Thomas v. Kaul et al.

Filing 35

ORDER signed by Magistrate Judge Edmund F. Brennan on 6/28/2018 DENYING as moot 31 Motion to Compel. (Henshaw, R)

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 CLIFFORD BRENT THOMAS, 12 No. 2:16-cv-2784-JAM-EFB P Plaintiff, 13 v. 14 K. KAUR, et al., 15 ORDER Defendants. 16 Plaintiff, a state prisoner proceeding without counsel in an action brought under 42 U.S.C. 17 18 § 1983, has filed a motion to compel (ECF No. 31) which seeks the production of a drug test 19 conducted at San Joaquin General Hospital on October 21, 2015. Defendants have filed an 20 opposition wherein they state that: (1) plaintiff’s discovery requests failed to identify this 21 document with sufficient specificity; and (2) they have already provided the document in 22 question. ECF No. 34. The court credits the second argument and denies the motion on that 23 basis. 24 I. 25 Legal Standards Parties are obligated to respond to interrogatories to the fullest extent possible under oath, 26 Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(3), and any objections must be stated with specificity, Fed. R. Civ. P. 27 33(b)(4); Davis v. Fendler, 650 F.2d 1154, 1160 (9th Cir. 1981) (“objections should be plain 28 enough and specific enough so that the court can understand in what way the interrogatories are 1 1 alleged to be objectionable”). A responding party is typically not required to conduct extensive 2 research in order to answer an interrogatory, but reasonable efforts to respond must be 3 undertaken. L.H. v. Schwarzenegger, No. S-06-2042 LKK GGH, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73752, 4 2007 WL 2781132, *2 (E.D. Cal. Sep. 21, 2007). Further, the responding party has a duty to 5 supplement any responses if the information sought is later obtained or the response provided 6 needs correction. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(e)(1)(A). 7 II. 8 Analysis Plaintiff’s motion to compel is limited to a single document – a drug test conducted in 9 October of 2015 at San Joaquin General Hospital. Defendants have attached a copy of that 10 document to their opposition (ECF No. 34-4 at 2-3) and their counsel has filed a declaration 11 stating that this document was sent to plaintiff (ECF No. 34-1 at 1-2). Plaintiff has not filed a 12 reply disputing either the relevance of the provided document or the contention that it was sent to 13 him. Accordingly, the court finds that there is no longer any material dispute between the parties 14 as to this issue. 15 16 17 III. Conclusion Based on the foregoing, plaintiff’s motion to compel (ECF No. 31) is DENIED as moot. DATED: June 28, 2018. 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 2

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