Scribner v. Ocean State Jobbers, Inc.

Filing 127

ORDER granting in part and denying in part plaintiffs' 96 Motion to Compel Discovery Responses. See attached Order for details. Signed by Judge Sarah A. L. Merriam on 9/14/2016. (Kaczmarek, S.)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
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:
MICHAEL SCRIBNER, et al.
:
:
v.
:
:
OCEAN STATE JOBBERS, INC.
:
:
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Civ. No. 3:14CV01486(AWT)

September 14, 2016

ORDER ON MOTION TO COMPEL DISCOVERY RESPONSES [Doc. #96]
Pending before the Court is a motion by plaintiffs Michael
Scribner, et al. (“plaintiffs”) to compel responses to discovery
requests. [Doc. #96] The motion was referred to the undersigned
on July 27, 2016, [Doc. #101] and a conference regarding the
motion was held on August 9, 2016. [Doc. #110] Following the
conference, the Court entered an Order directing the parties to
meet and confer in good faith to resolve their outstanding
issues, and to file a Joint Status Report indicating the results
of the parties’ discussions. See Doc. #112 at 6-7.
The parties submitted their Joint Status Report on August
29, 2016, identifying one outstanding disagreement and one item
that is the subject of ongoing discussion between the parties.
[Doc. #126] As set forth herein, the Court GRANTS plaintiff’s
motion, in part.

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I.

Request 12 (as numbered in Doc. #107)
The parties’ Joint Status Report indicates that the sole

matter still in dispute is plaintiffs’ Request 12. See Doc.
#126. Request 12 seeks production of “[t]o-do lists from the
stores where 15 of the Plaintiffs worked.” Doc. #107 at 2.1
Defendant objects to production of all such to-do lists, arguing
that such a request is overly broad, and will encompass many
irrelevant documents that do not pertain to the duties of
assistant store managers. See Doc. #126 at 2. Defendant thus
proposes limiting the search (and production) to those lists
that contain the first and/or last name of an assistant store
manager. Id. Plaintiffs contend that defendant’s approach will
exclude many relevant documents. Id. Plaintiffs “note that many
of the exemplar to-do lists which were produced by Plaintiff
Michael Scribner include either initials or, for many items, no
names at all.” Id. at 2-3.
The plaintiffs also contend that they are now entitled to
to-do lists from the stores employing all 57 opt-in plaintiffs

The request herein referred to as “Request 12” actually seeks a
subset of documents sought by what was originally designated
Request for Production #9, which requested “[a]ny and all
documents relating to the assignment of employee duties at
Defendant’s stores[.]” Doc. #96-2 at 6. The request for “to-do
lists” is the only portion of the original request that remains
disputed. This request was identified as number 12 on the list
of outstanding disputes submitted to the Court in advance of the
hearing. See Doc. #107.
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in light of Judge Thompson’s Order [Doc. #123] granting
defendant’s motion to depose all 57 opt-in plaintiffs. See Doc.
#126 at 1.
Rule 26(b)(1) 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). “The party resisting discovery bears
the burden of showing why discovery should be denied.” Cole v.
Towers Perrin Forster & Crosby, 256 F.R.D. 79, 80 (D. Conn.
2009). The Court must consider the relevance of the discovery
sought, which “has been construed broadly to encompass any
matter that bears on, or that reasonably could lead to other
matter that could bear on, any issue that is or may be in the
case.” Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340, 351
(1978), citing Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 501 (1947).
The Court is also called upon to engage in a
proportionality analysis, and must balance the value of
the requested discovery against the cost of its
production. ...
The Court must limit discovery
otherwise
allowed
if
the
discovery
sought
is
unreasonably cumulative or duplicative, or can be
obtained from some other source that is more convenient,
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less burdensome, or less expensive. Of course, as in all
matters relating to discovery, the district court has
broad discretion to limit discovery in a prudential and
proportionate way.
Family Wireless #1, LLC v. Auto. Techs., Inc., No.
3:15CV01310(JCH), 2016 WL 3911870, at *2 (D. Conn. July 15,
2016) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
As noted at the conference and in its August 9, 2016,
Order, the Court considers the requested to-do lists generally
discoverable. See Doc. #112 at 4. The very heart of this case is
the assignment of tasks at defendant’s stores; a “to-do list”
that provides any insight into who was assigned to do what in a
given store is highly relevant to the issues at hand. Defendant
has not shown why limitations on the search or production of
these documents are necessary, or how the production of all todo lists for each of the fifteen representative plaintiffs would
be unduly burdensome. See, e.g., Sullivan v. StratMar Systems,
Inc., 276 F.R.D. 17, 20 (D. Conn. 2011) (“[Defendant] must
specifically show how plaintiff’s requests ... are overly broad,
burdensome or oppressive by submitting affidavits or offering
evidence revealing the nature of the burden.” (internal citation
and quotation marks omitted)). On the other hand, plaintiffs
have not established any need for the to-do lists from the
stores where all 57 plaintiffs were employed. The fact that the
defendant now has the right to depose all 57 plaintiffs does not

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necessarily mean that the records obtained from the
representative sample will be insufficient to provide the
information plaintiffs require. Absent some showing that there
are meaningful differences among the stores in the use or
contents of these to-do lists, the Court finds that production
of the to-do lists for the stores employing the fifteen
representative plaintiffs sufficient, and proportional under the
circumstances.
Accordingly, plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel is GRANTED, as to
the to-do lists from the stores at which the fifteen
representative plaintiffs were employed. Defendant shall search
for and produce all to-do lists from the stores where the
representative fifteen plaintiffs worked, for the relevant time
period.2 This production shall be made on or before October 14,
2016.
II.

Request 13 (as numbered in Doc. #107)
With respect to Request 13, requesting “[e]mails and other

instructions from the Defendant’s Home Office to the stores
where 15 of the Plaintiffs worked[,]” [Doc. #107], the parties
report that they have agreed to an initial set of search terms
and to “the email in-boxes of the stores” to be searched. See

The Court presumes that the parties are in agreement as to the
relevant time period, as their status report indicates no
dispute as to that issue.
2

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Doc. #126 at 3. While the parties’ Joint Status Report also
indicates that they may agree to additional search terms, there
appears to be no outstanding dispute before the Court;
therefore, plaintiffs’ Motion is DENIED, as moot, with respect
to item thirteen.
III. Conclusion
The parties have indicated that no other issues with
respect to plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel remain in dispute. See
Doc. #126 at 1. Accordingly, plaintiffs’ Motion to Compel is
GRANTED, in part, and DENIED, in part, as set forth herein.
This is not a Recommended Ruling. This is an order
regarding case management which is reviewable pursuant to the
“clearly erroneous” statutory standard of review. See 28 U.S.C.
§636(b)(1)(A); Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a); and D. Conn. L. Civ. R.
72.2. As such, it is an order of the Court unless reversed or
modified by the District Judge upon motion timely made.
SO ORDERED at New Haven, Connecticut, this 14th day of
September, 2016.
/s/
HON. SARAH A. L. MERRIAM
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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