Estate of Antonio Thomas et al v. County of Sacramento et al

Filing 166

ORDER signed by Magistrate Judge Deborah Barnes on 5/10/2022 DENYING Without Prejudice 137 Motion for Protective Order, DENYING Without Prejudice 138 Motion for Protective Order, DENYING Without Prejudice 144 Motion to Modify Protective Orders, and VACATING 5/13/2022 Hearing.(Perdue, C.)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

9

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

10
11

ESTATE OF ANTONIO THOMAS, et al.,

12

No. 2:20-cv-0903 KJM DB

Plaintiffs,

13

v.

14

ORDER

COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO et al.,

15

Defendants.

16
“The discovery process in theory should be cooperative and largely unsupervised by the

17
18

district court.” Sali v. Corona Regional Medical Center, 884 F.3d 1218, 1219 (9th Cir. 2018).

19

That theory has certainly been disproven in this action, which has again and again come before

20

the undersigned for resolution of discovery disputes. The most recent disputes include three

21

motions noticed for hearing before the undersigned on May 13, 2022: defendants’ renewed

22

motion for a protective order, defendants’ motion for a protective order, and plaintiffs’ motion to

23

modify the protective order. (ECF Nos. 137, 138, & 144.)
As the parties are well aware, the undersigned’s Standard Information re discovery

24
25

disputes set forth on the court’s web page explains that a joint statement filed before the

26

undersigned shall not exceed twenty-five pages, excluding exhibits. 1 See

27
28

1

The parties are advised that title pages, tables of contents, tables of citations, etc., all count
toward the twenty-five-page limit.
1

1

http://www.caed.uscourts.gov/caednew/index.cfm/judges/all-judges/united-states-magistrate-

2

judge-deborah-barnes-db. The parties have filed a joint statement for each of the three pending

3

motions, numbering between 20 and 26 pages each. (ECF Nos. 156, 157, & 160.) The

4

undersigned will not permit the parties to exceed the page limitation by filing multiple joint

5

statements for hearing on the same calendar when they could not do so if the briefing was

6

contained in a single joint statement.

7

Accordingly, the parties’ motions will be denied without prejudice to renewal. The parties

8

may elect to re-notice each motion of a different available law and motion calendar. And in an

9

effort to aid the parties in trimming the length of their joint statements and perhaps narrow their

10

disputes, the undersigned provides the following helpful information. Discovery in this action

11

has closed. (ECF No. 143.) Therefore, with respect to discovery that has not been produced there

12

is nothing for the undersigned to compel, and thus nothing for the undersigned to protect from

13

production.

14

More generally, while the parties’ briefing should allege specific facts from which the

15

undersigned can determine that the parties have complied with the applicable meet and confer

16

requirements, the undersigned does not require a lengthy recounting of the history of the parties’

17

conferences. Nor is resolution of the parties’ dispute served by global arguments, supported by

18

boilerplate law, and vague reference to various discovery items.

19

Instead, the parties briefing should focus on addressing with particularity an identified

20

document or category of documents at issue. The parties should then tailor their arguments to

21

addressing the specific document at issue. If the parties cannot do so within the given page

22

limitation, then they should either narrow their dispute, or notice another motion for hearing on

23

another day.

24

Finally, the undersigned notes that one joint statement makes reference to documents that

25

were “logged with the Court for in-camera review.” (ECF No. 160 at 4.) “In Camera review is

26

not generally favored” and “the court should not conduct such a review solely because a party

27

begs it to do so.” Nishika, Ltd. v. Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., 181 F.R.D. 465, 467 (D. Nev. 1998).

28

“In camera review should not replace the effective adversarial testing of the claimed privileges
2

1

and protections.” Diamond State Ins. Co. v. Rebel Oil Co., Inc., 157 F.R.D. 691, 700 (D. Nev.

2

1994). The undersigned has no intention of reviewing a document in camera in the absence of the

3

parties’ satisfying their obligations.

4

Accordingly, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that:

5

1. Defendants’ March 29, 2022 renewed motion for protective order (ECF No. 137), is

6
7
8
9
10
11
12

denied without prejudice to renewal;
2. Defendants’ March 30, 2022 motion for a protective order (ECF No. 138) is denied
without prejudice to renewal;
3. Plaintiffs’ April 8, 2022 motion to modify protective orders (ECF No. 144) is denied
without prejudice to renewal; and
4. The May 13, 2022 hearing of these motions is vacated.
DATED: May 10, 2022

13

/s/ DEBORAH BARNES
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22

DLB:6
DB/orders/orders.civil/thomas0903.mulit.js.ord

23
24
25
26
27
28
3