*1 On August 10, 2023, Plaintiff filed a Motion to Compel Disclosure of Discovery Documents and to Answer Interrogatories (“Motion”). (Dkt. No. 68). On September 6, 2023, Defendants filed an Opposition to the Motion (“Opposition”), along with a declaration of counsel (“Shaff Decl.”) and exhibits. (Dkt. No. 71).

The Court has reviewed the parties' submissions. For the reasons stated below, the Court GRANTS IN PART AND DENIES IN PART Plaintiff's Motion.

I. Background

On September 30, 2021, Plaintiff, a state prisoner now incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, proceeding pro se, filed a Second Amended Complaint (“SAC”) pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, asserting four claims under the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments against the following Defendants at California State Prison, Los Angeles County (“CSP-LAC”): (1) Jennis White, a staff social worker; (2) Dr. Seliktar, a psychologist; (3) Registered Nurse Fakunle; (4) Registered Nurse Reginaldo; (5) Dr. Hernandez, a staff doctor; (6) Correctional Sergeant Contreras; (7) Correctional Officer Magdaleno; (8) Correctional Officer Flores; and (9) Correctional Officer Melendez. (Dkt. No. 45).

On November 24, 2020, Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss the Second Amended Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which Plaintiff opposed on December 27, 2021. (Dkt. Nos. 46, 51). On June 24, 2022, the Court granted, in part, and denied, in part, Defendants' motion and dismissed with prejudice Plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment claims and conspiracy claims and all claims against Defendants White, Seliktar, Reginaldo, Fakunle and Hernandez, as well as all claims against the remaining Defendants (Contreras, Magdaleno, Flores, and Melendez) for failing to protect Plaintiff before Plaintiff set the fire in his cell. (Dkt. Nos. 54, 55).

The remaining Defendants (Contreras, Magdaleno, Flores, and Melendez) subsequently filed their Answer, a scheduling order was issued, and Plaintiff and Defendants filed their respective case management reports. (Dkt. Nos. 56, 57, 58, 59).

II. Motion to Compel

On or about January 26, 2023, Plaintiff served each Defendant with a Request for Production of Documents. (See Motion at 3; Shaff Decl. ¶ 8). Defendants responded on February 27, 2023. (Id.). On or about May 18, 2023, Plaintiff served Defendants with interrogatories. (See Motion at 2; Shaff Decl. at ¶ 4). On June 6, 2023, Defendants' counsel met and conferred with Plaintiff about these interrogatories but were unable to resolve their issues. (See Motion at 3; Shaff Decl. at ¶ 5). On June 13, 2023, Defendants responded to the interrogatories. (Motion at 2; Shaff Decl. at ¶ 6). Plaintiff's Motion followed, seeking to compel further responses to his discovery requests.

A party “may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party's claim or defense.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). Nevertheless, information “need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.” Id. Thus, relevance, for purposes of discovery, is defined broadly, and “[d]iscovery of nonprivileged information not admissible in evidence remains available so long as it is otherwise within the scope of discovery.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1) advisory committee's note (2015); see Garneau v. City of Seattle, 147 F.3d 802, 812 (9th Cir. 1998). However, under amended Rule 26(b), discovery must be “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). This proportionality requirement “is designed to avoid ... sweeping discovery that is untethered to the claims and defenses in litigation.” Mfg. Automation & Software Sys., Inc. v. Hughes, \2017 WL 5641120, at *5 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 21, 2017).

*2 Motions to compel are governed by Rule 37, which allows a party to “move for an order compelling disclosure or discovery.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(1). “A party seeking discovery may move for an order compelling an answer, designation, production, or inspection ... if ... a party fails to answer an interrogatory submitted under Rule 33; or a party fails to produce documents ... as requested under Rule 34.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(3)(B)(iii)–(iv). Rule 33 allows a party to serve written interrogatories on any other party “relate[d] to any matter that may be inquired into under Rule 26(b).” Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(a)(2). Rule 34 provides that a party may serve on any other party a request to produce documents or electronically stored information within the party's possession, custody, or control that is otherwise within the scope of Rule 26. Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(a)(1)(A). “Upon a motion to compel discovery, the movant has the initial burden of demonstrating relevance.” United States v. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2014 WL 1647385, at *8 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 15, 2014). Further, district courts have “broad discretion” to control discovery and in determining relevancy for discovery purposes. See Hallett v. Morgan, 296 F.3d 732, 751 (9th Cir. 2002) (citation and alteration omitted).

III. Discussion

A. Interrogatories

Plaintiff seeks to compel Defendants to supplement their responses to his interrogatories. (See Motion at 3-5). For the reasons stated below, the motion to compel responses to the interrogatories is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART, and Defendants are ORDERED to provide complete responses to Interrogatory Nos. 5-12.

Plaintiff contends that Defendants improperly renumbered several of his interrogatories so that each comprised multiple individual interrogatories. (See Motion at 4-5). Specifically, Defendants renumbered Interrogatory Nos. 3-5, 7, and 10-11. (See Shaff Decl. Ex. 2).[1] As a result, Defendants calculated that Plaintiff had actually propounded over forty separate interrogatories, rather than the mere twelve interrogatories purportedly given, and they offered substantive responses only to what they construed as the first twenty-five of these, in accordance with the limit set by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33(a). (See Shaff Decl. Ex. 2).

Rule 33(a) provides that “[u]nless otherwise stipulated or ordered by the court, a party may serve on any other party no more than 25 written interrogatories, including all discrete subparts.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(a)(1) (emphasis added). This means that “discrete subparts” are counted separately (or discretely) as part of the twenty-five interrogatories. As the Advisory Committee explained: “Parties cannot evade [Rule 33's] presumptive limitation through the device of joining as ‘subparts’ questions that seek information about discrete separate subjects. However, a question asking about communications of a particular type should be treated as a single interrogatory even though it requests that the time, place, persons present, and contents be stated separately for each such communication.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(a)(1) advisory committee note (1993 amendments).

“Although the term ‘discrete subparts’ [in Rule 33] does not have a precise meaning, courts generally agree that ‘interrogatory subparts are to be counted as one interrogatory ... if they are logically or factually subsumed within and necessarily related to the primary question.’ ” Trevino v. ACB Am., Inc., 232 F.R.D. 612, 614 (N.D. Cal. 2006) (quoting Safeco of Am. v. Rawstron, 181 F.R.D. 441, 445 (C.D. Cal. 1998)). As explained in Safeco:

*3 Safeco, 181 F.R.D. at 445 (quoting Kendall v. GES Exposition Servs., Inc., 174 F.R.D. 684 (D. Nev. 1997)). “[O]nce a subpart of an interrogatory introduces a line of inquiry that is separate and distinct from the inquiry made by the portion of the interrogatory that precedes it, the subpart must be considered a separate interrogatory no matter how it is designated.” Willingham v. Ashcroft, 226 F.R.D. 57, 59 (D. D.C. 2005); see also Synopsys, Inc. v. ATopTech, Inc, 319 F.R.D. 293, 294 (N.D. Cal. 2016) (“[I]t would appear that an interrogatory containing subparts directed at eliciting details concerning a common theme should be considered a single question, although the breadth of the area inquired about may be disputable. On the other hand, an interrogatory with subparts inquiring into discrete areas is likely to be counted as more than one for purposes of the limitation.” (quoting 8A Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Richard L. Marcus, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2168.1, at 39-40 (3d ed. 2010))). Applying this rationale, the court in Safeco determined that “an interrogatory that asks the responding party to state facts, identify witnesses, or identify documents supporting the denial of each request for admission contained in a set of requests for admissions usually should be construed as containing a [discrete] subpart for each request for admission contained in the set.” Id. at 446.

“[T]he issue of ‘discreteness’ cannot reliably be captured by a verbal formula[.] ... [U]ltimately the issue turns on a case-by-case assessment of the degree to which the subpart is logically related to the primary question in the interrogatory, as opposed to being separate and distinct.” Erfindergemeinschaft Uropep GbR v. Eli Lilly & Co., 315 F.R.D. 191, 197 (E.D. Tex. 2016). Moreover, “[a]cknowledging the difficulty of applying the various verbal formulations for counting ‘discrete subparts,’ some courts have observed that the tests must be tempered by a ‘pragmatic approach' that asks if an interrogatory “threatens the purpose of Rule 33 by combining into one interrogatory several lines of inquiry that should be kept separate.’ ” Id. at 196 (citations omitted); see also Waterbury v. Scribner, 2008 WL 2018432, at *2 (E.D. Cal. May 8, 2008) (“Determining whether an interrogatory counts as a separate question requires a pragmatic approach.”).

For the reasons explained below, Defendants improperly construed Plaintiff's twelve interrogatories as over forty separate interrogatories; Plaintiff's Interrogatory Nos. 1-12 are instead properly counted as a total of twenty-one (21) discrete interrogatories for Defendants Flores and Contreras, twenty-two (22) for Defendant Melendez, and twenty-three (23) for Magdaleno.[2] Plaintiff therefore did not exceed Rule 33(a)'s twenty-five interrogatory limit.

Those interrogatories which Defendants have construed as containing multiple, discrete subparts (Interrogatory Nos. 3-5, 7, 10, and 11) are addressed below.

Plaintiff's Interrogatory No. 3 provided:

*4 (Shaff Decl. Ex. 2 at 3). In effect, Plaintiff's Interrogatory No. 3 asks Defendants to state facts and identify witnesses supporting each of the denials in their Answer to Plaintiff's operative Second Amended Complaint. Defendants' Answer contains nineteen denials on behalf of all four Defendants, with an additional one specific to Melendez (twenty total) and two specific to Magdaleno (twenty-one total).

Because Interrogatory No. 3 asks for information regarding each separate denial in Defendants' Answer, Defendants renumbered it as multiple individual interrogatories, one for each respective denial – i.e., as nineteen interrogatories (Nos. 3-21) for Defendants Flores and Contreras, as twenty (Nos. 3-22) for Defendant Melendez, and as twenty-one (Nos. 3-23) for Defendant Magdaleno.[3] (See Shaff Decl. ¶ 7, Ex. 2 at 3-26). Defendants then provided complete responses to each of these renumbered interrogatories.

Defendants are correct that Interrogatory No. 3 cannot simply count as one interrogatory, given that it requires Defendants to respond about a variety of distinct matters as to which they provided denials in their Answer to the Second Amended Complaint – matters pertaining, for example, to Plaintiff's exhaustion of administrative remedies, prior lawsuits, prior treatment history, and entitlement to relief, in addition to the allegations regarding the main incident underlying his claims. To the extent that these denials concern distinct matters, Plaintiff's questions should be construed as separate interrogatories for each denial. As such, Defendants appropriately renumbered Interrogatory No. 3 as a separate interrogatory for each of Defendants' denials in paragraphs 3, 4, 20, 21, 22, and 23, as well as paragraphs 24 (as to Magdaleno only) and 25 (as to Magdaleno and Melendez), of Defendants' Answer (corresponding to paragraphs 3-7 and 25-30 of the Second Amended Complaint) – which each concerned distinct matters.

However, that does not mean that a separate interrogatory should be counted for every single denial in the Answer. Several of the denials concern the same matters, or closely related matters, and Defendants gave identical or nearly identical answers as to multiple denials. It is more appropriate to consider responses concerning denials to closely related paragraphs (i.e. those related to a “common theme”) as responses to a “single question.” See 8A Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Richard L. Marcus, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2168.1, at 39-40 (3d ed. 2010). Defendants' responses regarding such groups of closely related denials are, in effect, “logically or factually subsumed within and necessarily related to” a “primary question.” Trevino, 232 F.R.D. at 614; cf. Edge Sys. LLC. v. Image MicroDerm Inc., 2019 WL 2902492, at *2 (C.D. Cal. May 3, 2019) (reasoning that an interrogatory which “asks for information about all patents-in-suit” counts as one interrogatory if the patents all cover similar technology; but it counts as multiple, separate interrogatories if “the responding party must rely on separate information to respond to each patent” (citations omitted)); Diversified Lenders, LLC v. Amazon Logistics, Inc., 2017 WL 11562026, at *1 (W.D. Wash. June 20, 2017) (“[A]n inquiry requesting the same information regarding disparate claims, defenses, or events counts as multiple interrogatories.” (citations omitted)); Ginn v. Gemini, Inc., 137 F.R.D. 320, 322 n.6 (D. Nevada 1991) (interrogatory asking about ‘each type of loss or damage alleged in paragraph 32 of the Complaint’ counted as only one interrogatory).

*5 Thus, some of Defendants' responses as to several denials in the Answer should be counted as responses to a single interrogatory. For example, paragraphs 14-19 of the Answer (denials as to paragraphs 19-24 of the Second Amended Complaint) all concern Plaintiff's mental health treatment history, with no allegations regarding Defendants. In response to the interrogatory, Defendants gave the same answer as to each of these denials/paragraphs, stating that they were “aware that Plaintiff had an EOP mental health designation,” but were “unaware of facts pertaining to Plaintiff's specific mental health issues, diagnoses, or treatment.” (Shaff Decl. Ex. 2 at 6-11). Such responses as to each denial did not require any separate investigation nor any significant additional time expense. Similarly, paragraphs 26 and 27 of the Answer (regarding paragraphs 31 and 32 of the Second Amended Complaint) concern plaintiff's medical treatment and injuries following the incident, and Defendants answered the interrogatory as to these denials by stating that Defendant “denies making any decision regarding Plaintiff's medication,” “denies being aware of any specific medical treatments provided to Plaintiff,” and “denies intending to cause Plaintiff to suffer any injury.” (Shaff Decl. Ex. 2 at 16-18). Together, Defendants' responses as to paragraphs 14-19 and 26-27 of the Answer properly count as only two additional interrogatories (or one for each respective grouping).

As to the remaining denials/paragraphs, Defendants' responses should not count as additional interrogatories because they required no additional information or consideration by Defendants and instead merely referenced prior allegations. For example, paragraphs 30, 31, 34, and 35 of the Answer, as well as paragraph 39 (as to Magdaleno only), merely deny portions of the Second Amended Complaint which assert Plaintiff's legal claims and reference prior allegations (see SAC ¶¶ 35, 36, 39, 40, and 44. Defendants thus provided identical responses to the interrogatory as to these denials: “Defendant did not intentionally cause injury to Plaintiff when responding to the incident, and Defendant is not aware that Plaintiff suffered injury because of Defendant's conduct.” (Shaff Decl. Ex. 2 at 19-24). Finally, paragraph 42 of the Answer is simply a denial to the “Relief Requested” in the Second Amended Complaint, and Defendants have simply responded, again, that they deny having caused Plaintiff to suffer any injury. (See Shaff Decl. Ex. 2 at 25). Defendants' responses as to these denials are essentially duplicative of those previously addressed and do not qualify as additional interrogatories.

In sum, though Interrogatory No. 3 should count as more than one interrogatory, Defendants improperly construed it as nineteen separate interrogatories (with twenty for Melendez and twenty-one for Magdaleno). As forth above, Interrogatory No. 3 instead counts as eight (8) discrete interrogatories for Defendants Flores and Contreras, nine (9) for Melendez, and ten (10) for Magdaleno.

Interrogatory Nos. 4, 5, 7, 10, and 11 each contains several subparts, and Defendants have construed most of these subparts as separate interrogatories. (See Shaff Decl. Ex. 2 at 26-37). These interrogatories state as follows:

(Shaff Decl. Ex. 2 at 26-35).

Renumbering these as several interrogatories each was improper. With the exception of Interrogatory No. 11, each of these essentially concerns only a single matter, and the information sought in the subparts is “subsumed within and necessarily related to” that matter. See Safeco, 181 F.R.D. at 445; see also Better Care Plastic Tech. Co. v. Gredale, LLC, 2022 WL 2046206, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 4, 2022) (“[T]he additional information that plaintiff requests is reasonably subsumed within the scope of the interrogatory[;] Plaintiff is simply asking for more information about the what, who, why, how, and when of the primary inquiry.” (citing Safeco, 181 F.R.D. at 445)). As such, Interrogatory Nos. 4, 5, 7, and 10 each counts as only one interrogatory. Interrogatory No. 11, on the other hand, given its separate inquiries about the arrival of the fire department/medical staff and plaintiff's transport to CTC, counts as two.

In sum, as stated above, Plaintiff's Interrogatory Nos. 1-12 are properly counted as twenty-one (21) discrete interrogatories for Defendants Flores and Contreras, twenty-two (22) for Defendant Melendez, and twenty-three (23) for Magdaleno.[4]

Defendants asserted general objections to all the interrogatories, but they also provided substantive responses to Interrogatory Nos. 1-4. (See Opposition at 4-5; Shaff Decl. Ex. 2). Although Plaintiff disputes the objections (see Motion at 3-5), he has not shown that Defendants' responses were deficient in any respect. To the extent Plaintiff's Motion seeks to compel further responses to Interrogatory Nos. 1-4, the Motion is DENIED.

As for the remaining Interrogatory Nos. 5-12, however, Defendants did not give complete substantive responses. Instead, as noted above, having construed the twelve numbered interrogatories as comprising over forty separate interrogatories total, Defendants declined to give any substantive response to any beyond what they construed as the first twenty-five, based on the limit set by Rule 33(a).[5] For the reasons stated above, this was incorrect; Plaintiff did not exceed the limit of twenty-five interrogatories for any Defendant. As such, Defendants' objections on that basis are overruled.

*7 Defendants' other objections to Interrogatory Nos. 5-12 are also deficient. For example, Defendants objected that Interrogatory Nos. 5-11 “lack[ ] foundation and assume[ ] facts not in evidence.” (Shaff Decl. Ex. 2 at 29-37). Such general, unexplained objections do not provide Defendants a proper basis to refrain from responding. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(4) (“The grounds for objecting to an interrogatory must be stated with specificity.”); Duran v. Cisco Sys., Inc., 258 F.R.D. 375, 379 (C.D. Cal. 2009) (“[U]nexplained and unsupported boilerplate objections are improper.”). Defendants also objected that Interrogatories 5-12 were “vague and ambiguous” as to a variety of terms employed therein, such as “mental health worker,” “holding cell,” “alarm,” “respond,” and “report.”[6] (See Decl. Ex. 2 at 30-38). None of the terms identified by Defendants are unduly vague or ambiguous such that they cannot respond adequately. Defendants must instead “exercise reason and common sense to attribute ordinary definitions to terms and phrases utilized in interrogatories.” Pulsecard, Inc. v. Discover Card Servs., Inc., 168 F.R.D. 295, 310 (D. Kan. 1996); see also 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)); King-Hardy v. Bloomfield Bd. of Educ., 2002 WL 32506294, at *5 (D. Conn. Dec. 8, 2002) (responding party must give discovery requests a reasonable construction, rather than strain to find ambiguity). Defendants' objections are therefore overruled.

Accordingly, Plaintiff's motion to compel further responses to Interrogatory Nos. 1-4 is DENIED. Plaintiff's motion to compel further responses to Interrogatory Nos. 5-12 is GRANTED.

B. Requests for Production

Plaintiff disputes Defendants' objections to his requests for production (or “RFP”) and seeks to compel Defendants to supplement their responses. (See Motion at 5-7). Plaintiff propounded twelve requests for production on Defendant Contreras and eight each on Defendants Flores, Melendez, and Magdaleno. (See Motion at 5; Shaff Decl. ¶ 8, Exs. 3-4). Defendants asserted multiple objections to every request, but also provided at least some documents in response to many of the requests, while averring that no responsive documents were found for several other requests. (Shaff Decl. ¶ 8, Exs. 3-4). In a few instances – RFP Nos. 6 and 8-10 for Contreras and RFP Nos. 5-6 for Flores, Melendez, and Magdaleno – Defendants withheld all responsive documents based on objections. (Id.).

As Defendants point out, Plaintiff's Motion specifically references only two requests for production – RFP Nos. 3 and 5 for Defendant Contreras. (See Motion at 5-7; Shaff Decl. Ex. 3 at 4-6). Plaintiff contends that Defendants improperly objected that these requests were vague and overly broad. (Motion at 5-6). However, as to RFP No. 5, Defendant apparently provided several responsive documents (see Opposition at 10; Shaff Decl. Ex. 3 at 46), and Plaintiff gives no indication why such production was inadequate. As to RFP No. 3, which sought the “Daily Log Report generated by Housing Unit D5 Control Booth for October 11, 2019,” Defendant objected in part that the request was vague and ambiguous, but Defendant also attested that a search was conducted and “no responsive documents were discovered,” while adding that the “response will be supplemented if responsive documents are discovered.” (Shaff Decl. Ex. 3 at 4-5). In the Opposition, Defendants acknowledge that Plaintiff's Motion has clarified the type of “Log Report” that he sought in RFP No. 3, and they state that they “will evaluate whether the new information describes any relevant or responsive document, and will supplement the prior response as appropriate.” (Opposition at 9). Given these representations, it appears Defendants have fulfilled (or are continuing to fulfill) their discovery obligations with respect to RFP Nos. 3 and 5.

*8 Otherwise, though Plaintiff purports to challenge all Defendants' objections generally, he fails to satisfy his burden to demonstrate his entitlement to any withheld documents. Aside from RFP Nos. 3 and 5 discussed above, Plaintiff neglects to address any particular requests or objections, and instead only very generally disputes Defendants' reliance on vagueness objections. (See Motion at 5-7). As a result, even construing the Motion liberally in light of Plaintiff's pro se status,[7] the Court cannot properly assess the merits of his requests or Defendants' objections to determine whether further relief may be warranted.

Accordingly, Plaintiff's motion to compel further responses to his requests for production is DENIED.

IV. Conclusion

Plaintiff's Motion to Compel Disclosure of Discovery Documents and to Answer Interrogatories (Dkt. No. 68) is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. Defendants shall supplement their interrogatory responses, as described above, within 30 days of the date of this Order.

The parties may avail themselves of the Court's informal discovery dispute resolution process to resolve any remaining discovery issues. (See Judge Sagar's Procedures).

IT IS SO ORDERED.