Adecco USA, Inc. v. Staffworks, Inc.
Adecco USA, Inc. v. Staffworks, Inc.
2022 WL 20436867 (N.D.N.Y. 2022)
June 21, 2022
Dancks, Therese W., United States Magistrate Judge
Summary
The court resolved multiple discovery disputes between the parties, including a letter motion regarding non-party discovery. The court directed the parties to produce certain ESI by specific dates, including disputed documents for an in camera review, documents related to the closing of certain markets, and information about employees who left the plaintiff's company. The court also issued directives for the parties to follow, including using Bates stamp numbers in all discovery responses and obtaining court permission before serving further demands or filing disputes.
Additional Decisions
ADECCO USA, INC., et al., Plaintiffs,
v.
STAFFWORKS, INC., et al., Defendants
v.
STAFFWORKS, INC., et al., Defendants
6:20-cv-00744 (MAD/TWD)
United States District Court, N.D. New York
Signed June 21, 2022
Counsel
TYLER TARNEY, ESQ., TYLER MARTIN, ESQ., Gordon & Rees, LLP, Counsel for Plaintiffs.MARY JANE MORLEY, ESQ., PRESTON ZARLOCK, ESQ., Phillips Lytle, LLP, Counsel for Defendants.
Dancks, Therese W., United States Magistrate Judge
ORDER
*1 Presently before the Court in this action are, once again, multiple discovery disputes between the parties concerning their respective demands and responses. The Court reviewed various disputed discovery issues as set forth in the parties’ letter briefs and responses. (Dkt. Nos. 225, 227, 231, and 232.) The Court also discussed the disputes at a Court conference held on 6/8/2022.
Additionally, Plaintiff filed a letter motion (Dkt. No. 226) regarding non-party discovery, which the Court has reviewed, along with the response received from the non-party (Dkt. No. 233) filed at the Court's direction. (Dkt. No. 229.)
I. LEGAL STANDARD
Rule 26(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure sets forth the scope and limitations of permissible discovery:
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. Information within this scope of discovery need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.
Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1).
Information is relevant if: “(a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and (b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.” Fed. R. Evid. 401. Relevance is a matter of degree, and the standard is applied more liberally in discovery than it is at trial. “ ‘[I]t is well established that relevance for the purpose of discovery is broader in scope than relevance for the purpose of the trial itself.’ ” Refco Grp. Ltd., LLC v. Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., 13 Civ. 1654 (RA)(HBP), 2014 WL 5420225 at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 24, 2014) (Pitman, M.J.) (brackets in original), quoting Arch Assocs., Inc. v. HuAmerica Int'l, Inc., 93 Civ. 2168 (PKL), 1994 WL 30487 at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 28, 1994) (Leisure, D.J.); see Degulis v. LXR Biotechnology, Inc., 176 F.R.D. 123, 125 (S.D.N.Y. 1997) (Sweet, D.J.); Quaker Chair Corp. v. Litton Bus. Sys., Inc., 71 F.R.D. 527, 530–31 (S.D.N.Y. 1976) (Motley, D.J.).
As the advisory committee notes, the proportionality factors have been restored to their former position in the subsection “defining the scope of discovery,” where they had been located prior to the 1993 amendments to the rules. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1) advisory committee's notes to 2015 amendment. Relevance is still to be “construed broadly to encompass any matter that bears on, or that reasonably could lead to other matter that could bear on” any party's claim or defense. Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351 (1978). However, the amended rule is intended to “encourage judges to be more aggressive in identifying and discouraging discovery overuse” by emphasizing the need to analyze proportionality before ordering production of relevant information. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1) advisory committee's notes to 2015 amendment. The burden of demonstrating relevance remains on the party seeking discovery, and the newly-revised rule “does not place on the party seeking discovery the burden of addressing all proportionality considerations.” Id. In general, when disputes are brought before the court, “the parties’ responsibilities [ ] remain the same” as they were under the previous iteration of the rules, so that the party resisting discovery has the burden of showing undue burden or expense. Id.; see also Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. v. Great American Insurance Co. of New York, 284 F.R.D. 132, 135 (S.D.N.Y. 2012) (“Once relevance has been shown, it is up to the responding party to justify curtailing discovery.”). Moreover, information still “need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1).
*2 The advisory committee's notes to the recent amendment of Rule 26 further explain that “[a] party claiming that a request is important to resolve the issues should be able to explain the ways in which the underlying information bears on the issues as that party understands them. The court's responsibility, using all the information provided by the parties, is to consider these and all the other factors in reaching a case-specific determination of the appropriate scope of discovery.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26 advisory committee's note to 2015 amendment.
With the above discovery principles in mind, the Court directs the following discovery, which each party must produce to the other by June 24, 2022, unless otherwise directed herein.
II. NON-PARTY DISCOVERY ISSUE
At the outset of the Court conference on June 8, 2022, Plaintiffs’ counsel informed the Court that the issues concerning the non-party discovery were resolved. Therefore, Plaintiffs withdrew the request in their letter motion (Dkt. No. 226) directed at non-party Westlake Royal Building Products, Inc., f/k/a Boral Building Products, Inc. (“Boral”) filed at Dkt. No. 226. As such, any request contained in Dkt. No. 226 is moot.
III. DEFENDANTS’ DEMANDS TO PLAINTIFFS
(1) Spreadsheets and emails regarding privilege claims and clawback issues - Plaintiffs shall submit the disputed documents to the Court for an in camera review by 6/13/2022. As of the date of this Order, the Court has received these documents and is reviewing them. A directive concerning these documents will be issued in due course;
(2) Documents related to closing of certain New York State markets including the Buffalo, Corning, Lockport, Syracuse/Liverpool offices, and any other offices located in the Upstate, Southern Tier, and Western New York regions - Plaintiffs to provide Defendants the exact Bates stamp numbers for any documents already provided to Defendants responsive to this request by 6/17/2022. Defendants to provide further search terms to Plaintiffs by 6/10/2022 to assist Plaintiffs in searching for further responsive documents, which Plaintiffs shall produce by 6/24/2022. If no further responsive documents exist, Plaintiffs’ counsel shall provide a certified statement to Defendants to that effect by 6/24/2022;
(3) Employees who left Adecco but continued to work in the staffing industry after 5/12/2020 - Plaintiffs must identify to Defendants by 6/17/2022 the search they conducted and/or run a further search regarding the names of former employees of Adecco who continue to work in the staffing industry. Plaintiffs must provide a statement to Defendants by 6/17/2022 regarding exactly what search was conducted to identify any such individuals, and also produce any further responsive documents regarding communications with such individuals. Plaintiffs to confirm in writing whether or not there were any further communications with such individuals by Adecco after the individuals left Adecco's employ. If so, Plaintiffs must produce any documents regarding such communications by 6/24/2022;
(4) Adecco internal communications about Boral - no further response is required from Plaintiffs on this issue.
IV. PLAINTIFFS’ DEMANDS TO DEFENDANTS
(1) Search of Staffworks’ desktop and laptop computers of Defendants Walser, Standford, Rodabaugh, Gloria, and Flint for Adecco documents and documents related to the clients at issue - Defendants to search any Staffworks’ desktop computer hard drives similarly as to how the laptop computer hard drives were searched for the time period of May of 2020 to the present and produce any responsive documents by 6/24/2022, or serve an attorney certified statement that no further responsive documents exist. Defendants shall also identify whether any USB storage devices matched up to Plaintiffs were plugged into such desktop computers in that time period. If so, Defendants are to produce the USB reports and if not, Defendants are to state that no USB storage devices matched up by 6/24/2022;
*3 (2) SMS communications between Defendants and workers formerly placed by Plaintiffs - Plaintiffs to identify to Defendants by 6/13/2020 the names of 20 people formerly placed by Adecco. Defendants to produce any text messages/SMS communications between Defendants and such individuals after May of 2020 by 6/24/2022. If no such messages exist, Defendants shall provide an attorney certified statement to Defendants indicating same by 6/24/2022;
(3) Facebook information and communications - no further response is required from Defendants on this issue;
(4) Calendar information and Third-party declarations - Counsel are to confer for further clarification on these requests, and Defendants are to produce any further responsive documents by 6/24/2022.
V. OTHER COURT DIRECTIVES
(1) Any response by any party directing the other party to documents shall state the Bates stamp number(s) of the relevant document(s) for all discovery responses;
(2) No further demands are permitted to be served by any party unless prior Court permission is obtained;
(3) No further letter motions, briefs, requests, or other disputed discovery issues are to be filed with the Court unless prior Court permission is obtained;
(4) Parties MUST have good faith meet and confer conferences encompassing actually speaking to each other for any further disputes before requesting Court intervention;
(5) The parties must resume good faith settlement negotiations prior to the settlement conference scheduled for 7/26/2022 and be fully prepared for that settlement conference in accordance with the Order at Dkt. No. 234;
(5) Any violation of any directives set forth in this entire Order will result in sanctions.
Accordingly, it is hereby,
ORDERED, that the Plaintiffs’ letter motion (Dkt. No. 226) pertaining to non-party Boral is withdrawn and therefore DENIED as moot; and it is further
ORDERED that the parties’ respective discovery motions set forth and briefed in Dkt. Nos. 225, 227, 231, and 232 are GRANTED in part and DENIED in part in accordance with this Order; the parties shall provide all directed disclosure in the manner and time frame as directed herein.