169, at *16), plaintiff here narrowed his requests significantly to only a maximum of three years of minutes and committee reports. These records should not be difficult to gather for a sophisticated business.

Fourth, the court overrules defendants' privilege objections. Defendants fail to explain and support those objections, and there is no evidence they have identified any responsive documents in a privilege log. See DIRECTV, 209 F.R.D. at 458.

For these reasons, the court orders defendants to comply with RFP numbers 28, 29, and 31. To assuage defendants' concerns over confidentiality, the parties shall treat all produced documents as covered by the protective order in this case.

D. Contracts Between Defendants and Third Parties (RFP Numbers 14 and 15)

RFP number 14 seeks contracts, in effect from January 1, 2018 to the present, between defendants and any third party utilized to conduct assessments of insureds to ascertain eligibility for long-term care benefits. See JS at 29. RFP number 15 requests all guidelines or instructions provided to such third parties regarding eligibility assessments. See JS at 29.

The court agrees with plaintiff that the contracts and instructions he seeks are relevant, especially given plaintiff's agreement to narrow the scope of his requests to only vendors involved in his claim's review. “A medical doctor's relationship with the administrator is a factor which may be weighed in assessing whether, and the degree to which a conflict of interest may attach to the doctor's opinion.” Beal v. Marsh & McLennan Cos. Pers. Accident Ins. Plan, 2010 WL 5136041, at *4-5 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 3, 2010) (citing Gunn v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 399 F. App'x 147, 154 (9th Cir. 2010)).

*7 Defendants waived most of their other objections by failing to explain and support them. See DIRECTV, 209 F.R.D. at 458. Their only remaining argument is that the requests are ambiguous. See JS at 31-32. The court overrules defendants' objection. Even if the term “assessment” is a term of art in the field of long-term care insurance, parties must construe discovery requests using the ordinary definitions of terms and phrases. See Thomas, 715 F. Supp. 2d at 1030 (citations omitted). Merriam-Webster defines the term “assessment” as “the action or an instance of making a judgment about something.” Assessment, Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com (last visited Oct. 7, 2021). This definition reasonably covers medical peer review, which also involves the act of making a judgment about something. Thus, the court orders defendants to produce all documents responsive to RFP numbers 14 and 15 as narrowed by plaintiff.

E. Personnel Records (RFP Numbers 25 and 27)

RFP number 25 seeks performance reviews, individual contributor expectations, 360 report employee development documents, employee and individual compensation, and mid-year reviews for Katherine Durrell, from 2018 to 2020. See JS at 32. RFP number 27 requests performance reviews for Jay Rosenfeld from 2018 to 2020. See JS at 33. Plaintiff claims these individuals were involved in assessing his claim for benefits. JS at 8.

The personnel records plaintiff seeks are relevant to his theory of bad faith. Although the only relevant issue should be whether the insured qualifies for benefits or not, in reality human decisions come into play. Consequently, many court have found insureds are entitled to discovery on whether claims personnel had improper incentives, financial or otherwise, to deny a claim. See Pac. Coast Surgical Ctr. v. Scottsdale Ins. Co., 2019 WL 1873228, at *1-2 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 24, 2019) (“[C]onclusion that the employee personnel files could reveal information that is relevant to whether Defendant acted in bad faith was amply supported by similar decisions from other courts.” (citation omitted)); Yancey v. Hartford Ins. Co., 2013 WL 12142640, at *2 (C.D. Cal. May 23, 2013) (plaintiff entitled to discover whether claims personnel who handled his claim were rewarded or punished based on their “batting averages” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Though, to be clear, certain parts of a claims employee's record are irrelevant, such as dependent information, disability status, marital status, childcare, and benefits that are not performance-based. See Pac. Coast Surgical Ctr., 2019 WL 1873228, at *1.

As for defendants' privacy objections, the court declines to rely on Maine and Massachusetts law to evaluate Durrell's and Rosenfeld's privacy rights because only California law governs this case. California's constitutional right to privacy protects the personnel records of employees. Grobee v. Corr. Corp. of Am., 2014 WL 229266, at *2 (S.D. Cal. Jan. 17, 2014) (citing Cal. Const. art. I, § 1). Courts must balance the parties' competing considerations to determine whether disclosure is appropriate. “The party seeking information may raise in response whatever legitimate and important countervailing interests disclosure serves, while the party seeking protection may identify feasible alternatives that serve the same interests or protective measures that would diminish the loss of privacy.” Williams v. Super. Ct., 3 Cal. 5th 531, 552, 398 P.3d 69, 220 Cal. Rptr. 3d 472 (2017).[4]

*8 The court concludes that plaintiff's interest in reviewing the requested documents outweighs the competing privacy interests of the two third parties in question. As previously discussed, many courts have allowed discovery of similar records. Defendants do not identify any feasible alternatives that would make the requested disclosure unnecessary. Moreover, the protective order in this case can safeguard the privacy of those third parties. See Pac. Coast Surgical Ctr., 2019 WL 1873228, at *2. Thus, the court overrules defendants' privacy objections.

Finally, the court overrules defendants' other objections, which they failed to explain and support in their opposition. See DIRECTV, 209 F.R.D. at 458. Accordingly, the court orders defendants to comply with RFP numbers 25 and 27, except that they do not have to disclose information unrelated to those employees' duties, performance, or performance-based incentives.

F. Information Related to Nurse Joyce Hyam (Interrogatory Numbers 19 and 20)

Interrogatory number 19 asks defendants to state on how many occasions, over the past five years, they paid or denied a claim for long-term care benefits based in whole or in part on the assessment of nurse Hyam. See JS at 37. Interrogatory number 20 asks defendants to state on how many occasions, over the past five years, they denied a claim for long-term care benefits despite an assessment from Hyam that the insured required long-term care. See id.

Defendants argue the requested information is irrelevant because each claim is adjudicated on its own merits, which makes it impossible to draw any conclusions from a comparison of Hyam's reviews. See JS at 40. This argument is better left to the trier of fact. For purposes of discovery, the court considers only whether the information has a conceivable bearing on the case. See Soto, 162 F.R.D. at 610. The court concludes that it does. The information plaintiff seeks regarding Hyam is relevant to defendants' decision-making mechanism and plaintiff's allegations of improper motives in reviewing claims. See Rowell v. Aviza Tech. Health & Welfare Plan, 2012 WL 440742, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 10, 2012) (“[T]he percentage of claims submitted to [third-party physician reviewers] ... that resulted in a decision by [the insurer] within six months to deny benefits is relevant to [the insurer's] mechanism for decisionmaking and allegations relating to its conflict of interest and any related abuse of its discretion in reviewing claims.”); Fortlage v. Heller Ehrman LLP, 2011 WL 1752652, at *2 (N.D. Cal. May 9, 2011) (allowing discovery of claims handled by doctor and number of claims approved by the doctor).

Nevertheless, defendants submit a declaration from their information technology executive who claims their computer system does not have the capability to search for the requested information. See LaCelle Decl. ¶ 5. LaCelle states there “is currently no system functionality to enable a search across multiple claim files ... to identify claims which contain a certain word or phrase.” Id. She opines defendants would have to write a new computer program to search for the requested records, a task she says would be “herculean.” See id. Even then, she believes the program would be unable to search non-OCR'ed files. See id. ¶¶ 6-8.

Plaintiff responds that defendants should simply ask their vendors to identify which claims Hyam was involved with. See JS at 39. Plaintiff argues defendants can use the information provided by their vendors to narrow the universe of claim files to search for responsive information. See id.

*9 The court is inclined to agree that plaintiff's workaround is a reasonable approach. Additionally, although the parties do not address this, Hyam herself may have the ability to identify the relevant claim files. However, it appears the parties have yet to fully meet and confer about these alternatives, leaving the court without sufficient information to make a decision. Accordingly, the court denies plaintiff's motion as to this issue without prejudice. The parties must continue to meet and confer about alternative approaches to obtain the information sought.

G. Plaintiff's Request for Monetary Sanctions

Plaintiff seeks monetary sanctions against defendants for their alleged refusal to provide relevant discovery. See Notice of Mtn. at 2. Defendants counter that their objections to plaintiff's discovery requests were justified, and also point out that plaintiff failed to introduce any evidence to support an award of sanctions. See D. Supp. Mem. at 4.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(5) provides that the prevailing party on a discovery motion is entitled to an award of its reasonable expenses incurred in bringing or opposing the motion, including attorney's fees, except no payment should be ordered if: (1) the motion was filed before the moving party made a good faith effort to resolve the dispute; (2) the losing party's position was substantially justified; or (3) other circumstances make award of expenses unjust.

Here, the court grants plaintiff's motion to compel in large part, which makes him the prevailing party. Nevertheless, plaintiff failed to support his request for Rule 37 sanctions with any evidence of the amount of fees he alleges to be entitled to. In addition, other circumstances make an award of expenses unjust. Namely, both parties have fallen short of complying with their discovery obligations. As discussed in the order on defendant's motion to compel being issued concurrently on this date, plaintiff has stonewalled discovery just as much, if not more, than defendants. The court will not reward any party with Rule 37(a)(5) fees at this time. Plaintiff's request for monetary sanctions is denied.

For the foregoing reasons, the court grants in large part plaintiff's motion to compel (docket nos. 34, 35), and orders further meet and confer, as discussed above. The court denies plaintiff's motion with respect to his request for sanctions. Defendants shall supplement their responses and production to comply with this order within 15 days, unless otherwise agreed by the parties.