JONES v. St. Francis Hospital Inc

Filing 22

ORDER re 18 MOTION to Quash Subpoena filed by St. Francis Hospital Inc. Ordered by U.S. District Judge CLAY D LAND on 12/12/14. (VAC)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
COLUMBUS DIVISION
Margaret Jones,

*

Plaintiff,

*

vs.

*

St. Francis Hospital, Inc.,

*

CASE NO. 4:13-CV-446 (CDL)
Defendant.

*
*
O R D E R

Plaintiff Margaret Jones claims that Defendant St. Francis
Hospital,

Inc.,

engaged

in

unlawful

employment

practices,

including racial discrimination and retaliation for complaining
about

such

decisionmaker
made

discrimination.
for

telephone

information

the
calls

relevant

Plaintiff

Defendant,
or
to

asserts

Elisabeth

sent

text

Plaintiff’s

that

Tippins,

messages
claims.

the

may

have

containing
Therefore,

Plaintiff served a subpoena on Verizon Cellco Partnership to
produce “[a]ll itemized reports of all incoming and outgoing
calls,

text

messaging,

and

any

and

all

data

for

cell

phone

number [redacted] under the account of Elisabeth Tippins for the
time period covering April 1, 2012 through January 31, 2014.”
Mot. to Quash Subpoena to Produc. Docs. Ex. A, Subpoena 3, ECF
No. 18.

Defendant and Tippins filed a motion to quash the

subpoena,

claiming

that

it

is

overly

broad,

that

it

seeks

information that is not relevant to this action, and that it
unduly invades Tippins’s privacy.

In a previous Order, the

Court directed Verizon to produce the subpoenaed records to the
Court for in camera inspection.
Verizon

produced

a

Verizon has complied.

disc

that

includes

the

following

information: (1) a 198 page document (in PDF format) with phone
call records including the phone number of the other caller, the
date and time of the call, the duration of the call, and the
geographic

location

of

each

caller;

(2)

an

Excel

document

recording 1,492 text messages, including the phone numbers of
each messenger, the date and time that the message was sent, the
date and time that the message was delivered, and the geographic
location of the network that serviced the message; and (3) an
Excel document recording 2,398 phone calls, that includes the
phone numbers of each caller, the date and time of the call, the
duration of the call, and the geographic location of the network
that serviced the call.
None of the information produced by Verizon includes the
content of any call or message or the name of the persons who
were

parties

to

the

call

or

message.

Therefore,

the

only

relevance of the information would be to show the time and date
of

a

call

or

message,

participant

to

a

call

or
or

the

phone

message.

2

number
The

of

Court

the

other

finds

that

Plaintiff should not be permitted to scour

all of Tippins’s

telephone and text message records for a nearly two year period
when it is unlikely that the information will be relevant to
this action.

Disclosure of this information is not warranted,

unless Plaintiff narrows her requests.

Specifically, Plaintiff

must narrow her request to shorter spans of time and explain why
the

mere

fact

that

a

call

or

message

occurred,

without

the

content of that call or message, is likely to lead to relevant
evidence.
The Clerk is directed to deliver to Defendant’s counsel the
materials received from Verizon, and Defendant’s counsel shall
maintain custody of those materials until this litigation is
concluded.

Upon

delivery

to

Defendant’s

counsel,

the

Clerk

shall have no further responsibility for maintaining custody of
the materials that were produced for in camera inspection.

If

Plaintiff continues to believe that the materials produced by
Verizon

contain

discoverable

information,

notwithstanding

absence

of

content

any

calls

any

for

of

the

or

the

messages,

Plaintiff shall serve upon the Defendant a narrowly tailored
request

for

production,

as

outlined

above.

Any

request

by

Plaintiff shall be served upon the Defendant within 7 days of
this Order, or it will be waived.

Defendant shall have 14 days

to respond to the request either by producing a redacted copy of
the materials sought in the request or by filing an objection to

3

the request with an explanation of the basis for the objection.
If Defendant does not object to the entirety of the request,
Defendant shall produce the materials to which no objection is
made and object only to those materials for which it has a good
faith objection.
IT IS SO ORDERED, this 12th day of December, 2014.

S/Clay D. Land
CLAY D. LAND, CHIEF JUDGE
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA

4